Part 6

The mother found the sun too hot, she must go; she rose, called to her daughter, and they went on, little knowing that, although they had not found a widower, they had found a bachelor, which is in some ways a far better thing—

“Nice lady,” said Shan’t decisively, pouring sand from her spade on to Marcus’s shoes.

“What did she talk about?” he asked.

“Cwabs.”

“What did she say about crabs?”

“She said—there was one called Penepoly—I think it was—and she was very nice indeed—and she’s dead, so we buried her—and we aren’t goin’ to be sad about it because it is happier for her, because her—husband is dead too—and there aren’t any children—at least not many—There was lots more, only I forget—she was very silly, really.”

“Am I silly, Shan’t?”

“Yes,” said Shan’t; then seizing him round the neck she ecstatically hugged him.

After Shan’t’s prayers were said there lay a long evening before Marcus. He made Shan’t’s going to bed as late as he dared with the housemaid on the watch. It could hardly be made to last over seven o’clock—and then it was over-late, so the housemaid said. Shan’t was inclined to lengthen her day by means of inordinate praying. The prayers ran on to an extraordinary length. Uncle Marcus could not know that Aunt Elsie strictly limited the number of people prayed for. When Shan’t got down to postmen what posted letters, and cwabs what went to sea—and old gentlemen who hadn’t got any buns, and old ladies who hadn’t got any cake—and po-or little children who hadn’t got any bull’s-eyes, Uncle Marcus should have brought her up with a round turn; but he let her wander on till she came to her darlin’ Aunt Elsie, when he said it was time to stop. “One more, please,” said Shan’t; and she shut her eyes tight and prayed: “Please God, give me a nice donkey ride to-morrow morning at ten o’clock sharp.” She waited, then said, “Thank you,” bowed, and turning to Marcus said triumphantly: “God says he _will_.”

And Marcus gave her the nice donkey ride the next morning at ten o’clock—sharp.

After Shan’t was in bed and asleep, Marcus took to walking on the sea-front and there he met again the daughter of the mother. She was certainly an attractive girl—and she said she found him sympathetic and understanding. This was gratifying in the extreme to Marcus—few can withstand so subtle a form of appreciation. He had imagined himself unsympathetic outwardly, difficult to know; but at heart capable of intense feeling. He is not the only man who has thus pictured himself.

Then he took to meeting the girl accidentally by day, surprising her reading, or gazing out to sea, with the book on her lap upside down. Her eyes were wonderfully expressive, full of a sadness she did not feel. This she knew. Marcus did not.

In this manner, seeking to comfort where sorrow was not, but only simple femininity, Marcus lost Shan’t. Hurriedly he sought her: up and down the beach, stooping to inspect closely the faces of bending babies, entirely forgetting, it seemed, the age and size of Shan’t. As he rushed along the sea-front, he chanced upon an upturned perambulator. It was in the charge of a small girl hardly bigger than Shan’t, though possibly much older. She was groping in the gutter, heedless of the baby’s perilous position. “’Ave you seen ’is satisfoyer?” asked the small woman-child of Marcus. Marcus righted the perambulator, rearranged the baby in the righted perambulator, and said he had not seen the “satisfoyer.” But he searched for it, found it: wiped it, and popped it into the baby’s mouth, just as any lamentably ignorant nurse or mother or woman-child might have done. But he knew better: even mere man knows what danger there lies to the future of England in the snare of the “satisfoyer.” But Marcus was too busy to think of the future of England and her citizens; he was frightfully busy. He had just time to find the baby’s “satisfoyer,” and to find the baby the ugliest he had ever seen, and was off on his search for Shan’t. What should he say to Sibyl if he should fail to find her? To that detestable aunt? To Diana?

He found Shan’t in the process of being converted, and she was enjoying it immensely. Her eyes were cast heavenwards in an abandonment of religious ecstasy: her mouth was rounded to its widest. She was singing a hymn: sharing a hymn-book with a black man—not even a man black in parts, as is commonly to be met at the seaside, but a real black man.

Marcus watched in despair. For his niece he had ceased to exist—only as part of this world had she known him. She was translated to another: a world where the sands were more golden, the sea more glassy than they could ever be here on earth.

Marcus waited. Waited until Shan’t, with a radiant smile, turned to the black man, thanked him, folded her small hands, gloved in white cotton gloves, the fingers of which turned up as only white cotton fingers can, and gave herself up to the sermon.

“Poor devil!” murmured Marcus, perhaps at the thought of Shan’t’s extreme fairness.

In the middle of the sermon the attention of Shan’t slackened: she swallowed: she removed her gaze from the face of the preacher, just to look around, to see, perhaps, if there were any little boys less religious—or as religious—as herself, and her eyes met those of her reproachful uncle. Hers straightway became fixed on that far-away something. Things have—in the history of the world—looked as innocent as she looked: but very few—among them puppies in chicken-yards. She was absorbed in that far-away something—but what gave her away was the pink flush which stole over her little face, then flooded it. Tears gathered in her eyes. But she still gazed bravely—intently—absorbedly.

Marcus walked round, behind the crowd, stooped down behind her and whispered. She rose, and putting her hand in his walked away with him.

“Did you like it, Shan’t?” he asked.

“Yes,” she answered. “You see, I hadn’t got a hymn-book of my own.”

“So I supposed,” he said stiffly.

“_I_ turned over.”

“Did you? Did you like the preacher?”

“Yes. He was rather silly, really.” Shan’t’s usual summary, this.

“What did the preacher say?”

Shan’t hesitated—what _did_ he say? “He said I must love God—and not eat any more apples.”

“Oh!” said Marcus, not recognizing in this brief summary the story of the Garden of Eden. He didn’t believe “that aunt” would either.

“D’you think you’ll go to Heaven?” asked Shan’t cheerfully.

Marcus humbly answered that he hoped he might if he were very good.

“What will God call you?”

This Marcus didn’t know; couldn’t say; had never thought.

“‘Mis-ter Maitland’—or ‘Marcus’—which would you like best?”

Marcus thought—his Christian name was nicest—just as Shan’t said it.

“But the butler must say ‘Mister Maitland,’ mustn’t he?”

“What butler?”

“God’s butler,” said Shan’t, solemnly, rather overcome at the thought of a personage so grand—so awe-inspiring.

“I don’t suppose God has a butler, Shan’t.”

“Don’t you? Who are the Pillars of God’s house, then? Nannie reads about them—”

“Oh, I see.”

“There m-ust be, mustn’t there—because of Pillar?”

“Of course there must be.”

“Will you give Pillar up to God for his house—if God wanted him?”

“I suppose I should have to.”

“I expect he would do things for you—all the same, when you go to Heaven, if God goes away for a few days—and other times too?”

“Who, Pillar?”

“Yes.”

“I expect he would.”

“He says you can’t do without him, so he’d have to.”

“Does he say that?” asked Marcus, feeling a glow of absurd thankfulness permeating his being—

Shan’t nodded and said fervently that she liked Pillar. Marcus had to assure her that he did, too, and there the matter ended—so far as Shan’t was concerned; but not for Marcus. He wasn’t superstitious, but he wished Shan’t hadn’t broached the subject of giving Pillar up to any one. Existence without Pillar would be an impossibility. That afternoon by letter Marcus raised the wages of Pillar five pounds a year, and after listening to Shan’t’s prayers asking God to bless Pillar, he wished he had made it ten pounds. It was disturbing. Life generally was disturbing. An elderly woman in a bath-chair saw that it was so, or guessed it rather than saw it. She was an adept at guessing things. She had seen Marcus meet and walk away with the girl with big brown eyes, which held tragedy in their depths. She could see by the cut of Marcus’s clothes, by his shoes, all she wanted to know of his circumstances in life. She guessed him to be a bachelor and defenceless, because bored. This was not entirely astuteness on her part; she had heard Shan’t call him “Uncle,” and it is only a bachelor uncle who would take a small niece away with him, knowing nothing of the dangers of so doing, and the difficulties. No married man would attempt to do what it takes at least two women to do properly—judging by the babies on the shore and their attendants.

So the next time Marcus passed the elderly woman in her bath-chair, she smiled at him. Not as the other woman had smiled, hoping to attract him, but knowing she would. He was attracted. He liked elderly women as many bachelors do. They find in them a safe outlet.

“Come and talk to me,” said this one, and Marcus felt delighted to do so. “What have you done with your little girl?” she asked.

Marcus said he had left her on the sands—with—

“Oh, yes, I know, the nice girl with dark eyes—tragic eyes, tragic eyes set in a calm face. Nature plays curious tricks, doesn’t she?”

“Yes—I suppose she does. She is my niece.”

“The girl with the tragic eyes—that accounts for it, then.”

“No—no—the child.”

“A delightful child.”

That started Marcus—off he went. It was astonishing how much he found to say about Shan’t. From her getting up in the morning to her going to bed at night: he told it all—and the woman in the bath-chair listened with gentle amusement. Here was a father utterly wasted. This man should marry: but not the girl with tragic, happy, big brown eyes. She mustn’t marry a man who would criticize her and be ashamed of her connections. This man was not a big enough man to marry her. He must marry one of his set; who knew what to say and when to say it, and how to say it: who would have things social at her finger-tips. The woman in the bath-chair liked the girl with brown eyes, but she saw at a glance what background should be hers. She settled her in her home with a devoted husband. They would furnish in suites. The girl would have her embroidered tea-cosy: that was certain and a table centre of Indian embroidery—it might be worked in gold thread: it might be worked in green beetles. She would wear—? She would dress in the height of the fashion. This was delightful. The elderly woman loved making up stories about people. But it didn’t amuse Marcus; he didn’t know what she was smiling at.

“What amuses you?” he asked.

“So much—nearly everything! In fact everything except the tragedies of life—and those often might have been avoided if some one had laughed at the right moment.”

“The difficulty is to know the right moment,” said Marcus. “What amused you?”

She told him: described the home she had chosen for the girl. Marcus said she was very unkind. Why unkind? she wanted to know. She was praising the girl, if only he could see it. That was why he could never marry a girl like that: he could never see how delightful, how wholesome, how splendid she was.

“If you had a son—would you like him to marry her?”

“No, because my son might, I am afraid, be something like you. Too spoilt to be natural. Both you and he would look for things that are superficial and unnecessary—a certain easy manner—a ready jargon. You are perfectly right to look for it, for you have come to expect it. As I say, you would criticize this girl—and criticism would stunt her growth. She would be unnatural, and in course of time she would be unhappy. But the young man she should marry will admire her: bring out the best in her: encourage her; and in course of time what she must learn will be taught her by her sons and daughters. The daughters will criticize her and the sons will force her to be different. By that time she will be ready to change—and in the background there will always be her husband to tell her, when they find themselves alone, that he liked her best as she was, and things as they used to be. And if she had not been so happy young she would never have such fine boys and girls, and it is her boys and girls—girls particularly—who are going to make England. Now let us see the little niece—I am rather blind—I cannot see her face at a distance.”

Marcus called “Shan’t” and Mrs. Sloane smiled. This Marcus did not see. He was rearranging the skirts of Shan’t: pulling up her socks; arranging her hair, so that some of it at least showed under her hat; then he patted her generally, as any mother might have done.

“Well?” said the elderly woman.

“Oh!” said Shan’t, beaming.

Marcus was delighted to see how quickly they made friends. Every one took to Shan’t.

He turned and found the dark-eyed girl coming towards him—shyly advancing. She was certainly too self-conscious. “My mother says we should be so pleased if you would come shrimping with us this afternoon and come to supper afterwards.” She had made the great advance; Marcus would have retreated, but he had been caught unprepared; he hesitated, seeking an excuse. The first that presented itself to him was that his legs were too pale, as Shan’t’s had been: the next that he didn’t shrimp.

“But you must have supper somewhere?” she suggested.

Marcus could not say that as a rule he did not have it anywhere, so he said—“Oh, thank you—”

“Then you _will_?”

While Marcus was talking to the girl the elderly woman stooped forward—and drew Shan’t towards her. “Shan’t, darling,” she said, “don’t tell Uncle Marcus I know you. For a joke, let’s pretend.”

“Let’s!” said Shan’t, enchanted. She required no more than a hint, and when Marcus came back, deeply engaged to supper, he found the two talking—making conversation.

“Have you many children?” asked Shan’t, sitting down on an inverted tin bucket.

“No—I have no children.”

“That’s—a pity, isn’t it?”

“Yes—it’s a great pity.”

“No boys—not one? Perhaps you’ve forgotten—? You might have one or two—perhaps in the toy cupboard—”

“Not one.”

“Oh, dear—I hope your little dog is quite well?”

“Thank you very much—but my little dog is dead.”

“Oh, dear—I _am_ surprised—they don’t generally—but the gooseberries are very good this year, at least I think they are.”

“Excellent,” said the elderly lady; “I have never seen better.”

“And the red-currants are rather good,” said Shan’t.

“Excellent.”

“Do you paddle often?” asked Shan’t.

“No, I have just had influenza.”

“Oh, dear—that’s rather a pity.”

“It is, isn’t it?”

“It _is_—what shall I say next?” she whispered.

“You mustn’t whisper,” said Marcus; “it isn’t polite.”

“I think—I’ll just go—and look for—crabs,” said Shan’t, getting pink.

“Do,” said the elderly woman. “A most intelligent child,” she added, turning to Marcus, “but why does she wear shoes and socks and a hat?”

“Ought she not?” asked Marcus anxiously.

“She would be happier without—but leave her now. Tell me about her.”

“She’s a curious child in some ways—the way she makes friends, surely, is unusual; and her conversation with you—rather advanced for a child of her age, isn’t it?”

“Most unusual.”

“It’s not dangerous, is it?”

“I see no possible danger in her talking to me.”

“No; I mean she isn’t too clever for her age, is she?”

“She is so much with you—isn’t she?”

Marcus smiled—“Oh, I didn’t mean that.”

That evening Mrs. Sloane wrote a letter and it ran as follows:

DEAREST ELSIE,—I have met the ogre. He’s really rather an ingratiating ogre and the most attentive of uncles. He is delightful with Shan’t. He is taken for a widower with his little girl. One dark-eyed siren has already tried to enchant him. I have interfered. The girl is much too good for him, and in other ways unsuitable. He couldn’t make her happy and she certainly would make him very unhappy. He would be in no danger at all if he were not bored and the mother managing. I don’t see, Elsie, why you should dislike him. He doesn’t know that I know you. Amusing, isn’t it? Shan’t and I are in the secret. She plays up splendidly—makes conversation and asks me how many children I have. She seems very happy and quite at home. She is too heavily hatted and stoutly shod, but I have interfered there, too. To me the uncle seems wasted. He should marry. I should make friends, if I were you.

To which Elsie wrote back that she was perfectly friendly towards Mr. Maitland. It was he who was impossible. She certainly couldn’t make advances. He had been very rude and very selfish about Diana. Diana, dear child, was very loyal to him and never said anything against him. Shan’t, of course, childlike, would be fond of any one who indulged her.

The elderly woman lay back in her chair and laughed when she read Elsie’s letter. Elsie was perfectly friendly towards the poor uncle. What would she be if she were unfriendly?

X

_It takes an engineer to dam a river: a mere man may stem the tide of a child’s crying, and if he can’t there is always the woman waiting; it’s her job._

“Horrible!” thought Marcus as he made his way towards the house where lodged the girl and her mother, and he supposed her brothers and sisters. Supper? And shrimps for supper? The shrimps he had been asked to shrimp for? Why had Shan’t got him into this difficulty?

It was her fault. If she had been less get-at-able, less ready with her all-embracing smile, he would never have known the girl and her mother. If Sibyl hadn’t married Eustace Carston this could never have happened.

Arrived at the house Marcus found the door wide open. He knocked on it with his stick and viciously broke a blister in the paint which took him back to the joys of boyhood. Out rushed a small boy—exactly the kind of small boy he should have expected. A boy covered with sand—his hair full of it—his knees sandy—his stockings held sand in every rib.

“Hullo! You have come, then? Mum said you would funk it at the last moment.”

“Did she?” asked Marcus. Was here an excuse he could seize—

“Come in—the teapot’s on the table.”

Marcus followed the sandy boy into a room that seemed full to overflowing—of the girl’s relations. They all had great big eyes, some brown, some blue: all too big. Their cheeks were too pink—they were all horribly healthy. It was just the sort of family she would belong to. The girl detached herself from a crowd gathered round what they chose to call an aquarium, to make much of Marcus—to put him at his ease. She wore a pink blouse and was quite free from sand. Her cheeks were flushed, but that might come from shrimping. She was a little too pleased to see him, and a little too grateful to him for coming. Perhaps she knew how much he was suffering. She must know he wasn’t accustomed to this kind of thing. He thought of Diana. How would she look in the midst of this family? Delightfully cool, he knew, and tremendously amused. She would love to see him being made a fuss of by the wrong kind of people.

The sandy boy, having given his sister her chance, proceeded to take his and monopolized Mr. Maitland.

Marcus thought in despair that the tea, if ever possible at this hour, must by now be quite undrinkable. The sandy boy had a crab in water to show Mr. Maitland, and a starfish imprisoned—it had died—and there were jellyfish in a bucket—jellyfish of all pets the least likely to move Marcus to enthusiasm. He tried to be interested—was beginning to like the small boy a little—when the mother came and told Sandy to leave Mr. Maitland alone.

“Why should Rose have him?” asked the sandy boy, defiantly.

“Sandy, you scamp,” said his mother, “what nonsense you talk!”

“It _isn’t_—you _said_—we were to leave Rosie with Mr. Maitland—”

“Sandy, Sandy, where do you expect to go to—?”

“_When?_ Well—you said, we were to leave him”—nodding in Marcus’s direction—“to Rosie—it comes to the same thing.”

“Are you interested in old things, Mr. Maitland?” asked Mrs. Madder.

Marcus said he was—in some old things.

“We are always on the lookout—this is a sweet little print, isn’t it?” She held out a cheaply framed, hand-coloured print for his inspection.

Marcus looked at it and asked where she had got it.

“Oh, that’s telling,” she answered playfully; “the man said it was a bargain, though I don’t think even he knew its true value. What do you think I gave for it?”

Marcus said he had no idea. Mrs. Madder challenged him to guess, but did not wait to hear whether he made a good guess or not. He must see the quaintest little bit of china she had bought! Was he jealous? That it was quaint Marcus could say with perfect truth—with less truth that he was very jealous.

“It’s such fun collecting, isn’t it?” she asked impetuously. She was terribly impetuous and inclined to be playful.

He admitted it was—great—fun.

“And it doesn’t cost much, if you know!”

Marcus said no doubt she was right, it was a question of knowledge, and he sat with the china woolly lamb in his hands, with his thoughts on that horrible teapot.

“Isn’t supper ready?” asked some one.

“Ages ago,” said the sandy boy; “I simply yelled that the teapot was on the table.”

“You should have said it louder,” suggested another.

Marcus was put next to Rosie; Mrs. Madder explaining that there was no need for ceremony; besides, she was so busy with the teapot she wouldn’t be able to amuse Mr. Maitland:—and Auntie was deaf, so she liked to have her next her, so that she could repeat the jokes to her. “Here, Auntie! Next to me; I will tell you if Mr. Maitland says anything amusing.”

On the other side of Marcus sat a man who, gathering that Mr. Maitland was interested in old things, told him of all the cheap places he knew in London—and after having done that, told him most of the contents of a shilling hand-book on “How to collect anything, and everything.” It was most interesting—only a shilling! He would lend it to Mr. Maitland.

Mr. Maitland said he had hardly time to collect everything. The man smiled and said it did not mean “everything” literally, naturally, and he was hurt and refused to talk any more. Gratefully Marcus turned to the quiet Rose at his other side who had nothing to teach him, but a generous sympathy to offer any one. She was ready to be sorry about anything—sorry that he wouldn’t have any more tea—no more lobster salad? Well, blanc-mange, then? Not with strawberry jam? Well—sardines? Shrimps, then? Shrimps, he _must_, because they were the shrimps he ought to have caught.

No, nothing, Marcus assured her. He had dined—suppered—he had had quite enough.

“We make cocoa when we come in,” said Rose, beaming at him.

Here at least was certain comfort and something to look forward to.

“Come in from where?” he asked.

“Oh, we just go out and wander about—it’s so delicious—you will—won’t you? It’s too hot to stay indoors, isn’t it?”

“Much too hot.”

“Before you go out, Rosie,” said her mother, “just play Mr. Maitland that dear little Berceuse—Tum-ti tum-ti tum—you know.”

“Oh, no, mother.”

“Oh, no,” said Marcus.

“Don’t you like music?” she asked, surprised, men so often did.

“I have never—”

“Well you should hear Rosie. I’m sure you would like it—but I’m afraid the piano hasn’t been tuned—”

“Please don’t, mother!”

“After all we have paid for you, Rosie! Rosie!”

“Some other time,” pleaded Marcus; “it’s so hot indoors.”

“Do you find it hot? Sandy, let Mr. Maitland sit next the door; there, do move, Mr. Maitland! Auntie, make room for Mr. Maitland and Rosie.” She shook her head, “She can’t hear. Well, shall we go out, then?”