Kitabı oku: «The Very Small Person», sayfa 5

“I knew you’d come! I told Sheelah! When anybody promises, they – Come on quick up-stairs! I can unlace myself, but I’d rather – ”

“Yes, yes!” she sobbed.

“And we’ll have a lark, won’t we? You said a lark; but not the reg’larest kind – I don’t suppose we could have the reg’larest kind?”

“Yes – yes!”

“Oh! – why!” His eyes shone. He put up his hand, then drew it shyly back. If she would only take out the pins herself – if he only dared to —

“What is it, Little Silly – darling?” They were up in his room. She had her cheek against his little, bare, brown knees. It brought her soft, gold-colored hair so near – if he only dared —

“What is it you’d like, little son?” And he took courage. She had never called him Little Son before. It made him brave enough.

“I thought – the reg’larest kind – your hair – if you’d let it tumble all down, I’d – hide in it,” he breathed, his knees against her cheek trembling like little frightened things.

It fell about him in a soft shower and he hid in it and laughed. Sheelah heard them laughing together.

Chapter IX
The Little Lover

“I wish I knew for very certain,” the Little Lover murmured, wistfully. The licorice-stick was so shiny and black, and he had laid his tongue on it one sweet instant, so he knew just how good it tasted. If he only knew for very certain – of course there was a chance that She did not love licorice sticks. It would be a regular pity to waste it. Still, how could anybody not love ’em —

“’Course She does!” exclaimed the Little Lover, with sudden conviction, and the struggle was ended. It had only been a question of Her liking or not liking. That decided, there was no further hesitation. He held up the licorice-stick and traced a wavery little line round it with his finger-nail. The line was pretty near one of its ends – the end towards the Little Lover’s mouth.

“I’ll suck as far down as that, just ’xactly,” he said; “then I’ll put it away in the Treasury Box.”

He sat down in his little rocker and gave himself up to the moment’s bliss, first applying his lips with careful exactitude to the dividing-line between Her licorice stick and his.

The moment of bliss ended, the Little Lover got out the Treasury Box and added the moist, shortened licorice-stick to the other treasures in it. There were many of them, – an odd assortment that would have made any one else smile. But the Little Lover was not smiling. His small face was grave first, then illumined with the light of willing sacrifice. The treasures were all so beautiful! She would be so pleased, – my, my, how please She would be! Of course She would like the big golden alley the best, – the very best. But the singing-top was only a tiny little way behind in its power to charm. Perhaps She had never seen a singing-top – think o’ that! Perhaps She had never had a great golden alley, or a corkscrew jack-knife, or a canary-bird whistle, or a red and white “Kandy Kiss,” – or a licorice-stick! Think o’ that – think of how pleased She would be!

“’Course She will,” laughed the Little Lover in his delight. If he only dared to give Her the Treasury Box! If he only knew how! If there was somebody he could ask, – but the housekeeper was too old, and Uncle Larry would laugh. There was nobody.

The waiting wouldn’t be so bad if it wasn’t for the red-cheeked pear in the Treasury Box, and the softest apple. They made it a little dang’rous to wait.

It had not been very long that he had loved Her. The first Sunday that She smiled at him across the aisle was the beginning. He had not gone to sleep that Sunday, nor since, on any of the smiling Sundays. He had not wanted to. It had been rest enough to sit and watch Her from the safe shelter of the housekeeper’s silken cloak. Her clear, fresh profile, Her pretty hair, Her ear, Her throat – he liked to watch them all. It was rest enough, – as if, after that, he could have gone to sleep!

She was very tall, but he liked her better for that. He meant to be tall some day. Just now he did not reach – But he did not wish to think of that. It troubled him to remember that Sunday that he had measured himself secretly beside Her, as the people walked out of church. It made him blush to think how very little way he had “reached.” He had never told any one, but then he never told any one anything. Not having any mother, and your father being away all the time, and the housekeeper being old, and your uncle Larry always laughing, made it diff’rent ’bout telling things. Of course if you had ’em – mothers, and fathers that stayed at home, and uncles that didn’t laugh, – but you didn’t. So you ’cided it was better not to tell things.

One Sunday the Little Lover thought he detected Uncle Larry watching Her too. But he was never quite certain sure. Anyway, when She had turned Her beautiful head and smiled across the aisle, it had been at him. The Little Lover was “certain sure” of that! In his shy little way he had smiled back at Her and nodded. The warmth had kept on in his heart all day. That was the day before he found out the Important Thing.

Out in the front hall after supper he came upon a beautiful, tantalizing smell that he failed for some time to locate. He went about with his little nose up-tilted, in a persistent search. It was such a beautiful smell! – not powerful and oversweet, but faint and wonderful. The little nose searched on patiently till it found it. There was a long box on the hall-table and the beautiful smell came out under the lid and met the little, up-tilted nose half-way.

“I’ve found it! It’s inside o’ that box!” the Little Lover cried in triumph. “Now I guess I better see what it looks like. Oh! why, it’s posies!” For there, in moist tissue wrappings, lay a cluster of marvellous pale roses, breathing out their subtle sweetness into the little face above them.

“Why, I didn’t know that was the way a beautiful smell looked! I – it’s very nice, isn’t it? If it’s Uncle Larry’s, I’m goin’ to ask him – Oh, Uncle Larry, can I have it? Can I? I want to put it in Her – ” But he caught himself up before he got quite to “Treasury Box.” He could not tell Uncle Larry about that.

The tall figure coming down the hall quickened its steps to a leap towards the opened box on the table. Uncle Larry’s face was flushed, but he laughed – he always laughed.

“You little ‘thafe o’ the wurruld’!” he called out. “What are you doing with my roses?”

“I want ’em – please,” persisted the child, eagerly, thinking of the Treasury Box and Her.

“Oh, you do, do you? But they’re not for the likes o’ you.”

Sudden inspiration came to the Little Lover. If this was a Treasury Box, – if he were right on the edge of finding out how you gave one —

“Is – is it for a She?” he asked, breathless with interest.

“A – ‘She’?” laughed Uncle Larry, but something as faint and tender as the beautiful smell was creeping into his face. “Yes, it is for a She, Reggie, – the most beautiful She in the world,” he added, gently. He was wrapping the beautiful smell again in the tissue wrappings.

Then it was a Treasury Box. Then you did the treasures up that way, in thin, rattly paper like that. Then what did you do? But he would find out.

“Oh, I didn’t know,” he murmured. “I didn’t know that was the way! Do you send it by the ’spressman, then, Uncle Larry, – to – to Her, you know? With Her name on?”

Uncle Larry was getting into his overcoat. He laughed. The tender light that had been for an instant in his face he had put away again out of sight.

“No; I’m my own ‘’spressman.’ You’ve got some things to learn, Reg, before you grow up.”

“I’d ravver learn ’em now. Tell me ’em! Tell what you do then.”

The old mocking light was back in Uncle Larry’s eyes. This small chap with the earnest little face was good as a play.

“‘Then’? Then, sure, I go to the door and ring the bell. Then I kneel on one knee like this, and hold out the box – ”

“The Treasury Box – yes, go on.”

“ – Like this. And I say, ‘Fair One, accept this humble offering, I beseech thee’ – ”

“Accept this hum-bul offering, I – I beseech thee” – the Little Lover was saying it over and over to himself. It was a little hard, on account o’ the queer words in it. He was still saying it after Uncle Larry had gone. His small round face was intent and serious. When he had learned the words, he practised getting down on one knee and holding out an imaginary Treasury Box. That was easier than the queer words, but it made you feel funnier somewhere in your inside. You wanted to cry, and you were a little afraid somebody else would want to laugh.

The next afternoon the Little Lover carried his Treasury Box to Her. He had wrapped all the little treasures carefully in tissue like Uncle Larry’s roses. But there was no beautiful smell creeping out; – there was something a little like a smell, but not a beautiful one. The Little Lover felt sorry for that.

She came to the door. It was a little discomposing on account of there being so little time to get your breath in. I-it made you feel funny.

But the Little Lover acted well his part. With a little gasp that was like a sob he sank on one knee and held up the Treasury Box to Her.

“Fair One,” he quivered, softly, “accept this – offspring – no, I mean this hum-bul offspring, I – I – oh, I mean please!”

She stooped to the level of his little, solemn face. Then suddenly She lifted him, Treasury Box and all, and bore him into a great, bright room.

“Why, Reggie! – you are Reggie, aren’t you? You’re the little boy that smiles at me across the aisle in church? I thought so! Well, I am so glad you have come to see me. And to think you have brought me a present, too – ”

“I be-seech thee!” quivered the Little Lover, suddenly remembering the queer words that had eluded him before. He drew a long, happy breath. It was over now. She had the Treasury Box in her hand. She would open it by-and-by and find the golden alley and the singing-top and the licorice-stick. He wished he dared tell Her to open it soon on account o’ the softest apple and the red-cheeked pear. Perhaps he would dare to after a little while. It was so much easier, so far, than he had expected.

She talked to him in Her beautiful, low-toned voice, and by-and-by She sat down to the piano and sang to him. That was the ve-ry best. He curled up on the sofa and listened, watching Her clear profile and Her hair and Her pretty moving fingers, in his Little Lover way. She looked so beautiful! – it made you want to put your cheek against Her sleeve and rub it very softly back and forth, back and forth, over and over again. If you only dared to!

So he was very happy until he smelled the beautiful smell again. All at once it crept to him across the room. He recognized it instantly as the same one that had crept out from under the lid of Uncle Larry’s box. It was there, in the great, bright room! He slid to his feet and went about tracing it with his little up-tilted nose. It led him across to Her, and then he saw Uncle Larry’s roses on Her breast. He uttered the softest little cry of pain – so soft She did not hear it in Her song – and crept back to his seat. He had had his first wound. He was only six, but at six it hurts.

It was Uncle Larry’s roses She wore on Her dress – then it was roses She liked, not licorice-sticks and golden alleys. Then it was Uncle Larry’s roses, – then She must like Uncle Larry. Then – oh, then, She would never like him! Perhaps it was Uncle Larry She had smiled at all the time, across the aisle. Uncle Larry “reached” so far! He wouldn’t have to grow.

“She b’longs to Uncle Larry, an’ I wanted Her to b’long to me. Nobody else does – I wouldn’t have needed anybody else to, if She had. All I needed to b’long was Her. I wanted Her! I – I love Her. She isn’t Uncle Larry’s – she’s mine! – She’s mine!” The thoughts of the Little Lover surged on turbulently, while the beautiful low song went on. She was singing – She was singing to Uncle Larry. The song wasn’t sweet and soft and tender for him. It was sweet and soft and tender for Uncle Larry.

“I hate Uncle Larry!” cried out the Little Lover, but She did not hear. She was lost in the tender depths of the song. It was very late in the afternoon and a still darkness was creeping into the big, bright room. The Little Lover nestled among the cushions of the sofa, spent with excitement and loss, and that new, dread feeling that made him hate Uncle Larry. He did not know its name, and it was better so. But he knew the pain of it.

“Why, Reggie! Why, you poor little man, you’re asleep! And I have been sitting there singing all this time! And it grew quite dark, didn’t it? Oh, poor little man, poor little man, I had forgotten you were here! I’m glad you can’t hear me say it!”

Yes, it was better. But he would have like to feel Her cool cheek against his cheek; he would have felt a little relief in his desolate, bitter heart if he could see how gentle Her face was and the beautiful look there was in Her soft eyes. But perhaps – if She was not looking at him – if it was at Uncle Larry – No, no, Little Lover; it is better to sleep on and not to know.

It was Uncle Larry who carried him home, asleep still, and laid him gently on his own little bed. Uncle Larry’s bearded face was shining in the dark room like a star. The tumult of joy in the man’s heart clamored for utterance. Uncle Larry felt the need of telling some one. So, because he could not help it, he leaned down and shook the Little Lover gently.

“You little foolish chap, do you know what you have lost? You were right there – you might have heard Her when She said it! You might have peeped between your fingers and seen Her face – angels in Heaven! Her face! – with the love-light in it. You poor little chap! you poor little chap! You were right there all the time and you didn’t know. And you don’t know now when I tell you I’m the happiest man alive! You lie there like a little log. Well, sleep away, little chap. What does it matter to you?”

It was the Little Lover’s own guardian-angel who kept him from waking up, but Uncle Larry did not know. He took off the small, dusty shoes and loosened the little clothes, with a strange new tenderness in his big fingers. The familiar little figure seemed to have put on a certain sacredness for having lain on Her cushions and been touched by Her hands. And She had kissed the little chap. Uncle Larry stooped and found the place with his lips.

The visit seemed like a dream to the Little Lover, next morning. How could it have been real when he could not remember coming home at all? He hadn’t come home, – so of course he had never gone. It was a dream, – still – where was the Treasury Box?

“I wish I knew for very certain,” the Little Lover mused. “I could ask Uncle Larry, but I hate Uncle Larry – ” Oh! Then it wasn’t a dream. It was true. It all came back. The Little Lover remembered why he hated Uncle Larry. He remembered it all. Lying there in his little bed he smelt the beautiful smell again and followed it up to the roses on Her dress. They were Uncle Larry’s roses, so he hated Uncle Larry. He always would. He did not hate Her, but he would never go to see Her again. He would never nod or smile at Her again in church. He would never be happy again.

Perhaps She would send back the Treasury Box; – the Little Lover had heard once that people sent back things when it was all over. It was all over now. He was only six, but the pain in his heart was so big that he did not think to wish She would send back the Treasury Box soon, on account of the softest apple.

The days went by until they made a month, – two months, – half a year. The pain in the Little Lover’s heart softened to a dreary loneliness, but that stayed on. He had always been a lonely little chap, but not like this. He had never had a mother, and his father had nearly always been away. But this was different. Now he had nobody to love, and he hated Uncle Larry.

That was before the Wonderful Thing happened. One day Uncle Larry brought Her home. He said She was his wife. That was the Wonderful Thing.

The Little Lover ran away and hid. They could not find him for a long time. It was She who found him.

“Why, Reggie! Why, poor little man! Look up. What is it, dear? Reggie, you are crying!”

He did not care. He wanted to cry. But he let Her take him into Her arms.

“I wanted to do it!” he sobbed, desolately, his secret out at last.

“Do it? Do what, Reggie?”

“M-marry you. I was goin’ to do it. H-He hadn’t any right to! I hate him – I hate him!”

A minute there was silence, except for the soft creak of Her dress as She rocked him. Then She lifted his wet little face to Hers.

“Reggie,” She whispered, “how would a mother do?”

He nestled his cheek against Her sleeve and rubbed it back and forth, back and forth, while he thought. A mother – then there would be no more loneliness. Then there would be a place to cuddle in, and somebody to tell things to. “I’d ravver a mother,” the Little Lover said.

Chapter X
The Child

The Child had it all reasoned out in her own way. It was only lately she had got to the end of her reasoning and settled down. At first it had not been very satisfactory, but she had gradually, with a child’s optimism, evolved from the dreary little maze a certain degree of content.

She had only one confidant. The Child had always lived a rather proscribed, uneventful little life, with pitifully few intimates, – none of her own age. The Child was eight.

The confidant, oddly, was a picture in the silent, awe-inspiring company-room. It represented a lady with a beautiful face, and a baby in her arms. The Child had never heard it called a Madonna, but it was because of that picture that she was never afraid in the company-room. Going in and out so often to confide things to the Lady had bred a familiarity with the silent place that came to amount in the end to friendliness. The Lady was always there, smiling gently at the Child, and so the other things did not matter – the silence and the awe-inspiringness.

The Child told the Lady everything, standing down under the picture and looking up at it adoringly. She was explaining her conclusions concerning the Greatest Thing of All now.

“I didn’t tell you before,” she said. “I wanted to get it reasoned out. If,” rather wistfully, “you were a – a flesh-and-bloody lady, you could tell me if I haven’t got it right. But I think I have.

“You see, there are a great many kinds of fathers and mothers, but I’m only talking of my kind. I’m going to love my father one day and my mother the next. Like this: my mother Monday, my father Tuesday, mother Wednesday, father Thursday – right along. Of course you can’t divide seven days even, but I’m going to love them both on Sundays. Just one day in the week I don’t think it will do any harm, do you? – Oh, you darling Lady, I wish you could shake your head or bow it! I’m only eight, you see, and eight isn’t a very reasonable age. But I couldn’t think of any better way.”

The Child’s eyes riveted to the beautiful face almost saw it nod a little.

“I haven’t decided ’xactly, but perhaps I shall love my mother Sunday mornings and my father Sunday afternoons. If – if it seems best to. I’ll let you know.” She stopped talking and thought a minute in her serious little way. She was considering whether to say the next thing or not. Even to the Lady she had never said why-things about her father and mother. If the Lady knew – and she had lived so long in the company-room, it seemed as if she must, – then there was no need of explaining. And if she didn’t know – suddenly the Child, with a throb of pride, hoped that the Lady did not know. But perhaps some slight explanation was necessary.

“Of course,” the Child burst out, hurriedly, her cheeks aflame, – “of course it would be nice to love both of ’em the same day, but – but they’re not that kind of a father and mother. I’ve thought it all over and made the reasonablest plan I know how to. I’m going to begin to-morrow – to-morrow is Tuesday, my father’s day.”

It was cold in the company-room, and any moment Marie might come and take her away. She was always a little pressed for time.

“I must be going,” she said, “or Marie will come. Good-bye. Give my love to the baby.” She always sent her love to the baby in the beautiful Lady’s arms.

The Child’s home, though luxurious, had to her the effect of being a double tenement. An invisible partition divided her father’s side from her mother’s; her own little white room, with Marie’s alcove, seemed to be across the dividing line, part on one side, part on the other. She could remember when there had not been any invisible partition, but the intensity of her little mental life since there had been one had dimmed the beautiful remembrance. It seemed to her now as a pleasant dream that she longed to dream again.

The next day the Child loved her father, for it was Tuesday. She went about it in her thorough, conscientious little way. She had made out a little programme. At the top of the sheet, in her clear, upright hand, was, “Ways to Love My farther.” And after that:

“1. Bringing in his newspaper.

“2. Kissing Him goodmorning.

“3. Rangeing his studdy table.

“4. Putting flours on " "

“5. Takeing up His male.

“6. Reeching up to rub My cheak against his cheak.

“7. Lerning to read so I can read His Books.”

There were many other items. The Child had used three pages for her programme. The last two lines read:

“Praing for Him.

“Kissing Him goodnight.”

The Wednesday programme was almost identical with this one, with the exception of “my mother” instead of “my farther.” For the Child did not wish to be partial. She had always had a secret notion that it would be a little easier to read her mother’s books, but she meant to read just as many of her “farther’s.”

During the morning she went in to the Lady and reported progress so far. Her cheeks were a delicate pink with excitement, and she panted a little when she spoke.

“I’m getting along splendidly,” she said, smiling up at the beautiful face. “Perhaps – of course I can’t tell for sure, but I’m not certain but that he will like it after he gets used to it. You have to get used to things. He liked the flowers, and when I rubbed my cheek ’gainst his, and when I kissed him. How I know he did is because he smiled – I wish my father would smile all the time.”

The Child did not leave the room when she had finished her report, but fidgeted about the great silent place uncertainly. She turned back by-and-by to the Lady.

“There’s something I wish you could tell me,” she said, with her wistful little face uplifted. “It’s if you think it would be polite to ask my father to put me to bed instead of Marie – just unbutton me, you know, and pray me. I was going to ask my mother to-morrow night if my father did to-night. I thought – I thought” – the Child hesitated for adequate words – “it would be the lovingest way to love him, for you feel a little intimater with persons when they put you to bed. Sometimes I feel that way with Marie – a very little. I wish you could nod your head if you thought it would be polite.”

The Child’s eyes, fastened upon the picture, were intently serious. And again the Lady seemed to nod.

“Oh, you’re nodding, yes! – I b’lieve you’re nodding yes! Thank you ve-ry much – now I shall ask him to. Good-bye. Give my love to the baby.” And the little figure moved away sedately.

To ask him in the manner of a formal invitation with “yours very truly” in it appeared to the Child upon thoughtful deliberation to be the best way. She did not feel very intimate yet with her father, but of course it might be different after he unbuttoned her and prayed her.

Hence the formal invitation:

“Dear farther you are respectably invited to put yore little girl to bed tonite at ½ past 7. Yores very truely

Elizabeth.

“R s v p.

P.s. the little girl is me.”

It was all original except the “R s v p” and the fraction. The Child had asked Marie how to write “half,” and the other she had found in the corner of one of her mother’s formal invitations. She did not know what the four letters meant, but they made the invitation look nicer, and she could make lovely capital “R’s.”

At lunch-time the Child stole up-stairs and deposited her little folded note on top of her father’s manuscript. Her heart beat strangely fast as she did it. She had still a lurking fear that it might not be polite.

On the way back she hurried into the company-room, up to the Lady. “I’ve done it!” she reported, breathlessly. “I hope it was polite – oh, I hope he will!”

The Child’s father ate his lunch silently and a little hastily, as if to get it over. On the opposite side of the table the Child’s mother ate hers silently and a little hastily. It was the usual way of their meals. The few casual things they said had to do with the weather or the salad. Then it was over and they separated, each to his own side of the divided house.

The father took up his pen to write – it seemed all there was left to do now. But the tiny folded note arrested his hand, and he stared in amazement. The Child had inadvertently set her seal upon it in the form of a little finger-print. So he knew it was hers. The first shock of hope it had awakened subsided into mere curiosity. But when he opened it, when he read it —

He sat a long time very still indeed – so still he could hear the rustle of manuscript pages in the other writing-room across the hall. Perhaps he sat there nearly all the afternoon, for the shadows lengthened before he seemed to move.

In the rush of thoughts that came to him two stood out most clearly – the memory of an awful day, when he had seemed to die a thousand deaths, and only come to life when a white-capped nurse came smiling to him and said, “It is a little girl,” and the memory of a day two years ago, when a man and a woman had faced each other and said, “We will try to bear it for the child.”

The Child found her answer lying on her plate at nursery tea. Marie, who was bustling about the room getting things orderly for the night, heard a little gasp and turned in alarm. The Child was spelling out her letter with a radiant face that belied the gasp. There was something in the lonely little figure’s eagerness that appealed even to the unemotional maid, and for a moment there was likelihood of a strange thing happening. But the crisis was quickly over, and Marie, with the kiss unkissed on her lips, went on with her work. Emotions were rare with Marie.

“‘Dear Little Girl, Who Is You,’” spelled the Child, in a soft ecstasy, yet not without dread of what might come, supposing he thought she had been impo —

“‘Dear Little Girl, Who Is You,’” she hurriedly began again, “‘your farther will be happy to accept your kind invitation for ½ past 7 this evening. Will you please call for him, as he is a little – b-a-s-h-f-u-l’ – Marie, what does b-a-s-h-f-u-l spell?” shrilled the eager voice. It was a new word.

Marie came over to the Child’s chair. “How can I tell without I see it?” she said. But the Child drew away gently.

“This is a very intimate letter – you’ll have to ’xcuse seeing it. Never mind, anyway, thank you, – I can guess it.” And she guessed that it spelled the way she would feel when she called for her father at half-past seven, for the Child was a little bashful, too. She told the Lady so.

“I don’t dread it; I just wish it was over,” she explained. “It makes me feel a little queer, you see. Probably you wouldn’t feel that way if you was better acquainted with a person. Fathers and mothers are kind of strangers.”

She was ready at seven o’clock, and sat, a little patient statue, watching the nursery clock. Marie, who had planned to go out and had intended setting the hands of the clock ahead a little, was unwarrantably angry with the Child for sitting there so persistently. “Come,” she said, impatiently; “I’ve got your night-gown ready. This clock’s too slow.”