Barrie, J M - Alice Sit-By-The-Fire

by Alice Sit-By-The-Fire

  'What about father?'

  'Very nice, unless you mention rupees to him. You see the pensions of all Indian officers are paid in rupees, which means that for every 2s. due to them they get only 1s. 4d. If you mention rupees to any one of them he flares up like a burning paper.'

  'I know. I shall take care. But what would you say he was like by heredity?'

  'Quiet, unassuming, yet of an intensely proud nature. One who if he was deceived would never face his fellow-creatures, but would bow his head before the wind and die. A strong man.'

  'Do you mean, Amy, that he takes all that from me?'

  'I mean that is the sort of man _my_ mother would love.'

  Cosmo nods. 'Yes, but he is just as likely to kiss me as ever.'

  The return of Ginevra makes him feel that this room is no place for him.

  'I think,' he says, 'I'll go and walk up and down outside, and have a look at them as they're getting out of the cab. My plan, you see, is first to kiss mother. Then I've made up four things to say to father, and it's after I've said them that the awkward time will come. So then I say, "I wonder what is in the evening papers"; and out I slip, and when I come back you will all have settled down to ordinary life, same as other people. That's my plan.' He goes off, not wit hout hope, and Ginevra shrugs her shoulders forgivingly.

  'How strange boys are,' she reflects. 'Have you any "plan," Amy?'

  'Only this, dear Ginevra, to leap into my mother's arms.'

  Ginevra lifts what can only be called a trouser leg, because that is what it is, though they are very seldom seen alone. 'What is this my busy bee is making?'

  'It's a gentleman's leg,' Amy explains, not without a sweet blush. 'You hand-sew them and stretch them over a tin cylinder, and they are then used as umbrella stands. _Art in the Home_ says they are all the rage.'

  'Oh, Amy, _Boudoir Gossip_ says they have quite gone out.'

  'Again! Every art decoration I try goes out before I have time to finish it.'

  She remembers the diary.

  'Did my Ginevra like my new page?'

  'Dearest, that is what I came down to speak about. You forgot to give me the key.'

  'Ginevra, can you ever forgive me? Let us go up and read it together.'

  With arms locked they seek the seclusion of Amy's bedroom. Cosmo rushes in to tell them that there is a suspicious-looking cab coming down the street, but finding the room empty he departs again to reconnoitre. A cab draws up, a bell rings, and soon we hear the voice of Colonel Grey. He can talk coherently to Fanny, he can lend a hand in dumping down his luggage in the passage, he can select from a handful of silver wherewith to pay his cabman: all impossible deeds to his Alice, who would drop the luggage on your toes and cast all the silver at your face rather than be kept another minute from her darlings. 'Where are they?' she has evidently cried just before we see her, and Fanny has made a heartless response, for it is a dejected Alice that appears in the doorway of the room.

  '_All_ out!' she echoes wofully, 'even--even baby?'

  'Yes, ma'am.'

  The poor mother, who had entered the house like a whirlwind, subsides into a chair. Her arms fall empty by her side: a moment ago she had six of them, a pair for each child. She cries a little, and when Alice cries, which is not often for she is more given to laughter, her face screws up like Molly's rather than like Amy's. She is very unlike the sketch of her lately made by the united fancies of her son and daughter; and she will dance them round the room many times before they know her better. Amy will never be so pretty as her mother, Cosmo will never be so gay, and it will be years before either of them is as young. But it is quite a minute before we suspect this; we must look the other way while the Colonel dries her tears. He is quite a grizzled veteran, and is trying hard to pretend that having done without his children for so many years, a few minutes more is no great matter. His adorable Alice is this man's one joke. Some of those furrows in his brow have come from trying to understand her, he owes the agility of his mind to trying to keep up with her; the humorous twist in his mouth is the result of chuckling over her.

  She flutters across the room. 'Robert,' she says, thrilling. 'I daresay my Amy painted that table.'

  'Yes, ma'am, she did,' says Fanny.

  'Robert, Amy's table.'

  'Yes, but keep cool, memsahib.'

  'I suppose, ma'am, I'm to take my orders from you now,' the hard-hearted Fanny inquires.

  'I suppose so,' Alice says, so timidly that Fanny is encouraged to be bold.

  'The poor miss, it will be a bit trying for her just at first.'

  Alice is taken aback.

  'I hadn't thought of that, Robert.'

  Robert thinks it time to take command.

  'Fiddle-de-dee. Bring your mistress a cup of tea, my girl.'

  'Yes, sir. Here is the tea-caddy, ma'am. I can't take the responsibility; but this is the key.'

  'Robert,' Alice says falteringly. 'I daren't break into Amy's caddy. She mightn't like it. I can wait.'

  'Rubbish. Give me the key.' Even Fanny cannot but admire the Colonel as he breaks into the caddy.

  'That makes me feel I'm master of my own house already. Don't stare at me, girl, as if I was a housebreaker.'

  'I feel that is just what we both are,' his wife says; but as soon as they are alone she cries, 'It's home, home! India done, home begun.'

  He is as glad as she.

  'Home, memsahib. And we've never had a real one before. Thank God, I'm able to give it you at last.'

  She darts impulsively from one object in the room to another.

  'Look, these pictures. I'm sure they are all Amy's work. They are splendid.' With perhaps a moment's misgiving, 'Aren't they?'

  '_I_ couldn't have done them,' the Colonel says guardedly. He considers the hand-painted curtains. 'She seems to have stopped everything in the middle. Still I couldn't have done them. I expect this is what is called a cosy corner.'

  But Alice has found something more precious. She utters little cries of rapture.

  'What is it?'

  'Oh, Robert, a baby's shoe. My baby.' She presses it to her as if it were a dove. Then she is appalled. 'Robert, if I had met my baby coming along the street I shouldn't have known her from other people's babies.'

  'Yes, you would,' the Colonel says hurriedly. 'Don't break down _now_. Just think, Alice; after to-day, you will know your baby anywhere.'

  'Oh joy, joy, joy.'

  Then the expression of her face changes to 'Oh woe, woe, woe.'

  'What is it now, Alice?'

  'Perhaps she won't like me.'

  'Impossible.'

  'Perhaps none of them will like me.'

  'My dear Alice, children always love their mother, whether they see much of her or not. It's an instinct.'

  'Who told you that?'

  'You goose. It was yourself.'

  'I've lost faith in it.'

  He thinks it wise to sound a warning note. 'Of course you must give them a little time.'

  'Robert, Robert. Not another minute. That's not the way people ever love me. They mustn't think me over first or anything of that sort. If they do I'm lost; they must love me at once.'

  'A good many have done that,' Robert says, surveying her quizzically as if she were one of Amy's incompleted works.

  'You are not implying, Robert, that I ever--. If I ever did I always told you about it afterwards, didn't I? And I _certainly_ never did it until I was sure you were comfortable.'

  'You always wrapped me up first,' he admits.

  'They were only boys, Robert--poor lonely boys. What are you looking so solemn about, Robert?'

  'I was trying to picture you as you will be when you settle down.'

  She is properly abashed. 'Not settled down yet--with a girl nearly grown up. And yet it's true; it's the tragedy of Alice Grey.' She pulls his hair. 'Oh, husband, when shall I settle down?'

  'I can tell you exactly--in a year from to-day. Alice, when I took you away to that humdrummy Indian station I
was already quite a middle-aged bloke. I chuckled over your gaiety, but it gave me lumbago to try to be gay with you. Poor old girl, you were like an only child who has to play alone. When for one month in the twelve we went to--to--where the boys were, it was like turning you loose in a sweet-stuff shop.'

  'Robert, darling, what nonsense you do talk.'

  He makes rather a wry face. 'I didn't always like it, memsahib. But I knew my dear, and could trust her; and I often swore to myself when I was shaving, "I won't ask her to settle down until I have given her a year in England." A year from to-day, you harum-scarum. By that time your daughter will be almost grown-up herself; and it wouldn't do to let her pass you.'

  'Robert, here is an idea; she and I shall come of age together. I promise; or I shall try to keep one day in front of her, like the school-mistresses when they are teaching boys Latin. Dearest, you haven't been disappointed in me as a whole, have you? I haven't paid you for all your dear kindnesses to me--in rupees, have I?'

  His answer is of no consequence, for at this moment there arrives a direct message from heaven. It comes by way of the nursery, and is a child's cry. The heart of Alice Grey stops beating for several seconds. Then it says, 'My Molly!' The nurse appears, starts, and is at once on the defensive.

  NURSE. 'Is it--Mrs. Grey?'

  ALICE hastily, 'Yes. Is my--child in there?'

  NURSE. 'Yes, ma'am.'

  COLONEL, ready to catch her if she falls, 'Alice, be calm.'

  ALICE, falteringly, 'May I go in, nurse?'

  NURSE, cold-heartedly, 'She's sleeping, ma'am, and I have made it a rule to let her wake up naturally. But I daresay it's a bad rule.'

  ALICE, her hands on her heart, 'I'm sure it's a good rule. I shan't wake her, nurse.'

  COLONEL, showing the stuff he is made of, 'Gad, _I_ will. It's the least she can do to let herself be wakened.'

  ALICE, admiring the effrontery of the man, 'Don't interfere, Robert.'

  COLONEL. 'Sleeping? Why, she cried just now.'

  NURSE. 'That is why I came out--to see who was making so much noise.'

  An implacable woman this, and yet when she is alone with Molly a very bundle of delight.

  'I'm vexed when she cries--I daresay it's old-fashioned of me. Not being a yah-yah I'm at a disadvantage.'

  ALICE, swelling, 'After all, she is _my_ child.'

  COLONEL, firmly, 'Come along. Alice,'

  ALICE. 'I would prefer to go alone, dear.'

  COLONEL. 'All right. But break it to her that I'm kicking my heels outside.'

  Alice gets as far as the door. The nurse discharges a last duty.

  NURSE. 'You won't touch her, ma'am; she doesn't like to be touched by strangers.'

  ALICE. 'Strangers!'

  COLONEL. 'Really, nurse.'

  ALICE. 'It's quite true.'

  NURSE. 'She's an angel if you have the right way with her.'

  ALICE. 'Robert, if I shouldn't have the right way with her.'

  COLONEL. 'You.'

  But the woman has scored again.

  ALICE, willing to go on her knees, 'Nurse, what sort of a way does she like from strangers?'

  NURSE. 'She's not fond of a canoodlin' way.'

  ALICE, faintly, 'Is she not?'

  She departs to face her child, and the natural enemy follows her, after giving Colonel Grey a moment in which to discharge her if he dares, tha t is if he wishes to see his baby wither and die. One may as well say here that nurse weathered this and many another gale, and remained in the house for many years to be its comfort and its curse.

  Fanny, with the tea-tray, comes and goes without the Colonel's being aware of her presence. He merely knows that he has waved someone away. The fact is that the Colonel is engrossed in a rather undignified pursuit. He is listening avidly at the nursery door, and is thus discovered by another member of his family who has entered cautiously. This is Master Cosmo, who, observing the tea-tray, has the happy notion of interposing it between himself and his father's possible osculatory intentions. He lifts the tray, and thus armed introduces himself.

  COSMO. 'Hullo, father.'

  His father leaves the door and strides to him.

  COLONEL. 'Is it--it's Cosmo.'

  COSMO, with the tray well to the fore, 'I'm awfully glad to see you--it's a long way from India.'

  COLONEL. 'Put that down, my boy, and let me get hold of you.'

  COSMO, ingratiatingly, 'Have some tea, father.'

  COLONEL. 'Put it down.'

  Cosmo does so, and prepares for the worst. The Colonel takes both his hands.

  'Let's have a look at you. So this is you.'

  He waggles his head, well-pleased, while Cosmo backs in a gentlemanly manner.

  COSMO, implying that this first meeting is now an affair of the past, 'Has Mother gone to lie down?'

  COLONEL. 'Lie down? She's in there.'

  Cosmo steals to the nursery door and softly closes it.

  'Why do you do that?'

  COSMO. 'I don't know. I thought it would be--best.' In a burst of candour, 'This is not the way I planned it, you see.'

  COLONEL. 'Our meeting? So you've been planning it. My dear fellow, I was planning it too, and my plan--' He is certainly coming closer.

  COSMO, hurriedly, 'Yes, I know. Now that's over--our first meeting, I mean; now we settle down.'

  COLONEL. 'Not yet. Come here, my boy.'

  He draws him to a chair; he evidently thinks that a father and his boy of thirteen can sit in the same chair. Cosmo is burning to be nice to him, but of course there are limits.

  COSMO. 'Look here, father. Of course, you see--ways change. I daresay they did it, when you were a boy, but it isn't done now.'

  COLONEL. 'What isn't done, you dear fellow?'

  COSMO. 'Oh--well!--and then taking both hands and saying 'Dear fellow'--'It's gone out, you know.'

  The Colonel chuckles and forbears. 'I'm uncommon glad you told me, Cosmo. Not having been a father for so long, you see, I'm rather raw at it.'

  COSMO, relieved, 'That's all right. You'll soon get the hang of it.'

  COLONEL. 'If you could give me any other tips?'

  COSMO, becoming confidential, 'Well, there's my beastly name. Of course you didn't mean any harm when you christened me Cosmo, but--I always sign myself "C. Grey"--to make the fellows think I'm Charles.'

  COLONEL. 'Do they call you that?'

  COSMO. 'Lord, no, they call me Grey.'

  COLONEL. 'And do you want me to call you Grey?'

  COSMO, magnanimously, 'No, I don't expect that. But I thought that before people, you know, you needn't call me anything. If you want to attract my attention you could just say "Hst!"--like that.'

  COLONEL. 'Right you are. But you won't make your mother call you Hst.'

  COSMO, sagaciously, 'Oh no--of course women are different.'

  COLONEL. 'You'll be very nice to her, Cosmo? She had to pinch and save more than I should have allowed--to be able to send you into the navy. We are poor people, you know.'

  COSMO. 'I've been planning how to be nice to her.'

  COLONEL. 'Good lad. Good lad.'

  Cosmo remembers his conversation with Amy, and thoughtfully hides the 'yellow flowers' behind a photograph. This may be called one of his plans for being nice to mother.

  COSMO. 'You don't have your medals here, father?'

  COLONEL. 'No, I don't carry them about. But your mother does, the goose. They are not very grand ones, Cosmo.'

  COSMO, true blue, 'Yes, they are.'

  An awkward silence falls. The Colonel has so much to say that he can only look it. He looks it so eloquently that Cosmo's fears return. He summons the plan to his help.

  'I wonder what is in the evening papers. If you don't mind, I'll cut out and get one.'

  Before he can cut out, however, Alice is in the room, the picture of distress. No wonder, for even we can hear the baby howling.

  ALICE, tragically, 'My baby. Robert, listen; that is how I affect her.'

  Cosmo cow
ers unseen.

  COLONEL. 'No, no, darling, it isn't you who have made her cry. She--she is teething. It's her teeth, isn't it?' he barks at the nurse, who emerges looking not altogether woeful. 'Say it's her teeth, woman.'

  NURSE, taking this as a reflection on her charge. 'She had her teeth long ago.'

  ALICE, the forlorn, 'The better to bite me with.'

  NURSE, complacently, 'I don't understand it. She is usually the best-tempered lamb--as you may see for yourself, sir.'

  It is an imitation that the Colonel is eager to accept, but after one step toward the nursery he is true to Alice.

  COLONEL. 'I _decline_ to see her. I refuse to have anything to do with her till she comes to a more reasonable frame of mind.'

  The nurse retires, to convey possibly this ultimatum to her charge.

  ALICE, in the noblest spirit of self-abnegation, 'Go, Robert. Perhaps she--will like you better.'

  COLONEL. 'She's a contemptible child.'

  But that nursery door does draw him strongly. He finds himself getting nearer and nearer to it. 'I'll show her,' with a happy pretence that his object is merely to enforce discipline. The forgotten Cosmo pops up again; the Colonel introduces him with a gesture and darts off to his baby.

  ALICE, entranced, 'My son!'

  COSMO, forgetting all plans, 'Mother!' She envelops him in her arms, worshipping him, and he likes it.

  ALICE. 'Oh, Cosmo--how splendid you are.'

  COSMO, soothingly, 'That's all right, mother.'

  ALICE. 'Say it again.'

  COSMO. 'That's all right.'

  ALICE. 'No, the other word.'

  COSMO. 'Mother.'

  ALICE. 'Again.'

  COSMO. 'Mother--mother--' When she has come to: 'Are you better now?'

  ALICE. 'He is my son, and he is in uniform.'

  COSMO, aware that allowances must be made, 'Yes, I know.'

  ALICE. 'Are you glad to see your mother, Cosmo?'

  COSMO. 'Rather! Will you have some tea?'

  ALICE. 'No, no, I feel I can do nothing for the rest of my life but hug my glorious boy.'

  COSMO. 'Of course, I have my work.'

  ALICE. 'His work! Do the officers love you, Cosmo?'

  COSMO, degraded, 'Love me! I should think not.'

  ALICE. 'I should like to ask them all to come and stay with us.'