The Little White Bird Part 22

But after consulting apart they agreed not to show me. I was not shown everything.

David was now firmly convinced that he had once been wrecked on an island, while Oliver pa.s.sed his days in dubiety. They used to argue it out together and among their friends. As I unfolded the story Oliver listened with an open knife in his hand, and David who was not allowed to have a knife wore a pirate-string round his waist. Irene in her usual interfering way objected to this bauble and dropped disparaging remarks about wrecked islands which were little to her credit. I was for defying her, but David, who had the knack of women, knew a better way; he craftily proposed that we "should let Irene in," in short, should wreck her, and though I objected, she proved a great success and recognised the yucca filamentosa by its long narrow leaves the very day she joined us. Thereafter we had no more scoffing from Irene, who listened to the story as hotly as anybody.

This encouraged us in time to let in David's father and mother, though they never knew it unless he told them, as I have no doubt he did. They were admitted primarily to gratify David, who was very soft-hearted and knew that while he was on the island they must be missing him very much at home. So we let them in, and there was no part of the story he liked better than that which told of the joyous meeting. We were in need of another woman at any rate, someone more romantic looking than Irene, and Mary, I can a.s.sure her now, had a busy time of it. She was constantly being carried off by cannibals, and David became quite an adept at plucking her from the very pot itself and springing from cliff to cliff with his lovely burden in his arms. There was seldom a Sat.u.r.day in which David did not kill his man.

I shall now provide the proof that David believed it all to be as true as true. It was told me by Oliver, who had it from our hero himself. I had described to them how the savages had tattooed David's father, and Oliver informed me that one night shortly afterward David was discovered softly lifting the blankets off his father's legs to have a look at the birds and reptiles etched thereon.

Thus many months pa.s.sed with no word of Pilkington, and you may be asking where he was all this time. Ah, my friends, he was very busy fishing, though I was as yet unaware of his existence. Most suddenly I heard the whirr of his hated reel, as he struck a fish. I remember that grim day with painful vividness, it was a wet day, indeed I think it has rained for me more or less ever since. As soon as they joined me I saw from the manner of the two boys that they had something to communicate.

Oliver nudged David and retired a few paces, whereupon David said to me solemnly,

"Oliver is going to Pilkington's."

I immediately perceived that it was some school, but so little did I understand the import of David's remark that I called out jocularly, "I hope he won't swish you, Oliver."

Evidently I had pained both of them, for they exchanged glances and retired for consultation behind a tree, whence David returned to say with emphasis,

"He has two jackets and two shirts and two knickerbockers, all real ones."

"Well done, Oliver!" said I, but it was the wrong thing again, and once more they disappeared behind the tree. Evidently they decided that the time for plain speaking was come, for now David announced bluntly:

"He wants you not to call him Oliver any longer."

"What shall I call him?"

"Bailey."

"But why?"

"He's going to Pilkington's. And he can't play with us any more after next Sat.u.r.day."

"Why not?"

"He's going to Pilkington's."

So now I knew the law about the thing, and we moved on together, Oliver stretching himself consciously, and methought that even David walked with a sedater air.

"David," said I, with a sinking, "are you going to Pilkington's?"

"When I am eight," he replied.

"And sha'n't I call you David then, and won't you play with me in the Gardens any more?"

He looked at Bailey, and Bailey signalled him to be firm.

"Oh, no," said David cheerily.

Thus sharply did I learn how much longer I was to have of him. Strange that a little boy can give so much pain. I dropped his hand and walked on in silence, and presently I did my most churlish to hurt him by ending the story abruptly in a very cruel way. "Ten years have elapsed,"

said I, "since I last spoke, and our two heroes, now gay young men, are revisiting the wrecked island of their childhood. 'Did we wreck ourselves,' said one, 'or was there someone to help us?' And the other who was the younger, replied, 'I think there was someone to help us, a man with a dog. I think he used to tell me stories in the Kensington Gardens, but I forget all about him; I don't remember even his name.'"

This tame ending bored Bailey, and he drifted away from us, but David still walked by my side, and he was grown so quiet that I knew a storm was brewing. Suddenly he flashed lightning on me. "It's not true," he cried, "it's a lie!" He gripped my hand. "I sha'n't never forget you, father."

Strange that a little boy can give so much pleasure.

Yet I could go on. "You will forget, David, but there was once a boy who would have remembered."

"Timothy?" said he at once. He thinks Timothy was a real boy, and is very jealous of him. He turned his back to me, and stood alone and wept pa.s.sionately, while I waited for him. You may be sure I begged his pardon, and made it all right with him, and had him laughing and happy again before I let him go. But nevertheless what I said was true. David is not my boy, and he will forget. But Timothy would have remembered.

XXIV. Barbara

Another shock was waiting for me farther down the story.

For we had resumed our adventures, though we seldom saw Bailey now. At long intervals we met him on our way to or from the Gardens, and, if there was none from Pilkington's to mark him, methought he looked at us somewhat longingly, as if beneath his real knickerbockers a morsel of the egg-sh.e.l.l still adhered. Otherwise he gave David a not unfriendly kick in pa.s.sing, and called him "youngster." That was about all.

When Oliver disappeared from the life of the Gardens we had lofted him out of the story, and did very well without him, extending our operations to the mainland, where they were on so vast a scale that we were rapidly depopulating the earth. And then said David one day,

"Shall we let Barbara in?"

We had occasionally considered the giving of Bailey's place to some other child of the Gardens, divers of David's year having sought election, even with bribes; but Barbara was new to me.

"Who is she?" I asked.

"She's my sister."

You may imagine how I gaped.

"She hasn't come yet," David said lightly, "but she's coming."

I was shocked, not perhaps so much shocked as disillusioned, for though I had always suspicioned Mary A---- as one who harboured the craziest ambitions when she looked most humble, of such presumption as this I had never thought her capable.

I wandered across the Broad Walk to have a look at Irene, and she was wearing an unmistakable air. It set me reflecting about Mary's husband and his manner the last time we met, for though I have had no opportunity to say so, we still meet now and again, and he has even dined with me at the club. On these occasions the subject of Timothy is barred, and if by any unfortunate accident Mary's name is mentioned, we immediately look opposite ways and a silence follows, in which I feel sure he is smiling, and wonder what the deuce he is smiling at. I remembered now that I had last seen him when I was dining with him at his club (for he is become member of a club of painter fellows, and Mary is so proud of this that she has had it printed on his card), when undoubtedly he had looked preoccupied. It had been the look, I saw now, of one who shared a guilty secret.

As all was thus suddenly revealed to me I laughed unpleasantly at myself, for, on my soul, I had been thinking well of Mary of late.

Always foolishly inflated about David, she had been grudging him even to me during these last weeks, and I had forgiven her, putting it down to a mother's love. I knew from the poor boy of unwonted treats she had been giving him; I had seen her embrace him furtively in a public place, her every act, in so far as they were known to me, had been a challenge to whoever dare a.s.sert that she wanted anyone but David. How could I, not being a woman, have guessed that she was really saying good-bye to him?

Reader, picture to yourself that simple little boy playing about the house at this time, on the understanding that everything was going on as usual. Have not his toys acquired a new pathos, especially the engine she bought him yesterday?

Did you look him in the face, Mary, as you gave him that engine? I envy you not your feelings, ma'am, when with loving arms he wrapped you round for it. That childish confidence of his to me, in which unwittingly he betrayed you, indicates that at last you have been preparing him for the great change, and I suppose you are capable of replying to me that David is still happy, and even interested. But does he know from you what it really means to him? Rather, I do believe, you are one who would not scruple to give him to understand that B (which you may yet find stands for Benjamin) is primarily a gift for him. In your heart, ma'am, what do you think of this tricking of a little boy?

Suppose David had known what was to happen before he came to you, are you sure he would have come? Undoubtedly there is an unwritten compact in such matters between a mother and her first-born, and I desire to point out to you that he never breaks it. Again, what will the other boys say when they know? You are outside the criticism of the Gardens, but David is not. Faith, madam, I believe you would have been kinder to wait and let him run the gauntlet at Pilkington's.

You think your husband is a great man now because they are beginning to talk of his foregrounds and middle distances in the newspaper columns that n.o.body reads. I know you have bought him a velvet coat, and that he has taken a large, airy and commodious studio in Mews Lane, where you are to be found in a soft material on first and third Wednesdays. Times are changing, but shall I tell you a story here, just to let you see that I am acquainted with it?

Three years ago a certain gallery accepted from a certain artist a picture which he and his wife knew to be monstrous fine. But no one spoke of the picture, no one wrote of it, and no one made an offer for it. Crushed was the artist, sorry for the denseness of connoisseurs was his wife, till the work was bought by a dealer for an anonymous client, and then elated were they both, and relieved also to discover that I was not the buyer. He came to me at once to make sure of this, and remained to walk the floor gloriously as he told me what recognition means to gentlemen of the artistic callings. O, the happy boy!

But months afterward, rummaging at his home in a closet that is usually kept locked, he discovered the picture, there hidden away. His wife backed into a corner and made trembling confession. How could she submit to see her dear's masterpiece ignored by the idiot public, and her dear himself plunged into gloom thereby? She knew as well as he (for had they not been married for years?) how the artistic instinct hungers for recognition, and so with her savings she bought the great work anonymously and stored it away in a closet. At first, I believe, the man raved furiously, but by-and-by he was on his knees at the feet of this little darling. You know who she was, Mary, but, bless me, I seem to be praising you, and that was not the enterprise on which I set out. What I intended to convey was that though you can now venture on small extravagances, you seem to be going too fast. Look at it how one may, this Barbara idea is undoubtedly a bad business.