Pall Mall/'G.H. and I'

by E. Nesbit

“G.H. AND I.”

 

“DEAR Mr. I,—

“I have read your book about G.H. and I, very much, and I like it very much, and I should like to see you very much, and your little girl, becos I think you unnerstand about little girls, and why do not come and see me at my home. I live the Mill Hous at Lynchurch. Will you come to tea. Charlotte would say yes if I ask her, but she has got the Inflewhensir. So I will say good-bye,

“from your loving little friend,
“Rosamund.”

It took Rosamund nearly two hours to write the letter, and even then she was not quite sure about the spelling. Influenza in particular had a strange look, she thought. But at last she folded the three sheets covered with large unsteady writing, and put them in an envelope. She dropped much red sealing-wax on the letter, and a little on her hands; but she would not cry, because Charlotte was ill, and besides, little girls had to be brave. Then she felt in her pocket for her penny, and went down the dusty road to the post office, tying the strings of her sun-bonnet as she went. The fisher people at their doors nodded to her as she passed, and watched her out of sight before they resumed their work of net mending or their occupation of gossip.

Rosamund and Charlotte were a godsend to Lynchurch. They gave the village people something to talk about—something beyond tides and takes, the look of the sky, and the hardness of times nowadays. For in Lynchurch is little happening, and the letting of the Mill House was an event. That it should be let to an unmarried lady with one little girl, who was no relation, and who called the lady simply Charlotte, was an event still more startling; and the tongues of Lynchurch gossips were busy. Not ill-naturedly, though, for they are a kindly folk; and when it was found that Miss Haddon “paid her way,” and was not “stuck up” in the matter of allowing Rosamund to play on the beach with the fisher children, Lynchurch made up its mind to the situation, and went on talking.

Now the two had lived in the Mill House for a year—through the changing seasons: had known all the varying glories of the autumn sunsets over the marsh behind the black ruined mill; the strenuous gales of winter, when one is glad to hold on to the palings to keep one’s footing as one goes down the street; the golden summer, when the wide yellow sands are steeped and dyed in the sunlight, and the sea is a living jewel—sapphire and diamond in one; and the chill spring days, when sea and sky are one pale opal, and the wind moans across the marshes and the beach, where the gulls fly low across the pools left by the tide.

They were happy days for Rosamund, alone with the one she loved best. What stories Charlotte knew, what store of songs, what enchanting games, and what new and fascinating pursuits, resembling lessons only remotely, yet bringing with them that sense of duty performed which hitherto had only come after the dreariest routine of “learning by heart”! As the year swung round, every day drew Rosamund nearer to her dear, dear Charlotte. And now suddenly it was all over: Charlotte was ill—a woman from the village came in for the little business of housework over which they two had been so merry—and Rosamund was not allowed even to climb the stairs which led to Charlotte’s room. A bed was made up for her in the little dining-room, and she was left to amuse herself as best she could, without songs or stories or games. She tried to draw; but when you are eight years old drawing is dull work unless some kindly critic be at hand to praise your efforts. The fisher children, with whom at other times she loved to play, ceased to charm her now: Charlotte was ill, and Rosamund’s mood was one of deep melancholy; the rough play of the other children jarred on her. So she read and re-read all her books, and most of all she read and loved a little volume by an unknown author, called “G.H. and I.” She found it among Charlotte’s books, and hailed it as a treasure. It was a father’s record, simply given, of a little child’s ways and words—of the goodness and naughtiness of a little child, a little child like herself. She had many other books that told of the sayings and doings of children—their sins and their repentances—but none like this. Rosamund could not have analysed her sensations, could not have told you why this book was dearer to her than all the others. Perhaps it was not so much the fidelity of the picture of child-life, as the passionate love, the tender insight of the father, that held her. For the book was no story, was not really a child’s book at all: had only the tale of how G.H. planted seeds, how she gathered flowers, how she was lost in the snow, and above all—not told in words, but revealed in every detail, every phrase—the story of how G.H.’s father loved her. And as Rosamund read the book over and over, it seemed to her that since Charlotte was ill, and the world very empty and sad, it would be a happy thing to see this father and his little girl come down the road to Mill House. Unconsciously Rosamund had identified herself, as children will, with the child of whom she had read. She had come to believe that this father loved her, Rosamund, as he loved his own little girl with the funny name. It was nicer to be G.H., she thought, than to be Grace Howard, or whatever the little girl had been christened. She wondered whether, when he came, he would call her R.V. instead of Rosamund; for she never doubted that he would come. And he came.

It had been raining all day, and now the evening breeze had swept the clouds in purple heaps into the west, and built them into an arch across the door of the golden chamber where the sun was going to bed, and from under the lintel of the cloud doorway the level sunbeams fell across the marsh, turning dyke and hedgerow, field and lichened farm, to wondrous images wrought in fine gold.

Rosamund was sitting on the grey fence opposite the house. The fence is very crooked, because the wind has been trying for years to blow it down, and the fence yields a little every year. But that only makes it the more comfortable to sit on when you are on the right side of it—though it is very awkward to climb over from the wrong side.

As Rosamund sat there, looking at the red sunlight behind the black mill, she heard a footstep on the road, and turned to look, It was a man in brown knickerbockers and jacket, with a beard. The beard looked red in the evening sunlight, and the man looked kind, she thought; but he was a stranger. She was not afraid of strangers, but all the same she sought the moral support of her own home. She got off the fence, ran across to the garden gate, shut it after her, and from between its white bars stood to watch the stranger go by. She was interested in him because he was walking. Nearly all the brown-knickerbockered figures who passed the house were on bicycles; their passage was too swift to allow time for the development of interest.

But this stranger did not pass. He looked at the house, and he looked at the mill looming black from beyond the patch of green behind the house. Then he looked at her, and came close up to the gate.

“You are Rosamund,” he said. “I got your letter, and I have come to tea.”

“Are you really ‘I’?” said Rosamund. “Where is G.H.?”

“I couldn’t bring her. Are you glad to see me?”

“Yes, Mr. I,—very glad.”

“May I come in?”

“No, don’t. Only yesterday I asked Ethel to tea,—she’s Marsh’s little girl: he’s one of the coastguards,—and Mrs. Bates said I wasn’t to have any one to tea till Charlotte was better.”

“That’s unlucky for me. However, let’s go down to the sea wall. Hullo! it’s raining again. You must run in.”

“Come to the mill,” said Rosamund. “You must run. Come along.”

They ran hand in hand across the green to the old mill, Rosamund’s favourite play-place. For long enough the mill had been past work; the boards were rotting away, and the great stones lay silent and idle. It was used now as a storehouse for nets, tools, old harness, and lumber generally. The owner of the mill used it, but it was Rosamund who loved and enjoyed it.

“Come up, Mr. I,” she said hospitably, pausing at the foot of the broken stair. “We will prop open the west door, and then we shan’t feel the wind; and we can look at the pretty marshes, and see the king go to bed.”

“What king?”

“Why, the sun. Don’t you know the old French kings used to have lots of people to see them go to bed? But only one king does it now, and he is King Sun. And all the poor people may see him as well as the nasty rich ones.”

She had flung open the wooden shutter, and the marsh and the sunset were before them—a picture framed in the soft darkness of the old timbers.

Rosamund spread a sack on the floor. “Sit down,” she said, “and tell me all about G.H. and I.”

“Why, all that was told in the book. Have you written a book about Charlotte and Rosamund?”

“Not yet,” was the cautious answer.

“Then don’t you see that you must tell me all about yourself at once!—or else we don’t start fair.”

“Oh,” she said vaguely, “there’s nothing to tell about us. We never got lost in the snowstorm or anything. Oh, dear Mr. I, it was good of you to come! Have you come all the way from London?”

“No, only from Folkestone. They sent your letter on to me; but if I had been in Timbuctoo I would have come just the same, dear.” He pulled her envelope from his pocket and looked at it. It was much marked in blue pencil, through which one could still read in round and shaky characters:—

“To Mr. I

who wrote about G. H.

“There is the name Longman Green and Co. in the book. I think that is the shop where he bought the paper. Perhaps they will know.”

“I didn’t know your address, but I thought it would be all right,” she said triumphantly.

“And so it was. You are a lucky little girl, Rosamund, to live in a house that has a windmill to it.”

“That was why Charlotte took it.”

“Ah, yes. By-the-bye, who is Charlotte? They told me in the village Miss Haddon lived in this house.”

“That is Charlotte: she is my dearest dear. She lived in the same house as us in London.” Rosamund shuddered and made a face. ‘“London is a very nasty place,” she added: “I hate it.”

“And how did you come to leave it?”

“My aunt died. I did not like her very much, but I am sorry she died. It is not nice to die: you go into a black box in the ground, and you never see anything again—never never never. Mrs. Langridge told me.”

“That isn’t what really happens,” he said; “that’s only a sort of pretending. But we’ll talk about that another time. Tell me about your aunt and your dearest dear.”

“My aunt used to go out nearly always to speak at meetings about Women’s Rights,—I think that’s the name: I’ve seen it printed,—and then I was left. And I haven’t any one else. I haven’t got a father, like G.H., nor a mother. How is G.H.’s mother?”

“She is well,” he said quickly. “And so you were left alone? Poor little Mousie!”

“So then I used to go and sit with Charlotte. She writes history books, and she let me sit with her. Her room was so pretty—not like ours—and we used to make tea.”

“Yes?”

“And then my aunt died. And Mrs. Langridge—she was the woman of the house—and she said I was going to the workhouse; and Charlotte was away! And then, just when they were going to send me ... oh!”

Again Rosamund shuddered, and he put his arm round her.

“And then Charlotte came, and she said I should be her own little girl. She has no one belonging to her either, and it cost too much money to live in London, so we came to dear, precious, lovely Lynchurch; and I am Charlotte’s very own little girl for ever and ever.”

“God bless her!” said he.

“He does,” the child said softly: “I tell Him to every day, twice, when I say my prayers.”

Then Rosamund begged for more tales of G.H., and would not be denied, so the tales were told, but slowly and haltingly; and at last the light was almost gone, and there was silence in the old mill. Rosamund leant her head against her new friend’s shoulder.

“I wish I had a father like you,” she said at last. “I wish you would play at being my father, and let G.H. be my little sister. I would be very kind to her: really and truly I would.”

He kissed her rough brown hair.

“My dear little bird, it’s time for you to go to roost. Have you told Charlotte about me?”

“No: I mustn’t see her.”

“Well, don’t tell her till I give you leave. And come down to the beach by the first martello tower to-morrow, if it’s fine, and I’ll tell you some more stories.”

And Rosamund went the next day and heard stories—stories more connected and coherent; and again the next day saw them meet, and the next, and the next,—till Lynchurch, watching, made up its mind that this rich gentleman staying at the “Ship” was either Rosamund’s long-lost father, or was an eccentric person looking for a little girl to adopt. “But Miss Charlotte will have a word to say about that,” added Lynchurch.

So the days went on, and Charlotte came downstairs, and presently was able to go out for a little. Rosamund, true to her promise, had breathed no word of her new friend; and Mrs. Bates, the woman who came in to do the housework and attend to Charlotte, had perhaps been bribed to secrecy: at any rate she said nothing. But as Charlotte grew better Rosamund’s long absences began to worry her. She asked herself “What is it the child runs after all day? Is she, too, going to leave off loving me?” And she sighed, and crept down to the beach to look for the child.

Far along the beach she saw Rosamund’s red fisher-cap—a bright spot of colour. She crept under the sea wall and waited, for the red spot was moving slowly towards her. Some one was with Rosamund: Charlotte wondered who it could be. Then she shut her eyes and waited, for she was very tired.

The little red cap was moving so slowly across the sands because Rosamund was absorbed in a story which her new friend was telling her.

“And so the two children grew up, and he loved her more than anything in the world, and they were going to be married. And then they quarrelled. Oh, Rosamund, never quarrel with the people you love. It is a dreadful thing.”

“I won’t,” said Rosamund promptly. “Go on.”

“It was such a silly quarrel—all about nothing that really mattered at all; and he said he never wanted to see her again, and he went away. And when he came to his senses he went back, of course—and she was gone.”

“Gone where?”

“I don’t know. And he has been looking, looking, looking ever since.”

“I do hope he will find her. Make a pretty end to the story, and let him find her—find her quite soon. It is a pretty story, especially about when they were little, and the snowstorm. It’s like G.H.”

“Yes, that part of the story is pretty. Well, sweetheart, maybe we’ll find a happy ending to it yet, for do you know——”

“Oh,” cried Rosamund, as they crossed the last groin by the martello tower, “here’s Charlotte!”

He stopped short.

“Darling,” he said very earnestly, “go and tell her you have brought her an old friend,—some one who... No—tell her you have brought G.H.’s father. No—tell her her oldest friend is here. Don’t startle her. “Tell her quietly.”

He flung himself over the groin again, and lay in the sand under its shadow, waiting.

Rosamund, a little bewildered, yet went to carry out his bidding.

She sat down suddenly beside Charlotte, who opened her eyes and reached out a languid hand to meet the child’s warm red sandy fingers.

“My dearest dear,” said Rosamund abruptly, “there is somebody behind the groin.”

“Yes,” said Charlotte, still languid.

“He is a great friend of mine, and he told me to tell you.”

“How long have you been such great friends?” Charlotte’s interest was awakening.

“Oh, a long time—two weeks quite.”

“And you never told me? Oh, Rosamund!” The voice was reproachful.

“Oh, my dearest dear, don’t be angry,” cried Rosamund, throwing her arms round Charlotte’s neck. “He told me not to.”

“And now he says——”

“And now he said I was to tell you G.H.’s father was here; and then he said not to tell you that, but ... Oh, Charlotte, what is it?”

“Is he here?” said Charlotte in a strange voice. “I should like to see him again—just once.”

So Rosamund, now completely mystified, ran across the sand and fetched him, dragging him by the hand to where Charlotte sat in the sun under the sea wall.

“Here he is!” she cried triumphantly.

And the stranger dropped on one knee by Charlotte and said, “Oh, Charlotte!” and he said no more for quite a long time: only he looked at Charlotte’s face and at nothing else.

Then he said to Rosamund, “Go down to the edge of the sea, and bring me the biggest queen-shell you can find.” So Rosamund went.

Then he took Charlotte’s hand and said: “At last! Oh, my dear, how could you go away like that? How could you do it?”

“It is five years ago,” Charlotte was saying in a dull voice.

“Can you forgive me? Is it too late? Oh, Charlotte, it isn’t too late, is it?”

“Is she dead?” Charlotte asked, and her face was turned away.

“Is who dead?”

“The other woman?”

“What other woman?”

“G.H.’s mother.”

Then he laughed out.

“Oh, my dear, my dear, did you believe it of me? Did you think there was a wife in my heart, when all the time there was only you? There is no wife, there is no G.H. There is nothing but you—but you!”

“I don’t understand,” she said. “I knew it was your book because of the snowstorm. Do you remember when you took your coat off to wrap me in?—do you remember?”

“Do I remember! Charlotte, can’t you understand how I have thought of you and you and you—and what our life might have been together, and how at last it got itself written? I have no wife but you.” He paused a moment, and then said, quietly, “Charlotte, G.H. was our dream child.”

Then she crept into his arms, careless of the sympathetic glance of a boatman smoking in the wall above.

“Then it was not true,” she said after awhile: “it was all imagination.”

“Imagination and—and love, my dear.”

“Why did you call her G.H.?”

“I called her C.H., because they were your initials. The printers put G., and the publisher thought ‘G.H. and I’ a good title, because the letters come together in the alphabet, you know.”

Here Rosamund returned with the queen-shell.

“Rosamund,” he said, catching her hands, “you know how well I make up stories? Well, all that about G.H. and I was just a make-up, because I had no wife and no little girl, and I wanted them both so badly.”

“Oh dear,” said Rosamund gloomily, “then I shall never have her to play with”; and her lip drooped and trembled.

“You will have me at any rate. I’ve told our dearest dear how much I want a wife, and she is going to be my wife,—and as for my little girl——”

“Oh,” cried Rosamund, jumping for joy, “then your little girl will be Me!”

“Exactly. I must have been thinking of you when I wrote the book—of you and Charlotte.”

“Then you knew Charlotte before?”

“Haven’t I been telling you about our being children together?”

“Then it was Charlotte in the snowstorm! Well, if it couldn’t be G.H., and it couldn’t be me, I’m glad it was Charlotte. My dearest dear, I hope you’ll be as nice to him as his wife was in the book.”

“I’ll try,” said Charlotte meekly.

“And I’ll try to be as naughty as G.H.—I will really and truly,” said Rosamund. “Charlotte, you look as if you had just washed your face—it’s all pink and damp. But your eyes are very bright. Aren’t you glad he’s come?”

“Yes,” said Charlotte.

“I told you God would bless her,” said Rosamund, creeping in between them.

“He has blessed me,” said Charlotte softly.

“He has blessed me,” said the man reverently; and across the child’s head the eyes of the lovers met.

E. Nesbit