Kitabı oku: «Jasper», sayfa 5
Chapter Seven
Jasper’s Dream
The rain went on; by two o’clock Mrs Fortescue had given up any hope of its clearing.
“I do wish it had been brighter for poor Aunt Margaret’s journey and arrival,” she said more than once, when they were all at table.
“Never mind, Mumsey,” said Jasper, “it’ll be nearly dark when she comes, won’t it? And then when it’s all lighted up in the house it’ll not matter outside.”
“I wish it was lighted up now,” said Christabel dolefully. “It’s a perfectly horrid day. It never seemed so dark and dull at home – there were always nice things to do,” and she sighed deeply.
“That’s something new,” said Leila. “You used to grumble like anything – even on fine days, because you had lessons to do, and when it rained, because you couldn’t go out. I don’t mind a bit. I can always read.”
“Poor Chrissie,” said Mrs Fortescue, hastening to prevent a squabble, “I am afraid you have had a very dull morning. You will feel more settled when you have some lessons again, won’t you?”
Her words roused the child’s curiosity. Not that she was by any means eager for schoolroom work to begin.
“Are we going to have a governess?” she inquired. “I thought p’raps you’d teach us yourself, Mummy, as we’ve so little money now to pay for lessons.”
“And Roland’s school will take all there is,” murmured Leila gloomily. “I wish I was a boy, I know that.”
Her mother glanced at her, but said nothing in reply to these remarks. And then she went on quietly —
“Nothing is quite settled yet. I have had so many other things to attend to. I am thinking of taking your music lessons myself” – Mrs Fortescue played beautifully, – “but I should not have time for more. I hope to find a good English teacher to come three or four mornings a week, and Aunt Margaret wants to give you French lessons. You know she is an excellent French scholar; she was educated in France and has been there so much.”
“Aunt Margaret!” repeated the children, and from their tone it was difficult to judge if the idea met with their gracious approval or not, and their mother showed no intention of inquiring as to this.
“In the meantime,” she continued, “I think you might make some sort of plan for yourselves. And I want Jasper to have some lessons every day. Chrissie, you seem very short of occupation. Suppose you read with him this afternoon, and give him a little writing and arithmetic?”
Christabel hesitated.
“I don’t mind sums,” she said, “I like them and I can explain them quite well; but as for reading – he does read so slowly, Mummy – it was bad enough to hear him with Miss Earle. I wanted to shake them both, often.”
Jasper’s face grew very pink.
“I did try, I really did,” he murmured.
“I daresay you did, but I couldn’t be as patient as Miss Earle, and then there’d be fusses,” objected Chrissie with great candour.
“I’ll be werry good,” persisted Jasper. “I wish you’d do lessons with me. I’m beginnin’ to forget lots, I’m sure,” and the look in his small face touched his sister. After all, it might be rather amusing, better than staring out of the window at the rain pouring down on the dull street.
“Well, I’ll try, as you want me so much to do it, Mummy,” she said, though not too graciously. “I don’t see why Leila shouldn’t help,” she went on.
“I’ve not been asked,” said Leila, “and I’ve not been grumbling like you at having nothing to do.”
“I hope you will take your part in teaching Jasper, Leila,” said her mother as she rose from her chair, “but to-day it is best to leave it to Chrissie. You can come here as soon as Harriet has cleared the table,” she added to the new little governess.
Jasper kept his promise – he tried his best manfully, and, for part of the time at least, Christabel did her best. But even with real goodwill, if one has not got the habit of self-control, patience and gentleness, especially in teaching, cannot be learnt all at once.
“You are too stupid for words,” cried Chrissie, pushing away the book before them violently. “At your age I could read perfectly – as well as I do now.”
“I am tryin’,” said the little boy, choking down a sob which was not far off.
“Well, p’raps you are. Begin that sentence again. ‘The S A X,’ you must know what ‘Sax’ is.”
Jasper gazed at the letters. He was not a quick child, though “stupid” was not by any means a true description of him, for where any service to others, or his power to help them, was in question, his gift of finding it out was almost like a fairy one.
“But there’s more than ‘S A X’,” he objected. “I know what ‘Saxon’ is,” and he pronounced it correctly, “why am I to say only ‘Sax’?”
Christabel groaned.
“Oh, you donkey!” she exclaimed. “I was dividing it into syllables to make it easier for you, of course. If you knew what the whole word was, why did you sit staring at it as if you didn’t?”
“I only wanted to be quite certin,” he said humbly, and then they started again, and again came to a standstill, for Christabel’s sharpness seemed to stupefy the little fellow; and when Mrs Fortescue, half-an-hour or so after the lessons had begun, looked in to see how teacher and pupil were getting on, she was disappointed to gather, by the traces of tears in Jasper’s eyes and by Chrissie’s flaming cheeks, that things were not going any too smoothly.
“Oh Mummy, he is so stupid!” exclaimed the little governess. “Oh, I do hope I shall never have – ”
But a stifled sob from Jasper made his mother interrupt Chrissie’s “hopes,” the nature of which it was not difficult to guess.
“Jasper, dear,” she said, and there was perhaps a tiny shadow of reproach in her tone.
“I has tried, Mumsey, Mumsey, teruly I has,” and then his voice broke.
Mrs Fortescue glanced at Christabel questioningly.
Chrissie did not like to see her little brother crying: Jasper so seldom cried.
“Well, yes,” she said, in reply to her mother’s unspoken inquiry, “I don’t say he hasn’t tried, and I don’t say I’ve been extra patient. But I never pretend to be very patient or good-tempered. I can’t help the way I’m made,” and she tossed her head as if this settled the question. “I’m certainly not meant to be a governess.”
Mrs Fortescue sighed, and the sigh went to Jasper’s tender heart. He flung his arms round her.
“Mumsey, darling,” he whispered, “Chrissie hasn’t been cross to me – scarcely not – and I did try, but some of the words were so hard. But I don’t want you to be sorry, and I’ll try more to-morrow.”
In her own mind Mrs Fortescue felt very doubtful as to whether it would be wise to repeat the experiment, but just now it was better not to say so. So she soothed the little fellow, and reminded him that Chrissie did know that he had tried; and Chrissie, though not over amiably, condescended to kiss him, though she added —
“You are a baby, Jap. I hope you won’t have red eyes when Aunt Margaret comes.”
Mrs Fortescue started at the words.
“By-the-bye,” she said, “we have not too much time to spare,” and she glanced at the clock. “Put away the books, children, for Harriet must get tea ready early. Your aunt will like to have it with all of us together, when she arrives. I wonder what Leila is about.”
“There isn’t much need to wonder about her,” said Chrissie, as she hastily collected the books and slates and bundled them into their little owner’s arms with an “I don’t know where you keep them, Jap.”
“I keep them in my own room now,” he replied with pride, for the possession of “my own room,” a tiny slip of a place out of Roland’s, had gone far to console him for the loss of former luxuries and comforts; “and I’ll tell Lelly to come down to be ready for Aunt Margaret; shall I, Mumsey?” and off he ran.
So, thanks to Christabel’s feeling vaguely wishful to make up for her impatience with her pupil, and perhaps in her heart grateful to him for having made the best of it to her mother; thanks, too, to Jasper’s timely rousing Leila to come downstairs to be ready for their expected guest, the sisters were in good trim when the four-wheeler drew up at the door and Jasper’s joyful cry, “They’ve come,” brought them all out into the hall.
It was such a rainy day – a really hopelessly wet winter’s day – the dull street looking duller than ever, the sky without the faintest gleam – everybody knows what London, above all London “far out,” and where there are no shops even near at hand, can look like in these conditions. And to one whose whole home life till now had been spent in beautiful places, the contrast must have been sharp. Yet never did a face look brighter than Aunt Margaret’s as she got out of the cab and smiled up at her nephew as if asking him, too, to be happy, which poor Mr Fortescue just then was finding difficult.
He glanced anxiously at the house, and was pleased to see the door open and a row of heads in the passage.
“I am sure of Edith” – “Edith” was Mrs Fortescue – “and little Japs,” he thought, “but those girls! I do hope they will be all light.”
Yes, they were at their best – gentle and affectionate, and indeed it would have been difficult to greet their aunt in any other way. She was not a very old lady, though her hair was quite white and she looked delicate, for she was many years younger than her brother, Sir Percy.
She came in, her eyes bright with pleasure, her kind voice already murmuring all their names, and the children gave a start of delight when they saw that their aunt was carrying a huge basket of the loveliest flowers – Fareham flowers, from the beloved hot-houses there. Their delicate fragrance already seemed to fill the little hall.
Mrs Fortescue darted forward.
“How good of you,” she exclaimed, even before she kissed the new-comer, and indeed it would not have been easy to do so with the mass of flowers between them! “Oh, how delicious! Leila, Chrissie,” and the little girls seized the treasures eagerly, and between them bore the basket off to a safe place.
“I thought I would like to bring the flowers in myself for my darlings,” said Aunt Margaret, smiling, “as a sort of ‘good luck,’ you know.”
Then she hugged them all round – Jasper coming in for a hearty share; and what with her pleasure and the scent and colour of her gift, somehow sunshine seemed to have come into the house for the time, and the rainy, muddy, gloomy street outside to have vanished.
“Morris,” Aunt Margaret went on, “Morris was so eager to send you a good supply. The last he can send, poor man,” with a quick sigh, “for the tenants are expected to-morrow.” Morris was the Fareham gardener of longstanding. “And there is a hamper-full of plants in pots, with my luggage – oh no, coming by goods train, I mean. We thought, Morris and I, it would amuse the dear children, Edith, to do some indoors gardening, so he chose ferns and flowers that will grow well in the house with a little care.”
“Oh, I am so glad,” exclaimed Jasper. “May I have a planted one of my werry own, Auntie?”
“Of course you may – more than one,” she replied, “and Leila and Chrissie too,” and she kissed them in turn as she named them. “My dears, how you have grown!” she went on; “Leila especially, I think. And Chrissie looking so well and rosy.”
Leila was pleased to be told she had grown, and not sorry for the “so well and rosy” to fall to her sister’s share, for she liked to think she herself looked rather pale and delicate. And Chrissie, to do her justice, cared exceedingly little about “looks” at all. Just now her whole attention was given to the flowers.
“I do hope Mums will let me arrange them,” she thought. “She’ll very likely say that Lell and I may do them together to-morrow morning, and if she does, I know what I’ll do.”
By this time the whole party had somehow got into the dining-room, where, thanks to Mrs Fortescue’s care, tea was all ready.
“We thought you would not mind having it like this all together, this first evening, dear Aunt,” she said. “Just take off your thick cloak and – ”
“Please may I take it upstairs for Auntie,” said Jasper, scrambling down from his chair and hurrying off with the heavy wrap, though it was almost more than he could carry. He managed it somehow, however, and was back again almost immediately, his gaze fixed lovingly on something he held in his hand.
“Jasper,” exclaimed Chrissie, forgetting her aunt’s presence, “that’s very naughty of you. Mummy, he’s taken a flower out of the basket.”
Mrs Fortescue winced at her sharp tone. She was so anxious for everything to be smooth and peaceful.
“It does smell so lovelily,” said Jasper, for his treasure was a spike of stephanotis, “but if it was naughty of me I’ll put it back.”
“No, no, dear – keep it by all means,” said Aunt Margaret. “There is plenty more of it. And – oh Roland, my dear boy,” for just at that moment the elder brother luckily made his appearance, “how glad I am to see you! Now we are all together,” she added with a glance round the well-filled table, “and when one can say that, one should not feel there is much to complain of – should we, dear Reginald?” and she turned to Mr Fortescue, beside whom she was sitting.
“No indeed,” he replied heartily. “You and gloomy feelings certainly couldn’t live together, Aunt Margaret – could they, eh, Jasper, my boy? what do you think about it?” for Jasper was listening with all his ears and a pleased smile on his face, while he fondled his precious stephanotis.
“How they do spoil that child,” Leila whispered to Christabel.
“Yes,” was the reply in the same tone; “it looks as if it would be worse than ever now she’s come.” Then, as they had all finished tea, Mrs Fortescue took the traveller upstairs to her room.
“Mumsey, darlin’,” said Jasper, as she passed him, “mayn’t we help you to rerange the flowers?”
“Not to-night, dear. It’s too late, and it would upset the drawing-room. But I’ll tell you what – listen, Leila and Chrissie – you may all do them to-morrow morning, as early as you like. I will send them down to the cellar for the night, and I will look out the biggest glasses and vases we have. I am so glad I kept several, though I didn’t expect to have so much to fill them with.”
“As early as you like,” Chrissie repeated to herself. “That’ll just suit me. I love doing flowers if I’m not interfered with. And there’s not much fear of Lell turning out of bed early if I don’t hurry her up,” for, in spite of all orders to the contrary, Leila was still naughty enough often to read in bed at night with a candle lighted on a little table by her side, which, naturally, did not make her very wakeful in the morning. And Chrissie, though she had threatened more than once to tell their mother of this dangerous disobedience, took care that evening to offer no objection to it, for the selfish and unsisterly reason that I have spoken of.
Aunt Margaret was tired, notwithstanding her good spirits, and not sorry to go to bed early. As she was on her way to her room, Mrs Fortescue accompanying her, she glanced up the higher staircase.
“Let us say good-night again to the children,” she said. “I hear Leila and Chrissie talking, so they cannot be in bed yet, and I have not yet seen their room,” and as in that little house there was never far to go, Mrs Fortescue readily consented.
“Leila, Chrissie,” she said, “Aunt Margaret has come to say good-night to you in your own domain,” and they came forward to be kissed again. On the whole, things were not so desperately untidy as was often the case, and their visitor glanced round approvingly.
“Yes, it is really a nice room,” she said. “Poor dears, they must miss Nurse. Still you are big girls now and will be pleased to be independent,” and she did not notice that there was only a very vaguely murmured reply. “Let me have one peep at Jasper,” she went on. “It is so long since I have seen the dear little fellow asleep, and I remember how sweet he used to look.”
Mrs Fortescue lighted a candle in Roland’s room, out of which Jasper’s opened – Roland was still downstairs with his father, – and carefully shading it from the little sleeper’s eyes, led the way in. The child was fast, very fast asleep – he looked prettier than when awake, for slumber brought a rosy flush to his face, as a rule paler than one would have wished to see it.
And to-night he looked particularly well and happy, for he was smiling, and murmured some words as his mother bent over him, which at first puzzled her – “the growin’ ones,” he said, “it must be somefin’ growin’.”
“What can he be dreaming about?” she whispered to her aunt, and then her eye caught sight of the probable cause of Jasper’s pleasant fancies. It was the sprig of stephanotis, carefully tied to a bar at the head of his little cot, so that the sweet perfume was doubtless wafted to him as he lay.
“I know,” exclaimed Aunt Margaret. “Dear little fellow – it is something about the plants that I said were coming by goods train to-morrow. How glad I am that Morris thought of them!”
She was right, though it was not till long afterwards that Jasper told his dream, which in time to come, as his ideas grew and developed, seemed to him almost, simple as it was, to have been a kind of allegory. And for fear I should forget about it as our story goes on, I may as well tell it to you now.
He dreamt that he was walking up a rather steep hill; it was grassy and pleasant to step on, but still he felt a little tired and wondered how much farther he would have to go. Where he was going, or why, he could not clearly understand; he only knew that go on he must, and all the time, in his hand, he carried his sweetly scented flower. Then, suddenly, he became aware that, on his journey, whatever was the reason and object of it, he was not alone – numbers and numbers of other children were pressing on in the same direction. They did not speak to him or to each other, every one seemed full of the same eagerness to get to the top of the hill; and soon the explanation of this grew plain to him, for a breath, more than a voice, passed through the crowd of little travellers, murmuring —
“The gates, the gates of the beautiful garden.” And lifting his eyes he saw, now but a short way off, great gates of silvery trellis-work, through which he could already catch glimpses of stretches of exquisite lawns, and glorious trees, and smooth winding paths, bordered by plants and flowers of indescribable loveliness. He seemed to himself to give a bound of delight, for something told him that he and all his companions were coming there by invitation, and in another moment or two the crowd of children had reached the top of the hill and were standing in front of the gates. And then Jasper noticed another thing – each child was carrying a flower, or a plant – many, like himself, a cut-off branch or blossom only; some, and the faces of these had a different expression from that of the others, flowerpots filled with earth in which the plant was happily alive and growing. They were not all of equal size or beauty; several were very tiny, nothing but a few green leaves perhaps; some, what one would carelessly call “quite common” little things – a daisy root or a small nest of violets, of which only one timid head was as yet to be seen. But all these had roots, and were growing! Then glancing at the other children, who like himself carried only a single blossom, he saw an anxious look on their faces, and to his distress he perceived that these flowers were drooping and beginning to fade and wither, and he was just turning to examine his own, when he heard an eager cry – and looking up, he saw a figure coming down the garden and opening the gate at one side, not widely, but enough to let one child through at a time.
Jasper pressed forward – the new-comer was all dressed in white – the face was more beautiful than any face not seen in dreams.
“It’s an angel,” thought Jasper, and some words he had heard or read of came into his mind.
”‘The garden of Paradise,’ that must be it,” he thought dreamily.
And then he looked again and more anxiously, for he saw that by no means every child was allowed to enter – and of those who with saddened or disappointed faces turned back, every one was the bearer of a single blossom only, a poor, already-fading flower!
The angel’s face was grave as he slowly shook his head, when Jasper himself drew near.
“I cannot, my child, I cannot,” he said; “you must bring a different offering;” and Jasper, on the point of tears, replied —
“I didn’t know – I didn’t know. What shall I do?”
And the angel smiled and said —
“No, my darling, you did not know. But you can come again and bring a living plant. All have to learn. Many of those you now see entering did not know the first time they came. Take courage – your growing plant is ready for you.”
And then it was, I think, that he smiled in his sleep and whispered, “It must be a growin’ one.”
Yet for a moment or two he stood by the silver gate and watched, for he felt the angel wanted him to do so. And some things surprised him. The most beautiful plants were not always carried by the prettiest or most attractive children. Some of their bearers were sadly poor-looking – one, above all, a little cripple in shabby clothes, who could scarcely hobble in – but oh, what a glorious wealth of snow-white lilies he carried, and how his face shone with delight at the gate-keeper’s approving smile. And once inside – for Jasper gazed longingly after him – how was it? – such things come to us in dreams, and are they not the shadow of the true? – the shining seemed to clothe the stunted figure as with a garment, till he stood there erect and beautiful – a very angel himself. And murmuring, “P’raps he’ll be the one at the gate the next time I come,” Jasper awoke.
But it was not yet even midnight, so, as the scent of his flower – poor little flower, faithful to the last, though it had to wither – reached his but half-awakened senses, the boy smiled again, and this time went off into dreamless slumber.
