And Mamma came--in a four-wheeler and a flutter of tender excitement.
Such a Mamma! She was young, frivolously young, and beautiful, with delicately flushed cheeks, eyes that shone like stars, and a voice that needed no additional appeal of outstretched arms to draw little ones to her heart. Judy ran straight to her, but Black Sheep hesitated. Could this wonder be "showing off"? She would not put out her arms when she knew of his crimes. Meantime was it possible that by fondling she wanted to get anything out of Black Sheep? Only all his love and all his confidence; but that Black Sheep did not know. Aunty Rosa withdrew and left Mamma, kneeling between her children, half laughing, half crying, in the very hall where Punch and Judy had wept five years before.
"Well, chicks, do you remember me?"
"No," said Judy frankly, "but I said "G.o.d bless Papa and Mamma," ev"vy night."
"A little," said Black Sheep. "Remember I wrote to you every week, anyhow. That is n"t to show off, but "cause of what comes afterward."
"What comes after! What should come after, my darling boy?" And she drew him to her again. He came awkwardly, with many angles. "Not used to petting," said the quick Mother-soul. "The girl is."
"She"s too little to hurt anyone," thought Black Sheep, "and if I said I"d kill her, she"d be afraid. I wonder what Aunty Rosa will tell."
There was a constrained late dinner, at the end of which Mamma picked up Judy and put her to bed with endearments manifold. Faithless little Judy had shown her defection from Aunty Rosa already. And that lady resented it bitterly. Black Sheep rose to leave the room.
"Come and say good night," said Aunty Rosa, offering a withered cheek.
"Huh!" said Black Sheep. "I never kiss you, and I"m not going to show off. Tell that woman what I"ve done, and see what she says."
Black Sheep climbed into bed feeling that he had lost Heaven after a glimpse through the gates. In half an hour "that woman" was bending over him. Black Sheep flung up his right arm. It was n"t fair to come and hit him in the dark. Even Aunty Rosa never tried that. But no blow followed.
"Are you showing off? I won"t tell you anything more than Aunty Rosa has, and she does n"t know everything," said Black Sheep as clearly as he could for the arms round his neck.
"Oh, my son--my little, little son! It was my fault--my fault, darling--and yet how could we help it? Forgive me, Punch." The voice died out in a broken whisper, and two hot tears fell on Black Sheep"s forehead.
"Has she been making you cry, too?" he asked. "You should see Jane cry. But you"re nice, and Jane is a Born Liar--Aunty Rosa says so."
"Hush, Punch, hush! My boy, don"t talk like that. Try to love me a little bit--a little bit. You don"t know how I want it. Punch-baba, come back to me! I am your Mother--your own Mother--and never mind the rest. I know--yes, I know, dear. It does n"t matter now. Punch, won"t you care for me a little?"
It is astonishing how much petting a big boy of ten can endure when he is quite sure that there is no one to laugh at him. Black Sheep had never been made much of before, and here was this beautiful woman treating him--Black Sheep, the Child of the Devil and the Inheritor of Undying Flame--as though he were a small G.o.d.
"I care for you a great deal, Mother dear," he whispered at last, "and I"m glad you"ve come back; but are you sure Aunty Rosa told you everything?"
"Everything. What does it matter? But----" the voice broke with a sob that was also laughter--"Punch, my poor, dear, half-blind darling, don"t you think it was a little foolish of you?"
"No. It saved a lickin"."
Mamma shuddered and slipped away in the darkness to write a long letter to Papa. Here is an extract:
"... Judy is a dear, plump little prig who adores the woman, and wears with as much gravity as her religious opinions--only eight, Jack!--a venerable horsehair atrocity which she calls her Bustle. I have just burned it, and the child is asleep in my bed as I write. She will come to me at once. Punch I cannot quite understand. He is well nourished, but seems to have been worried into a system of small deceptions which the woman magnifies into deadly sins. Don"t you recollect our own up-bringing, dear, when the Fear of the Lord was so often the beginning of falsehood? I shall win Punch to me before long. I am taking the children away into the country to get them to know me, and, on the whole, I am content, or shall be when you come home, dear boy, and then, thank G.o.d, we shall be all under one roof again at last!"
Three months later, Punch, no longer Black Sheep, has discovered that he is the veritable owner of a real, live, lovely Mamma, who is also a sister, comforter, and friend, and that he must protect her till the Father comes home. Deception does not suit the part of a protector, and, when one can do anything without question, where is the use of deception?
"Mother would be awfully cross if you walked through that ditch," says Judy, continuing a conversation.
"Mother"s never angry," says Punch. "She"d just say, "You"re a little pagal"; and that"s not nice, but I"ll show."
Punch walks through the ditch and mires himself to the knees. "Mother, dear," he shouts, "I"m just as dirty as I can pos-sib-ly be!"
"Then change your clothes as quickly as you pos-sib-ly can!" rings out Mother"s clear voice from the house. "And don"t be a little pagal!"
"There! Told you so," says Punch. "It"s all different now, and we are just as much Mother"s as if she had never gone."
Not altogether, O Punch, for when young lips have drunk deep of the bitter waters of Hate, Suspicion, and Despair, all the Love in the world will not wholly take away that knowledge; though it may turn darkened eyes for a while to the light, and teach Faith where no Faith was.
V
WEE WILLIE WINKIE
"An officer and a gentleman."
His full name was Percival William Williams, but he picked up the other name in a nursery-book, and that was the end of the christened t.i.tles. His mother"s ayah called him Willie-Baba, but as he never paid the faintest attention to anything that the ayah said, her wisdom did not help matters.
His father was the Colonel of the 195th, and as soon as Wee Willie Winkie was old enough to understand what Military Discipline meant, Colonel Williams put him under it. There was no other way of managing the child. When he was good for a week, he drew good-conduct pay; and when he was bad, he was deprived of his good-conduct-stripe. Generally he was bad, for India offers so many chances to little six-year-olds of going wrong.
Children resent familiarity from strangers, and Wee Willie Winkie was a very particular child. Once he accepted an acquaintance, he was graciously pleased to thaw. He accepted Brandis, a subaltern of the 195th, on sight. Brandis was having tea at the Colonel"s, and Wee Willie Winkie entered, strong in the possession of a good-conduct badge won for not chasing the hens round the compound. He regarded Brandis with gravity for at least ten minutes, and then delivered himself of his opinion.
"I like you," said he slowly, getting off his chair and coming over to Brandis. "I like you. I shall call you Coppy, because of your hair. Do you mind being called Coppy? It is because of ve hair, you know."
Here was one of the most embarra.s.sing of Wee Willie Winkie"s peculiarities. He would look at a stranger for some time, and then, without warning or explanation, would give him a name. And the name stuck. No regimental penalties could break Wee Willie Winkie of this habit. He lost his good-conduct badge for christening the Commissioner"s wife "Pobs"; but nothing that the Colonel could do made the Station forego the nickname, and Mrs. Collen remained Mrs. "Pobs"
till the end of her stay. So Brandis was christened "Coppy," and rose, therefore, in the estimation of the regiment.
If Wee Willie Winkie took an interest in anyone, the fortunate man was envied alike by the mess and the rank and file. And in their envy lay no suspicion of self-interest. "The Colonel"s son" was idolized on his own merits entirely. Yet Wee Willie Winkie was not lovely. His face was permanently freckled, as his legs were permanently scratched, and in spite of his mother"s almost tearful remonstrances he had insisted upon having his long yellow locks cut short in the military fashion.
"I want my hair like Sergeant Tummil"s," said Wee Willie Winkie, and, his father abetting, the sacrifice was accomplished.
Three weeks after the bestowal of his youthful affections on Lieutenant Brandis--henceforward to be called "Coppy" for the sake of brevity--Wee Willie Winkie was destined to behold strange things and far beyond his comprehension.
Coppy returned his liking with interest. Coppy had let him wear for five rapturous minutes his own big sword--just as tall as Wee Willie Winkie. Coppy had promised him a terrier puppy; and Coppy had permitted him to witness the miraculous operation of shaving. Nay, more--Coppy had said that even he, Wee Willie Winkie, would rise in time to the ownership of a box of shiny knives, a silver soap-box and a silver-handled "sputter-brush," as Wee Willie Winkie called it.
Decidedly, there was no one, except his father, who could give or take away good-conduct badges at pleasure, half so wise, strong, and valiant as Coppy with the Afghan and Egyptian medals on his breast.
Why, then, should Coppy be guilty of the unmanly weakness of kissing--vehemently kissing--a "big girl," Miss Allardyce to wit? In the course of a morning ride, Wee Willie Winkie had seen Coppy so doing, and, like the gentleman he was, had promptly wheeled round and cantered back to his groom, lest the groom should also see.
Under ordinary circ.u.mstances he would have spoken to his father, but he felt instinctively that this was a matter on which Coppy ought first to be consulted.
"Coppy," shouted Wee Willie Winkie, reining up outside that subaltern"s bungalow early one morning--"I want to see you, Coppy!"
"Come in, young "un," returned Coppy, who was at early breakfast in the midst of his dogs. "What mischief have you been getting into now?"
Wee Willie Winkie had done nothing notoriously bad for three days, and so stood on a pinnacle of virtue.
"I"ve been doing nothing bad," said he, curling himself into a long chair with a studious affectation of the Colonel"s langour after a hot parade. He buried his freckled nose in a tea-cup and, with eyes staring roundly over the rim, asked: "I say, Coppy, is it pwoper to kiss big girls?"
"By Jove! You"re beginning early. Who do you want to kiss?"
"No one. My muvver"s always kissing me if I don"t stop her. If it is n"t pwoper, how was you kissing Major Allardyce"s big girl last morning, by ve ca.n.a.l?"