"What"s that?" I asked.
"You know," said Robina-"King Alfred and the cakes. I left her one afternoon last year when we were on the houseboat to watch some buns.
When I came back she was sitting in front of the fire, wrapped up in the table-cloth, with d.i.c.k"s banjo on her knees and a cardboard crown upon her head. The buns were all burnt to a cinder. As I told her, if I had known what she wanted to be up to I could have given her some extra bits of dough to make believe with. But oh, no! if you please, that would not have suited her at all. It was their being real buns, and my being real mad, that was the best part of the game. She is an uncanny child."
"What was the game this time?" I asked.
"I don"t think it was intended for a game-not at first," answered Robina.
"I went into the wood to pick some flowers for the table. I was on my way back, still at some distance from the house, when I heard quite a loud report. I took it for a gun, and wondered what anyone would be shooting in July. It must be rabbits, I thought. Rabbits never seem to have any time at all to themselves, poor things. And in consequence I did not hurry myself. It must have been about twenty minutes later when I came in sight of the house. Veronica was in the garden deep in confabulation with an awful-looking boy, dressed in nothing but rags.
His face and hands were almost black. You never saw such an object.
They both seemed very excited. Veronica came to meet me; and with a face as serious as mine is now, stood there and told me the most barefaced pack of lies you ever heard. She said that a few minutes after I had gone, robbers had come out of the wood-she talked about them as though there had been hundreds-and had with the most awful threats demanded to be admitted into the house. Why they had not lifted the latch and walked in, she did not explain. It appeared this cottage was their secret rendezvous, where all their treasure lies hidden. Veronica would not let them in, but shouted for help: and immediately this awful-looking boy, to whom she introduced me as "Sir Robert" something or another, had appeared upon the scene; and then there had followed-well, I have not the patience to tell you the whole of the rigmarole they had concocted. The upshot of it was that the robbers, defeated in their attempt to get into the house, had fired a secret mine, which had exploded in the kitchen. If I did not believe them I could go into the kitchen and see for myself. Say what I would, that is the story they both stuck to. It was not till I had talked to Veronica for a quarter of an hour, and had told her that you would most certainly communicate with the police, and that she would have to convince a judge and jury of the truth of her story, that I got any sense at all out of her."
"What was the sense you did get out of her?" I asked.
"Well, I am not sure even now that it is the truth," said Robina-"the child does not seem to possess a proper conscience. What she will grow up like, if something does not happen to change her, it is awful to think."
"I don"t want to appear a hustler," I said, "and maybe I am mistaken in the actual time, but it feels to me like hours since I asked you how the catastrophe really occurred."
"I am telling you," explained Robina, hurt. "She was in the kitchen yesterday when I mentioned to Harry"s mother, who had looked in to help me wash up, that the kitchen chimney smoked: and then she said-"
"Who said?" I asked.
"Why, she did," answered Robina, "Harry"s mother. She said that very often a pennyworth of gunpowder-"
"Now at last we have begun," I said. "From this point I may be able to help you, and we will get on. At the word "gunpowder" Veronica p.r.i.c.ked up her ears. The thing by its very nature would appeal to Veronica"s sympathies. She went to bed dreaming of gunpowder. Left in solitude before the kitchen fire, other maidens might have seen pictured in the glowing coals, princes, carriages, and b.a.l.l.s. Veronica saw visions of gunpowder. Who knows?-perhaps even she one day will have gunpowder of her own! She looks up from her reverie: a fairy G.o.dmamma in the disguise of a small boy-it was a small boy, was it not?"
"Rather a nice little boy, he gave me the idea of having been, originally," answered Robina; "the child, I should say, of well-to-do parents. He was dressed in a little Lord Fauntleroy suit-or rather, he had been."
"Did Veronica know how he was-anything about him?" I asked.
"Nothing that I could get out of her," replied Robina; "you know her way-how she chums on with anybody and everybody. As I told her, if she had been attending to her duties instead of staring out of the window, she would not have seen him. He happened to be crossing the field just at the time."
"A boy born to ill-luck, evidently," I observed. "To Veronica of course he seemed like the answer to a prayer. A boy would surely know where gunpowder could be culled."
"They must have got a pound of it from somewhere," said Robina, "judging from the result."
"Any notion where they got it from?" I asked.
"No," explained Robina. "All Veronica can say is that he told her he knew where he could get some, and was gone about ten minutes. Of course they must have stolen it-even that did not seem to trouble her."
"It came to her as a gift from the G.o.ds, Robina," I explained. "I remember how I myself used to feel about these things, at ten. To have enquired further would have seemed to her impious. How was it they were not both killed?"
"Providence," was Robina"s suggestion: it seemed to be the only one possible. "They lifted off one of the saucepans and just dropped the thing in-fortunately wrapped up in a brown paper parcel, which gave them both time to get out of the house. At least Veronica got clear off. For a change it was not she who fell over the mat, it was the boy."
I looked again into the kitchen; then I returned and put my hands on Robina"s shoulders. "It is a most amusing incident-as it has turned out," I said.
"It might have turned out rather seriously," thought Robina.
"It might," I agreed: "she might be lying upstairs."
"She is a wicked, heartless child," said Robina; "she ought to be punished."
I lent Robina my handkerchief; she never has one of her own.
"She is going to be punished," I said; "I will think of something."
"And so ought I," said Robina; "it was my fault, leaving her, knowing what she"s like. I might have murdered her. She doesn"t care. She"s stuffing herself with cakes at this very moment."
"They will probably give her indigestion," I said. "I hope they do."
"Why didn"t you have better children?" sobbed Robina; "we are none of us any good to you."
"You are not the children I wanted, I confess," I answered.
"That"s a nice kind thing to say!" retorted Robina indignantly.
"I wanted such charming children," I explained-"my idea of charming children: the children I had imagined for myself. Even as babies you disappointed me."
Robina looked astonished.
"You, Robina, were the most disappointing," I complained. "d.i.c.k was a boy. One does not calculate upon boy angels; and by the time Veronica arrived I had got more used to things. But I was so excited when you came. The Little Mother and I would steal at night into the nursery.
"Isn"t it wonderful," the Little Mother would whisper, "to think it all lies hidden there: the little tiresome child, the sweetheart they will one day take away from us, the wife, the mother?" "I am glad it is a girl," I would whisper; "I shall be able to watch her grow into womanhood. Most of the girls one comes across in books strike one as not perhaps quite true to life. It will give me such an advantage having a girl of my own. I shall keep a note-book, with a lock and key, devoted to her.""
"Did you?" asked Robina.
"I put it away," I answered; "there were but a few pages written on. It came to me quite early in your life that you were not going to be the model heroine. I was looking for the picture baby, the clean, thoughtful baby, with its magical, mystical smile. I wrote poetry about you, Robina, but you would s...o...b..r and howl. Your little nose was always having to be wiped, and somehow the poetry did not seem to fit you. You were at your best when you were asleep, but you would not even sleep when it was expected of you. I think, Robina, that the fellows who draw the pictures for the comic journals of the man in his night-shirt with the squalling baby in his arms must all be single men. The married man sees only sadness in the design. It is not the mere discomfort. If the little creature were ill or in pain we should not think of that. It is the reflection that we, who meant so well, have brought into the world just an ordinary fretful human creature with a nasty temper of its own: that is the tragedy, Robina. And then you grew into a little girl. I wanted the soulful little girl with the fathomless eyes, who would steal to me at twilight and question me concerning life"s conundrums.
"But I used to ask you questions," grumbled Robina, "and you would tell me not to be silly."
"Don"t you understand, Robina?" I answered. "I am not blaming you, I am blaming myself. We are like children who plant seeds in a garden, and then are angry with the flowers because they are not what we expected.
You were a dear little girl; I see that now, looking back. But not the little girl I had in my mind. So I missed you, thinking of the little girl you were not. We do that all our lives, Robina. We are always looking for the flowers that do not grow, pa.s.sing by, trampling underfoot, the blossoms round about us. It was the same with d.i.c.k. I wanted a naughty boy. Well, d.i.c.k was naughty, no one can say that he was not. But it was not my naughtiness. I was prepared for his robbing orchards. I rather hoped he would rob orchards. All the high-spirited boys in books rob orchards, and become great men. But there were not any orchards handy. We happened to be living in Chelsea at the time he ought to have been robbing orchards: that, of course, was my fault. I did not think of that. He stole a bicycle that a lady had left outside the tea-room in Battersea Park, he and another boy, the son of a common barber, who shaved people for three-halfpence. I am a Republican in theory, but it grieved me that a son of mine could be drawn to such companionship. They contrived to keep it for a week-till the police found it one night, artfully hidden behind bushes. Logically, I do not see why stealing apples should be n.o.ble and stealing bicycles should be mean, but it struck me that way at the time. It was not the particular steal I had been hoping for.
"I wanted him wild; the hero of the book was ever in his college days a wild young man. Well, he was wild. It cost me three hundred pounds to keep that breach of promise case out of Court; I had never imagined a breach of promise case. Then he got drunk, and bonneted a bishop in mistake for a "bull-dog." I didn"t mind the bishop. That by itself would have been wholesome fun. But to think that a son of mine should have been drunk!"
"He has never been drunk since," pleaded Robina. "He had only three gla.s.ses of champagne and a liqueur: it was the liqueur-he was not used to it. He got into the wrong set. You cannot in college belong to the wild set without getting drunk occasionally."
"Perhaps not," I admitted. "In the book the wild young man drinks without ever getting drunk. Maybe there is a difference between life and the book. In the book you enjoy your fun, but contrive somehow to escape the licking: in life the licking is the only thing sure. It was the wild young man of fiction I was looking for, who, a fortnight before the exam., ties a wet towel round his head, drinks strong tea, and pa.s.ses easily with honours. He tried the wet towel, he tells me. It never would keep in its place. Added to which it gave him neuralgia; while the strong tea gave him indigestion. I used to picture myself the proud, indulgent father lecturing him for his wildness-turning away at some point in the middle of my tirade to hide a smile. There was never any smile to hide. I feel that he has behaved disgracefully, wasting his time and my money."
"He is going to turn over a new leaf;" said Robina: "I am sure he will make an excellent farmer."
"I did not want a farmer," I explained; "I wanted a Prime Minister.
Children, Robina, are very disappointing. Veronica is all wrong. I like a mischievous child. I like reading stories of mischievous children: they amuse me. But not the child who puts a pound of gunpowder into a red-hot fire, and escapes with her life by a miracle."
"And yet, I daresay," suggested Robina, "that if one put it into a book-I mean that if you put it into a book, it would read amusingly."
"Likely enough," I agreed. "Other people"s troubles can always be amusing. As it is, I shall be in a state of anxiety for the next six months, wondering, every moment that she is out of my sight, what new devilment she is up to. The Little Mother will be worried out of her life, unless we can keep it from her."
"Children will be children," murmured Robina, meaning to be comforting.