All perambulators lead to the
Kensington Gardens.
Not, however, that you will
see David in his perambulator
much longer, for soon after I
first shook his faith in his
mother, it came to him to be
up and doing, and he up and did
in the Broad Walk itself, where
he would stand alone most elaborately
poised, signing imperiously to
the British public to time him,
and looking his most heavenly
just before he fell. He fell
with a dump, and as they always
laughed then, he pretended that
this was his funny way of finishing.
That was on a Monday. On Tuesday
he climbed the stone stair of
the Gold King, looking over his
shoulder gloriously at each step,
and on Wednesday he struck three
and went into knickerbockers.
For the Kensington Gardens, you
must know, are full of short
cuts, familiar to all who play
there; and the shortest leads
from the baby in long clothes
to the little boy of three riding
on the fence. It is called the
Mother's Tragedy.
If you are a burgess of the
gardens (which have a vocabulary
of their own), the faces of these
quaint mothers are a clock to
you, in which you may read the
ages of their young. When he
is three they are said to wear
the knickerbocker face, and you
may take it from me that Mary
assumed that face with a sigh;
fain would she have kept her
boy a baby longer, but he insisted
on his rights, and I encouraged
him that I might notch another
point against her. I was now
seeing David once at least every
week, his mother, who remained
culpably obtuse to my sinister
design, having instructed Irene
that I was to be allowed to share
him with her, and we had become
close friends, though the little
nurse was ever a threatening
shadow in the background. Irene,
in short, did not improve with
acquaintance. I found her to
be high and mighty, chiefly,
I think, because she now wore
a nurse's cap with streamers,
of which the little creature
was ludicrously proud. She assumed
the airs of an official person,
and always talked as if generations
of babies had passed through
her hands. She was also extremely
jealous, and had a way of signifying
disapproval of my methods that
led to many coldnesses and even
bickerings between us, which
I now see to have been undignified.
I brought the following accusations
against her:
That she prated too much about
right and wrong.
That she was a martinet.
That she pretended it was a
real cap, with real streamers,
when she knew Mary had made the
whole thing out of a muslin blind.
I regret having used this argument,
but it was the only one that
really damped her.
On the other hand, she accused
me of spoiling him.
Of not thinking of his future.
Of never asking him where he
expected to go to if he did such
things.
Of telling him tales that had
no moral application.
Of saying that the handkerchief
disappeared into nothingness,
when it really disappeared into
a small tin cup, attached to
my person by a piece of elastic.
To this last
charge I plead guilty, for
in those days I had
a pathetic faith in legerdemain,
and the eyebrow feat (which,
however, is entirely an affair
of skill) having yielded such
good results, I naturally cast
about for similar diversions
when it ceased to attract. It
lost its hold on David suddenly,
as I was to discover was the
fate of all of them; twenty times
would he call for my latest,
and exult in it, and the twenty-first
time (and ever afterward) he
would stare blankly, as if wondering
what the man meant. He was like
the child queen who, when the
great joke was explained to her,
said coldly, "We are not amused," and,
I assure you, it is a humiliating
thing to perform before an infant
who intimates, after giving you
ample time to make your points,
that he is not amused. I hoped
that when David was able to talk--and
not merely to stare at me for
five minutes and then say "hat"--his
spoken verdict, however damning,
would be less expressive than
his verdict without words, but
I was disillusioned. I remember
once in those later years, when
he could keep up such spirited
conversations with himself that
he had little need for any of
us, promising him to do something
exceedingly funny with a box
and two marbles, and after he
had watched for a long time he
said gravely, "Tell me when it
begins to be funny."
I confess to
having received a few simple
lessons in conjuring,
in a dimly lighted chamber beneath
a shop, from a gifted young man
with a long neck and a pimply
face, who as I entered took a
barber's pole from my pocket,
saying at the same time, "Come,
come, sir, this will never do." Whether
because he knew too much, or
because he wore a trick shirt,
he was the most depressing person
I ever encountered; he felt none
of the artist's joy, and it was
sad to see one so well calculated
to give pleasure to thousands
not caring a dump about it.
The barber's
pole I successfully extracted
from David's mouth,
but the difficulty (not foreseen)
of knowing how to dispose of
a barber's pole in the Kensington
Gardens is considerable, there
always being polite children
hovering near who run after you
and restore it to you. The young
man, again, had said that anyone
would lend me a bottle or a lemon,
but though these were articles
on which he seemed ever able
to lay his hand, I found (what
I had never noticed before) that
there is a curious dearth of
them in the Gardens. The magic
egg-cup I usually carried about
with me, and with its connivance
I did some astonishing things
with pennies, but even the penny
that costs sixpence is uncertain,
and just when you are saying
triumphantly that it will be
found in the egg-cup, it may
clatter to the ground, whereon
some ungenerous spectator, such
as Irene, accuses you of fibbing
and corrupting youthful minds.
It was useless to tell her, through
clenched teeth, that the whole
thing was a joke, for she understood
no jokes except her own, of which
she had the most immoderately
high opinion, and that would
have mattered little to me had
not David liked them also. There
were times when I could not but
think less of the boy, seeing
him rock convulsed over antics
of Irene that have been known
to every nursemaid since the
year One. While I stood by, sneering,
he would give me the ecstatic
look that meant, "Irene is really
very entertaining, isn't she?"
We were rivals, but I desire
to treat her with scrupulous
fairness, and I admit that she
had one good thing, to wit, her
gutta-percha tooth. In earlier
days one of her front teeth,
as she told me, had fallen out,
but instead of then parting with
it, the resourceful child had
hammered it in again with a hair-brush,
which she offered to show me,
with the dents on it. This tooth,
having in time passed away, its
place was supplied by one of
gutta-percha, made by herself,
which seldom came out except
when she sneezed, and if it merely
fell at her feet this was a sign
that the cold was to be a slight
one, but if it shot across the
room she knew she was in for
something notable. Irene's tooth
was very favourably known in
the Gardens, where the perambulators
used to gather round her to hear
whether it had been doing anything
to-day, and I would not have
grudged David his proprietary
pride in it, had he seemed to
understand that Irene's one poor
little accomplishment, though
undeniably showy, was without
intellectual merit. I have sometimes
stalked away from him, intimating
that if his regard was to be
got so cheaply I begged to retire
from the competition, but the
Gardens are the pleasantest club
in London, and I soon returned.
How I scoured the Gardens looking
for him, and how skilful I became
at picking him out far away among
the trees, though other mothers
imitated the picturesque attire
of him, to Mary's indignation.
I also cut Irene's wings (so
to speak) by taking her to a
dentist.
And David did some adorable
things. For instance, he used
my pockets as receptacles into
which he put any article he might
not happen to want at the moment.
He shoved it in, quite as if
they were his own pockets, without
saying, By your leave, and perhaps
I discovered it on reaching home--a
tin-soldier, or a pistol--when
I put it on my mantleshelf and
sighed. And here is another pleasant
memory. One day I had been over-friendly
to another boy, and, after enduring
it for some time David up and
struck him. It was exactly as
Porthos does, when I favour other
dogs (he knocks them down with
his foot and stands over them,
looking very noble and stern),
so I knew its meaning at once;
it was David's first public intimation
that he knew I belonged to him.
Irene scolded him for striking
that boy, and made him stand
in disgrace at the corner of
a seat in the Broad Walk. The
seat at the corner of which David
stood suffering for love of me,
is the one nearest to the Round
Pond to persons coming from the
north.
You may be sure that she and
I had words over this fiendish
cruelty. When next we met I treated
her as one who no longer existed,
and at first she bridled and
then was depressed, and as I
was going away she burst into
tears. She cried because neither
at meeting nor parting had I
lifted my hat to her, a foolish
custom of mine, of which, as
I now learned to my surprise,
she was very proud. She and I
still have our tiffs, but I have
never since then forgotten to
lift my hat to Irene. I also
made her promise to bow to me,
at which she affected to scoff,
saying I was taking my fun of
her, but she was really pleased,
and I tell you, Irene has one
of the prettiest and most touching
little bows imaginable; it is
half to the side (if I may so
express myself), which has always
been my favourite bow, and, I
doubt not, she acquired it by
watching Mary.
I should be sorry to have it
thought, as you may now be thinking,
that I look on children as on
puppy-dogs, who care only for
play. Perhaps that was my idea
when first I tried to lure David
to my unaccustomed arms, and
even for some time after, for
if I am to be candid, I must
own that until he was three years
old I sought merely to amuse
him. God forgive me, but I had
only one day a week in which
to capture him, and I was very
raw at the business.
I was about to say that David
opened my eyes to the folly of
it, but really I think this was
Irene's doing. Watching her with
children I learned that partial
as they are to fun they are moved
almost more profoundly by moral
excellence. So fond of babes
was this little mother that she
had always room near her for
one more, and often have I seen
her in the Gardens, the centre
of a dozen mites who gazed awestruck
at her while she told them severely
how little ladies and gentlemen
behave. They were children of
the well-to-pass, and she was
from Drury Lane, but they believed
in her as the greatest of all
authorities on little ladies
and gentlemen, and the more they
heard of how these romantic creatures
keep themselves tidy and avoid
pools and wait till they come
to a gate, the more they admired
them, though their faces showed
how profoundly they felt that
to be little ladies and gentlemen
was not for them. You can't think
what hopeless little faces they
were.
Children are not at all like
puppies, I have said. But do
puppies care only for play? That
wistful look, which the merriest
of them sometimes wear, I wonder
whether it means that they would
like to hear about the good puppies?
As you shall see, I invented
many stories for David, practising
the telling of them by my fireside
as if they were conjuring feats,
while Irene knew only one, but
she told it as never has any
other fairy-tale been told in
my hearing. It was the prettiest
of them all, and was recited
by the heroine.
"Why were the king and queen
not at home?" David would ask
her breathlessly.
"I suppose," said Irene, thinking
it out, "they was away buying
the victuals."
She always
told the story gazing into
vacancy, so that David thought
it was really happening somewhere
up the Broad Walk, and when she
came to its great moments her
little bosom heaved. Never shall
I forget the concentrated scorn
with which the prince said to
the sisters, "Neither of you
ain't the one what wore the glass
slipper."
"And then--and then--and then--," said
Irene, not artistically to increase
the suspense, but because it
was all so glorious to her.
"Tell me--tell me quick," cried
David, though he knew the tale
by heart.
"She sits down like," said
Irene, trembling in second-sight, "and
she tries on the glass slipper,
and it fits her to a T, and then
the prince, he cries in a ringing
voice, 'This here is my true
love, Cinderella, what now I
makes my lawful wedded wife.'"
Then she would
come out of her dream, and
look round at
the grandees of the Gardens with
an extraordinary elation. "Her,
as was only a kitchen drudge," she
would say in a strange soft voice
and with shining eyes, "but was
true and faithful in word and
deed, such was her reward."
I am sure that had the fairy
godmother appeared just then
and touched Irene with her wand,
David would have been interested
rather than astonished. As for
myself, I believe I have surprised
this little girl's secret. She
knows there are no fairy godmothers
nowadays, but she hopes that
if she is always true and faithful
she may some day turn into a
lady in word and deed, like the
mistress whom she adores.
It is a dead secret, a Drury
Lane child's romance; but what
an amount of heavy artillery
will be brought to bear against
it in this sad London of ours.
Not much chance for her, I suppose.
Good luck to you, Irene.
|