And he trotted on in silence beside the major, and looked at the beautiful shot grouse and blackcock, and was very attentive and docile and respectful, and the major felt a twinge of pain in his good heart as he realized that Boy had plenty of material in him for the making of a worthy manhood, material which was being thrown away for want of proper management and training. He confided his feelings on this subject to Miss Leslie that night, in the company of a brother officer, who, like himself, was on the retired list, and had few joys left in life save the love of sport and a good game of chess or billiards. Captain Fitzgerald Crosby — or “Fitz,” as he was generally called — was a fine, upright personage, with a most alarmingly grim and rigid cast of countenance which rather repelled timid people on first introduction. He was “a cross-looking old boor” with all the ladies until he smiled. Then such a radiance played in his quiet grey eyes, and such a kindness softened the lines of his mouth and smoothed away the furrows of his brows, that he was voted a “darling” instantly. On this occasion, when Major Desmond started off expatiating on the waste of Boy’s life, and Miss Letty paused in her knitting, listening to his remarks with sorrowful attention, Fitz looked particularly glum, handling his billiard-cue thoughtfully, and staring at its point as though it were a magic wand to conjure with.
“There’s a good deal of waste everywhere, it seems to me,” he said, slowly. “The scientific fellows tell us that nothing is wasted in the way of matter, — every grain of dust and every drop of dew has got its own special business and is of special use; but, upon my word, when you come to think of the finer things, — love and hope and goodness and charity and all the rest of it, — it seems nothing but waste all along. There’s a great waste of love especially.”
The major coughed, and hit a ball viciously.
“Yes, there’s a great waste of love,” went on the unheeding and still gloomily frowning Fitz. “We set our hearts on a thing, and it’s immediately taken from us; we work all our days for a promising son or a favourite daughter, and they frequently turn out more ungrateful than the very dogs we feed; and, as Byron says, ‘Alas, our young affections run to waste and water but the desert’! Byron was the only poet who ever lived, in my opinion.”
Major Desmond gave a short laugh.
“Upon my word, Fitz, you’re a regular old croaker this evening, aren’t you? You’re making our hostess quite miserable.”
“Oh, no,” said Miss Letty, brightly, for with her usual sweetness she never thought of her own “wasted young affections” at all, but only of the disappointments of her friends, and she knew that Fitz had suffered. “I feel, with Captain Crosby, that some things are very hard for us to understand. But I think myself that just as no drop of dew or grain of dust is wasted, so no kind action or true love is wasted either. It may seem so, but it is not. And let ns hope poor Boy will be all right. But he certainly ought to be sent to school. I think” — here she paused and looked up smiling, “ I think I shall have another try.” The major paused in his game, while his friend Fitz glowered sullenly at the balls.
“You will, Letty? You mean you will try to give the little chap another chance of proper education?”
“Yes, I think so,” said Miss Letty, bending over her knitting, while her needles clicked cheerily in her small, pretty hands. “I will write very earnestly to both Captain and Mrs. D’Arcy-Muir and make a perfectly plain, practical, business proposal to them. If they refuse it, well, I shall have relieved my feelings by asking.”
A sudden radiance seemed to illuminate the billiard-table, but it was only Fitz smiling across it.
“Just like you, Miss Letty,” he said. “Whenever there is something good to be done, you are the one to do it.”
Miss Letty shook her head deprecatingly and went on with her knitting for a while; then presently she retired to bed after sending in whiskeys and sodas to the two gentlemen to refresh themselves while finishing their game. Fitz had turned crusty again, apparently. Jerking his hand backward towards the door through which Miss Letty had disappeared after saying her gentle goodnight, he demanded, —
“Why didn’t you marry her?”
“Because she wouldn’t have me,” replied the major, promptly.
“Why wouldn’t she have you?”
“Because she is keeping faith with a dead rascal. Expects to meet him somewhere in heaven by and by. Lord, if ever a liar and scamp deserves to wear a crown of gold and sing ‘Hallelujah!’ then Harry Raikes is a real live angel and no mistake!”
“Upon my word!” said Fitz, slowly, “I think it’s liars and scoundrels generally who consider that they’re the very people fitted for gold crowns in heaven. Now I don’t expect a gold crown. I don’t consider myself worth an angel’s feather, let alone a pair of angel’s wings. But I have a pious uncle — old as Methuselah — who goes to church three times a day and slangs all his neighbors who don’t, and will you believe me, he has an idea that God is thoroughly well pleased with him for that. What a blasphemous old beggar it is!”
He laughed, and in his enjoyment allowed the major to win the game at billiards. Then, putting up his cue, he mixed a mild glass of whiskey and water and drank it off.
“I’ll go to bed now, Dick,” he said. “I don’t stay up as late as I used to.”
“We’re getting on, Fitz, that’s why,” replied Desmond. “We’re getting on, that’s what it is.”
“Yes, that’s what it is,” returned Fitz, cheerily, “but I really don’t mind. Getting on means getting out — getting out of this world into a better. Good-night, old chap.”
“Good-night.”
And the two worthy old gentlemen went to their respective rooms and slept the sleep of the just. But there were two other people in the house who could not sleep at all that night — these were Miss Letty and Boy. Miss Letty was grieving for Boy, and Boy was grieving for himself. What was she to do about Boy? Miss Leslie thought. What was he to do about himself? Boy thought. Miss Letty felt that if she could only get Boy away from his home surroundings, and place him at a good English preparatory school, she would perhaps be the saving of him. Boy felt that if he could only run away somewhere on one of those ambitious expeditions which Alister McDonald was always telling him about he might, to put it grandly, make a career. But the world was broad and wide, and he was very small and young. Difficulties bristled in his path, and he had not the heart nor the strength to face them even in thought. The spark of an aspiring intelligence was within him, but the influences were all against its kindling up into a useful or brilliant flame.
The next day saw him again at play with Alister, and the two boys went out on Loch Katrine together in a boat to fish for trout. They were not very skilled fishermen, and there was a good deal more splashing about with the line and patting the water with the oars than anything else.
They stayed wobbling about on the friendly lake till sunset, and then, as they saw the majestic king of the sky descend into the west, glorious in panoply of gold and crimson, with fleecy white clouds rolling themselves into a great canopy for his head, and a wide stretch of crimson spreading beneath him like a carpet for his march downward, both the little fellows were suddenly overcome by a sense of awe, and watched the brilliant colours of the heavens and the purple shadows of the mountains reflected on the water in silence for many minutes.
“I say, Boy, what are you going to be?” asked Alister, after a long pause.
Boy answered with truth, “I don’t know.”
“I’m going to be a soldier,” said Alister. “It’s a fine thing to be a soldier. Though father says a soldier can’t get a drink if he wants to, unless he takes off his uniform first. Isn’t that battish? But whenever we have another war we’re going to keep our uniforms on and drink in them whenever we want to.”
“And will you go and fight?” asked Boy, wistfully.
“Rather! Let me hear anyone abusing England, and I’ll run them straight through with my sword in no time!”
“Will y
ou? — really?” And Boy looked respectfully at Alister’s round face, already seeing the martial hero in the saucy physiognomy of his friend, — the sparkling eyes, the defiant little nose, and the chubby, dimpled chin.
“When you’re a soldier, you’re a defender of the country,” went on Alister; “and the Queen says, ‘Thank you very much; I hope you’ll do your duty.’ And you get medals and things, and the Victoria Cross. That’s what’s called a V. C. I know a man who’s got that, and he’s just as proud as Punch. He’s one of father’s friends. But he’s awfully poor — awfully. And he’s got rheumatism through having slept out several nights on a field of battle, and he’s all cramped and funny, with twisted legs and crooked fingers, but he’s just as proud as Punch of his V. C.”
Boy tried to grasp the picture of a gentleman who was “all cramped and funny, with twisted legs and crooked fingers,” who was “just as proud as Punch.” But he could not do it. And Alister, putting up his oars, said, “Let’s have some music,” and forthwith drew out a concertina from the bottom of the boat and discoursed thereon a wailful ear-piercing melody. Boy had heard him play this distressing instrument before, but never quite so dolefully. The melancholy, snoring sounds emanating from between Alister’s fat fingers seemed to cast a gloom over the landscape, to make the mountains around them look darker and more eerie, to give a melodramatic effect to the sinking sun, and to suggest the possibility of bogies and kelpies trooping down on the Silver Strand to perform a fantastic dance thereon. Alister thought his own playing quite beautiful; Boy considered it lovely, but too dreadful. When he could bear it no more he ventured to disturb the performance.
“I say, Alister!”
Alister’s eyes had closed in a dumb ecstasy over a particularly prolonged and dismal chord, but he opened them quickly and stopped playing.
“What?”
“How do you start being a soldier?”
“You go to school first — preparatory,” said Alister, putting away the concertina, much to Boy’s relief. “I’m there now. Then you go to a regular public military training-school, and you learn heaps and heaps of things; then you are measured and weighed, and your chest is thumped and your teeth looked to; then, if that’s all right, you perhaps go to Sandhurst, and then you pass all sorts of stiff exams. In fact,” said Alister, warming with his subject, “you learn everything! There’s nothing that you’re not expected to know. Think of that! And you must keep your teeth all right, and your chest sound, and you must grow to a certain height. Oh, there’s lots to do all round, I can tell you.”
“I see.”
Boy’s heart sank, but he determined to ask to be sent to school directly he went home again. He would not, if he could help it, remain under the tuition of Rattling Jack.
“Aren’t you going to school?” queried Alister.
“I hope so.”
“Come to mine,” said Alister, “it’s awfully jolly; we play cricket and football and hockey, and we have supper-fights and no end of larks. Ask your father to send you to mine; I’ll give you the address when we get home.”
“Thanks,” said Boy, with an attempt to look as if the going to Alister’s school would be the easiest thing in the world; “I will see if I can come.”
Poor little lad! He had no more hope of being sent to Alister’s school than of being carried off in a fairy boat to the moon. But he thought a great deal about school that night when he had parted from his little chum.
“I’ll tell mother I want to go to school,” he said to himself; “that can do no harm. If she won’t send me, I’ll have to run away.”
Meanwhile Miss Leslie wrote long and very earnest letters to both Captain and Mrs. D’Arcy-Muir. Once more she offered to make Boy her heir, on condition that she should be allowed to take care of him and control his education. Her letters arrived at their destination when the Honourable Jim was snoring the hours away in a heavy drunken sleep, and naturally Mrs. D’Arcy-Muir read the one intended for her husband as well as the one addressed to herself. She smiled a fat smile as she commended the one written to Jim (“Like her impudence!” she murmured to herself) to the convenient flames, and resolved to say nothing about it. (“For the education of my son,” she said, “is my affair!”) She laid her large hand on her large breast with an approving and consolatory pat. To be a “mother” was a great thing.
“Silly old woman!” ejaculated Mrs. D’Arcy-Muir, her stout bust heaving with matronly offence. “She has lost all her own matrimonial chances, — she would insist on sticking to the memory of Harry Raikes, — and there she is, of course, all alone in the world, and wants my boy to be a son to her. Poor, dear child! A nice time he would have of it, a slave to an old maid’s fads and fancies!”
So she sat down and wrote the following letter. She had a shocking handwriting, — it sloped downward and sideways all over a sheet of paper, in very much the way her mind sloped and went sideways likewise.
“MY DEAR LETITIA: — I am sorry to see from the tone of your letter that you are still feeling so lonely. Of course, it is very hard for you to be all alone at your age, and I am very sorry for you. But to part with my son to you as you suggest is quite out of the question. A mother’s claims are paramount! I am sure you would be very nice to him, and the dear boy deserves everything that can possibly be done for his advantage, but his mother must preside over his education. I am sure that, though unmarried yourself, you will see the force of this. If, however, you still decide to make him your heir, I am sure he will be very worthy of it, and always remember you affectionately after you are gone. We shall expect our son home next week, and hope that Major Desmond will be able to escort him.
“Yours very sincerely,
“AMELIA D’ARCY-MUIR.”
This letter was the charter of Boy’s doom. Not all the stars in their courses would be able to alter his fate from henceforth. Miss Leslie cried quietly to herself in her room for nearly an hour, then bathed her eyes, smoothed her hair, and attended to her household duties as placidly and sweetly as ever. She never spoke to Boy at all on the subject. To Major Desmond and his friend Fitz she said simply, —
“I wrote to Boy’s mother and father. But it is no use.”
“I thought not,” said the major, gruffly.
“Poor little chap!” said Fitz.
And by tacit consent they dropped the subject.
But one day before Boy went back to his loving parents, Miss Leslie took him out by himself for a walk with her through the beautiful Pass of Achray, and there, sitting down by the dry and fragrant heather brilliant with bloom, she talked to him gently, holding his little grimy hand in her own.
“Boy,” she said, “if you ever want anything, will you write to me? You can write now, can’t you?”
Boy nodded, looking a trifle pale and startled.
“Suppose,” went on Miss Leslie, feeling something like a wicked conspirator as she suggested it, “ suppose you wanted to go to school and your father wouldn’t let you, do you think — do you think — you could run away to me?”
And the gentle lady’s soft cheeks crimsoned at the audacity of this proposal.
But Boy’s eyes glittered. This was like one of Alister’s adventures.
“Yes,” he replied, breathlessly, “I’m sure I could!”
“Well, well — we will hope that won’t be necessary,” said Miss Leslie, hastily. “You mustn’t, of course, ever do such a thing unless you are quite driven to it. But if you are in trouble of any sort, write to me, and I will — I will meet you anywhere.” This with a hazy notion that if it were the North Pole she would somehow manage to be there.
Boy threw his arms round her neck and kissed her.
“Oh, you are good — good!” he said. “I wish I were your Boy!”
Miss Letty patted him with a trembling hand, but was silent.
The bees buzzed drowsily in the heather bells, — the blue sky was flecked with beautiful white clouds, and the lights and shadows changed the aspect of the m
ountains every few minutes. A little “burnie” chattered at their feet, gurgling over the stones and pebbles, and chuckling among the ferns and grasses, and over its silver, ribbonlike streak two gorgeous dragon-flies chased each other, the sunlight flashing gold upon their iridescent wings.
“I wish I could stay with you altogether,” said Boy, taking off his cap and ruffling his pretty fair hair with his hands in a sort of nervous agitation, “ I feel so happy with you! See how lovely it all is to-day! God seems really good out here.”
“God is really good always, darling,” said Miss Letty.
“Yes, I suppose He is, but where we are He doesn’t seem good a bit. The people are dirty and miserable and poor, — and even the sea looks cruel!”
“Poor Boy!” murmured Miss Letty to herself, quickly understanding the sense of loneliness and bitterness which sometimes overpowered the child’s mind. Aloud she said, as cheerily as she could, —
“That’s only fancy, Boy! Everything is good and beautiful in the world as God made it and intended it to be; it’s only the bad dispositions and wickednesses of men that make things seem difficult. But if you are good and straightforward everything will come right, and you will perhaps understand why you are sometimes a little bit sad and lonely now. I daresay it’s all for your good—” She paused, because in her own clear soul she could not think it was quite for the little fellow’s good that he should have a drunken father and a sloven mother. “Promise me one thing, Boy,” she went on, “never tell a lie. Lies come to no good; and when you go to school — for I expect you will go to school — you will find that all nice English boys are brought up to be frank and true and to stand upon their honour. If a boy tells a lie to shield himself, he is looked upon as a coward by all his school-fellows. Remember that! No matter what scrapes you get into, tell the truth right out, without the least fear, and you may be sure you are doing well. Even if you get punished, a day’s punishment is much better than a lie on your conscience.”
Delphi Collected Works of Marie Corelli Page 439