The Little White Bird Part 24

When he ultimately got past my defence, with a jumpy one which broke awkwardly from the off, I had fetched twenty-three so that he needed twenty to win, a longer hand than he had ever yet made. As I gave him the bat he looked brave, but something wet fell on my hand, and then a sudden fear seized me lest David should not win.

At the very outset, however, he seemed to master the bowling, and soon fetched about ten runs in a cla.s.sic manner. Then I tossed him a Yorker which he missed and it went off at a tangent as soon as it had reached the tree. "Not out," I cried hastily, for the face he turned to me was terrible.

Soon thereafter another incident happened, which I shall always recall with pleasure. He had caught the ball too high on the bat, and I just missed the catch. "Dash it all!" said I irritably, and was about to resume bowling, when I noticed that he was unhappy. He hesitated, took up his position at the wicket, and then came to me manfully. "I am a cad," he said in distress, "for when the ball was in the air I prayed."

He had prayed that I should miss the catch, and as I think I have already told you, it is considered unfair in the Gardens to pray for victory.

My splendid David! He has the faults of other little boys, but he has a n.o.ble sense of fairness. "We shall call it a no-ball, David," I said gravely.

I suppose the suspense of the reader is now painful, and therefore I shall say at once that David won the match with two lovely fours, the one over my head and the other to leg all along the ground. When I came back from fielding this last ball I found him embracing his bat, and to my sour congratulations he could at first reply only with hysterical sounds. But soon he was pelting home to his mother with the glorious news.

And that is how we let Barbara in.

XXVI. The Dedication

It was only yesterday afternoon, dear reader, exactly three weeks after the birth of Barbara, that I finished the book, and even then it was not quite finished, for there remained the dedication, at which I set to elatedly. I think I have never enjoyed myself more; indeed, it is my opinion that I wrote the book as an excuse for writing the dedication.

"Madam" (I wrote wittily), "I have no desire to exult over you, yet I should show a lamentable obtuseness to the irony of things were I not to dedicate this little work to you. For its inception was yours, and in your more ambitious days you thought to write the tale of the little white bird yourself. Why you so early deserted the nest is not for me to inquire. It now appears that you were otherwise occupied. In fine, madam, you chose the lower road, and contented yourself with obtaining the Bird. May I point out, by presenting you with this dedication, that in the meantime I am become the parent of the Book? To you the shadow, to me the substance. Trusting that you will accept my little offering in a Christian spirit, I am, dear madam," etc.

It was heady work, for the saucy words showed their design plainly through the varnish, and I was re-reading in an ecstasy, when, without warning, the door burst open and a little boy entered, dragging in a faltering lady.

"Father," said David, "this is mother."

Having thus briefly introduced us, he turned his attention to the electric light, and switched it on and off so rapidly that, as was very fitting, Mary and I may be said to have met for the first time to the accompaniment of flashes of lightning. I think she was arrayed in little blue feathers, but if such a costume is not seemly, I swear there were, at least, little blue feathers in her too coquettish cap, and that she was carrying a m.u.f.f to match. No part of a woman is more dangerous than her m.u.f.f, and as m.u.f.fs are not worn in early autumn, even by invalids, I saw in a twink, that she had put on all her pretty things to wheedle me.

I am also of opinion that she remembered she had worn blue in the days when I watched her from the club-window. Undoubtedly Mary is an engaging little creature, though not my style. She was paler than is her wont, and had the touching look of one whom it would be easy to break. I daresay this was a trick. Her skirts made music in my room, but perhaps this was only because no lady had ever rustled in it before. It was disquieting to me to reflect that despite her obvious uneasiness, she was a very artful woman.

With the quickness of David at the switch, I slipped a blotting-pad over the dedication, and then, "Pray be seated," I said coldly, but she remained standing, all in a twitter and very much afraid of me, and I know that her hands were pressed together within the m.u.f.f. Had there been any dignified means of escape, I think we would both have taken it.

"I should not have come," she said nervously, and then seemed to wait for some response, so I bowed.

"I was terrified to come, indeed I was," she a.s.sured me with obvious sincerity.

"But I have come," she finished rather baldly.

"It is an epitome, ma'am," said I, seeing my chance, "of your whole life," and with that I put her into my elbow-chair.

She began to talk of my adventures with David in the Gardens, and of some little things I have not mentioned here, that I may have done for her when I was in a wayward mood, and her voice was as soft as her m.u.f.f.

She had also an affecting way of p.r.o.nouncing all her r's as w's, just as the fairies do. "And so," she said, "as you would not come to me to be thanked, I have come to you to thank you." Whereupon she thanked me most abominably. She also slid one of her hands out of the m.u.f.f, and though she was smiling her eyes were wet.

"Pooh, ma'am," said I in desperation, but I did not take her hand.

"I am not very strong yet," she said with low cunning. She said this to make me take her hand, so I took it, and perhaps I patted it a little.

Then I walked brusquely to the window. The truth is, I begun to think uncomfortably of the dedication.

I went to the window because, undoubtedly, it would be easier to address her severely from behind, and I wanted to say something that would sting her.

"When you have quite done, ma'am," I said, after a long pause, "perhaps you will allow me to say a word."

I could see the back of her head only, but I knew, from David's face, that she had given him a quick look which did not imply that she was stung. Indeed I felt now, as I had felt before, that though she was agitated and in some fear of me, she was also enjoying herself considerably.

In such circ.u.mstances I might as well have tried to sting a sand-bank, so I said, rather off my watch, "If I have done all this for you, why did I do it?"

She made no answer in words, but seemed to grow taller in the chair, so that I could see her shoulders, and I knew from this that she was now holding herself conceitedly and trying to look modest. "Not a bit of it, ma'am," said I sharply, "that was not the reason at all."

I was pleased to see her whisk round, rather indignant at last.

"I never said it was," she retorted with spirit, "I never thought for a moment that it was." She added, a trifle too late in the story, "Besides, I don't know what you are talking of."

I think I must have smiled here, for she turned from me quickly, and became quite little in the chair again.

"David," said I mercilessly, "did you ever see your mother blush?"

"What is blush?"

"She goes a beautiful pink colour."

David, who had by this time broken my connection with the head office, crossed to his mother expectantly.

"I don't, David," she cried.

"I think," said I, "she will do it now," and with the instinct of a gentleman I looked away. Thus I cannot tell what happened, but presently David exclaimed admiringly, "Oh, mother, do it again!"

As she would not, he stood on the fender to see in the mantel-gla.s.s whether he could do it himself, and then Mary turned a most candid face on me, in which was maternity rather than reproach. Perhaps no look given by woman to man affects him quite so much. "You see," she said radiantly and with a gesture that disclosed herself to me, "I can forgive even that. You long ago earned the right to hurt me if you want to."

It weaned me of all further desire to rail at Mary, and I felt an uncommon drawing to her.

"And if I did think that for a little while--," she went on, with an unsteady smile.

"Think what?" I asked, but without the necessary snap.

"What we were talking of," she replied wincing, but forgiving me again.

"If I once thought that, it was pretty to me while it lasted and it lasted but a little time. I have long been sure that your kindness to me was due to some other reason."

"Ma'am," said I very honestly, "I know not what was the reason. My concern for you was in the beginning a very fragile and even a selfish thing, yet not altogether selfish, for I think that what first stirred it was the joyous sway of the little nursery governess as she walked down Pall Mall to meet her lover. It seemed such a mighty fine thing to you to be loved that I thought you had better continue to be loved for a little longer. And perhaps having helped you once by dropping a letter I was charmed by the ease with which you could be helped, for you must know that I am one who has chosen the easy way for more than twenty years."

She shook her head and smiled. "On my soul," I a.s.sured her, "I can think of no other reason."

"A kind heart," said she.

"More likely a whim," said I.

"Or another woman," said she.

I was very much taken aback.

"More than twenty years ago," she said with a soft huskiness in her voice, and a tremor and a sweetness, as if she did not know that in twenty years all love stories are grown mouldy.