"Just like his father."
"Rather early to say that, isn"t it?"
"Well, I don"t know, got the same smile. His mother"s rather languid."
"Beautiful woman, though."
"Oh, lovely!"
Upon a certain afternoon in March about four o"clock, there was quite a gathering of persons in Henry Fitzgeorge"s nursery. There was his mother, with those two great friends of hers, Lady Emily Blanchard and the Hon. Mrs. Vavasour; there was Her Grace"s mother, Mrs. P. Tunster (an enormously stout lady); there was Miss Helen Crasper, who was staying in the house. These people were gathered at the end of the cot, and they looked down upon Henry Fitzgeorge, and he lay upon his back, gazed at them thoughtfully, and clenched and unclenched his fat hands.
Opposite his cot were some very wide windows, and three windows were filled with galleons of cloud--fat, bolster, swelling vessels, white, save where, in their curving sails, they had caught a faint radiance from the hidden sun. In fine procession, against the blue, they pa.s.sed along. Very faint and m.u.f.fled there came up from the Square the lingering notes of "Robin Adair." This is a Wednesday afternoon, and it is the lady with the black straw hat who is singing. The nursery has white walls--it is filled with colour; the fire blazes with a yellow-red gleam that rises and falls across the shining floor.
"I brought him a rattle, Jane, dear," said Mrs. Tunster, shaking in the air a thing of coral and silver. "He"s got several, of course, but I guess you"ll go a long way before you find anything cuter."
"It"s too pretty," said Lady Emily.
"Too lovely," said the Hon. Mrs. Vavasour.
The d.u.c.h.ess looked down upon her son. "Isn"t he old?" she said.
"Thousands of years. You"d think he was laughing at the lot of us."
Mrs. Tunster shook her head. "Now don"t you go imagining things, Jane, my dear. I used to be just like that, and your father would say, "Now, Alice.""
Her Grace raised her head. Her eyes were a little tired. She looked from her son to the clouds, and then back again to her son. She was remembering her own early days, the rich glowing colour of her own American country, the freedom, the s.p.a.ce, the honesty.
"I guess you"re tired, dear," said her mother. "With the party to-night and all. Why don"t you go and rest a bit?"
"His eyes _are_ old! He _does_ despise us all."
Lady Emily, who believed in personal comfort and as little thinking as possible, put her arm through her friend"s.
"Come along and give us some tea. He"s a dear. Good-bye, you little darling. He _is_ a pet. There, did you see him smiling? You _darling_.
Tea I _must_ have, Jane, dear--_at_ once."
"You go on. I"m coming. Ring for it. Tell Hunter. I"ll be with you in two minutes, mother."
Mrs. Tunster left her rattle in the nurse"s hands. Then, with the two others, departed. Outside the nursery door she said in an American whisper:--"Jane isn"t quite right yet. Went about a bit too soon. She"s headstrong. She always has been. Doesn"t do for her to think too much."
Her Grace was alone now with her son and heir and the nurse. She bent over the cot and smiled upon Henry Fitzgeorge; he smiled back at her, and even gave an absent-minded crow; but his gaze almost instantly swung back again to the window, through which, deeply and with solemn absorption, he watched the clouds.
She gave him her hand, and he closed his fingers about one of hers; but even that grasp was abstracted, as though he were not thinking of her at all, but was simply behaving like a gentleman.
"I don"t believe he"s realised me a bit, nurse," she said, turning away from the cot.
"Well, Your Grace, they always take time. It"s early days."
"But what"s he thinking of all the time?"
"Oh, just nothing, Your Grace."
"I don"t believe it"s nothing. He"s trying to settle things. This--what it"s all about--what he"s got to do about it."
"It may be so, Your Grace. All babies are like that at first."
"His eyes are so old, so grave."
"He"s a jolly little fellow, Your Grace."
"He"s very little trouble, isn"t he?"
"Less trouble than any baby I"ve ever had to do with. Got His Grace"s happy temperament, if I may say so."
"Yes," the mother laughed. She crossed over to the window and looked down. "That poor woman singing down there. How awful! He"ll be going down to Crole very shortly, Roberts. Splendid air for him there. But the Square"s cheerful. He likes the garden, doesn"t he?"
"Oh, yes, Your Grace; all the children and the fountain. But he"s a happy baby. I should say he"d like anything."
For a moment longer she looked down into the Square. The discordant voice was giving "Annie Laurie" to the world.
"Good-bye, darling." She stepped forward, shook the silver and coral rattle. "See what grannie"s given you!" She left it lying near his hand, and, with a little sigh, was gone.
III
Now, as the sun was setting, the clouds had broken into little pink bubbles, lying idly here and there upon the sky. Higher, near the top of the window, they were large pink cushions, three fat ones, lying sedately against the blue. During three months now Henry Fitzgeorge Strether had been confronted with the new scene, the new urgency on his part to respond to it. At first he had refused absolutely to make any response; behind him, around him, above him, below him, were still the old conditions; but they were the old conditions viewed, for some reason unknown to him, at a distance, and at a distance that was ever increasing. With every day something here in this new and preposterous world struck his attention, and with every fresh lure was he drawn more certainly from his old consciousness. At first he had simply rebelled; then, very slowly, his curiosity had begun to stir. It had stirred at first through food and touch; very pleasant this, very pleasant that.
Milk, sleep, light things that he could hold very tightly with his hands. Now, upon this March afternoon, he watched the pink clouds with a more intent gaze than he had given to them before. Their colour and shape bore some reference to the life that he had left. They were "like"
a little to those other things. There, too, shadowed against the wall, was his Friend, his Friend, now the last link with everything that he knew.
At first, during the first week, he had demanded again and again to be taken back, and always he had been told to wait, to wait and see what was going to happen. So long as his Friend was there, he knew that he was not completely abandoned, and that this was only a temporary business, with its strange limiting circ.u.mstances, the way that one was tied and bound, the embarra.s.sment of finding that all one"s old means of communication were here useless. How desperate, indeed, would it have been had his Friend not been there, rea.s.suring pervading him, surrounding him, always subduing those sudden inexplicable alarms.
He would demand: "When are we going to leave all this?"
"Wait. I know it seems absurd to you, but it"s commanded you."
"Well, but--this is ridiculous. Where are all my old powers I Where are all the others?"
"You will understand everything one day. I"m afraid you"re very uncomfortable. You will be less so as time pa.s.ses. Indeed, very soon you will be very happy."
"Well, I"m doing my best to be cheerful. But you won"t leave me?"
"Not so long as you want me."
"You"ll stay until we go back again!"
"You"ll never go back again."
"Never?"