Explorers of the Dawn (February 1922)/Chapter 10
I think we must have felt that he was coming, for we awoke at dawn that morning. I could barely see the silvery bars between the slats of the shutters. The Seraph was stirring in his sleep, and in a moment he whispered: "I say, John, what's that long black thing behind the door?"
"Just some clothes hung up," I whispered back.
"I fought they moved," he said. "Do you fink the wardrobe door moved, John?"
"Everything seems a little queer this morning," I replied. "I heard a whispering sort of noise at the shutters a bit ago."
Angel began to talk in his sleep.
"If three suns were to rise at six," he muttered, "how many stars would it take to make a moon?"
The Seraph began to laugh delightedly. He kicked his legs and showed all his little white teeth. Angel opened his eyes and stared at us crossly. "What a beastly row," he said. "I want to sleep some more."
The silver bars between the slats of the shutters took a golden tinge. Clearly it was to be a fine day, after a week of rain and sleet.
The chimes of the Cathedral sounded. The notes came with penetrating sweetness as though the air were cold and clear. We heard the door of Mary Ellen's room open; she descended the back stairs noisily.
The Seraph turned a somersault in the middle of the bed.
"Cwistmas is coming," he said, trying to stand on his head, "and I want a pony."
We threw ourselves into a general scuffle, and the old-four-poster creaked and the bolster fell to the floor.
Then up the cavernous backstairs came the peal of the front door bell. We heard Mary Ellen drop the poker and run through the house. It was an unheard of hour for the front door bell to ring. We sat up in bed in stiffened attitudes of expectancy. Mary Ellen was mounting the front stair. She rapped loudly at Mrs. Handsomebody's bedroom door. There were whispers. Then Mrs. Handsomebody's voice came decidedly:
"Go about your work with the utmost speed. Say nothing to the boys of this. I shall tell them when they have had their breakfast."
In a moment she appeared at our door in her purple dressing-gown, an expression of repressed excitement on her face. A sunbeam slanting through the passage rested on the fringe of curl-papers about her head so that she looked like some elderly saint wearing a rather ragged halo.
"I have received news," she announced, with more than usual firmness, "which will make it necessary for us to rise immediately. Dress as quickly as you can, and help your little brother. What a state you have got that bed into! You deserve to be punished." She stood for a moment, her eyes resting on us with a curious look, then, with a sigh, she turned away and went back to her room.
At breakfast she still wore her dressing-gown, an unprecedented laxity. Beside her on the table-cloth lay a crumpled piece of buff paper. So it was by telegram that the news had come. Instantly I thought. The telegram is from father. He is coming home. Maybe he is on his way. In London even! The food would not go down my throat. Shudders of excitement shook me.
I looked at Angel. Taking advantage of Mrs. Handsomebody's absorption he was spreading a second spoonful of sugar over his porridge. The Seraph was staring, spoon in hand, into Mrs. Handsomebody's set face. He said—
"Mrs. Handsomebody, if I was to smile at you, would you smile back at me?"
"Alexander," replied Mrs. Handsomebody, "I hope I have never been found wanting in courtesy. But, at present, I should prefer to see you eat your breakfast with as much speed as possible. John, eat your porridge."
"I can't, please."
"Eat it instantly, sir."
"I can't," I repeated, beginning to blubber, "I want to see father!"
"Eat your porridge and you shall see him. He will be here at ten o'clock. Silence, now, no uproar. My nerves are under quite enough strain." She poured herself fresh tea, and continued:
"There will be no tasks today. After breakfast you will put on your best jackets and collars, and sit in the parlour until he arrives. I implore you to be as composed as possible."
The questions that poured from us were hushed by a gesture of her inflexible, white hand. Dazed by the news, we were herded back to our bedroom, hurried into stiff white collars and hustled into shining Sunday shoes. There was the sound of cold water tinkling in the basin; of straining bootlaces; and of the creaking of a loose board in the floor every time Mary Ellen stepped on it. Scarcely a word was spoken. Now that what we had so long strained towards was at hand we stood breathless before the immensity of it. The long year and nine months at Mrs. Handsomebody's fell like a heavy curtain between us and the past. Our father's face had grown hazy to us. I think The Seraph only pretended to remember. His coming had been held over our heads so long, as a time of swift retribution, that a feeling of doubt, almost terror, mingled with our joy.
At last we were ready. With shining faces, burning ears, and quickly tapping hearts, we went soberly down the stairs. The door of the parlour stood wide open. Mrs. Handsomebody, herself, was dusting the case of stuffed birds, whose plumage, sadly thinned by the attentions of Coppertoes, seemed to quiver with expectancy.
We were instructed to wait inside the iron gate, at the front, until train time, when we were to be recalled to the parlour, and take our places on three chairs, already ranged in a row for us. Thus we were to be displayed by Mrs. Handsomebody, to our sire.
We found Granfa polishing the brass on the front door, his white locks bobbing as he rubbed.
"Oh, Granfa," we cried, "have you heard the news?"
"Ess fay," he replied, straightening his back, "for thiccy Mary Ellen came a-galloping at top speed to ask me to shine the brasses for 'ee, knowing I have a wonderful art that way. The poor Zany was all in a mizmaze."
"Are you glad father's coming?"
"Glad! I be so joyful as a bulfinch in springtime. See how the very face of Natur' be lit up for the grand occasion."
The sky had, indeed, become deeply blue, and a great pink cloud hung above the Cathedral like a welcoming banner. There had been frost in the night forming thin ice over the puddles in the road. All those reflected the serene pink of the cloud, a blue pigeon picked his way delicately among them. A sweet-smelling wind swayed the moist brown limbs of the elm trees. All the world seemed like a great organ attuned to joy.
"Suppose," suggested Angel, "that we just race around to the cobbler's and tell him the news. The Dragon is too busy to miss us."
The very thing! It would take only a few minutes and would be something to do to pass the time. Softly we slipped through the iron gate; lightly we hastened along the shining wet street; under the shadow of the Cathedral, whose spire seemed to taper to the sky; down narrow, winding Henwood Street till we reached the cobbler's shop.
Martindale was standing in the open door his face raised as though he were drinking in the fragrance of the morning. A chorus of bird song came from inside.
"Hallo, Mr. Martindale," Angel shouted. "What do you suppose? Father's coming home."
"He'll be here In less than two hours," I panted.
The cobbler put a dark hand on a shoulder of each. "That's grand news, little masters," he said. "But I hope he won't take you so far away that I shall never see you. The birds like you too. They never sing so loud as when you are in the shop."
While he was speaking we heard footsteps coming quickly down Henwood street around the corner. They were quick, sharp footsteps that rang on the frosty air. "It's curious," said the cobbler, "how footsteps sound here. I think it's the Cathedral walls that give that ringing sound."
We turned to watch for the approaching pedestrian. We wondered who he was that walked with such an eager, springing step. He turned the corner. He faced us. Then he laughed out loud and said, "Hello!"
We were, for a second, simply staggered. We made incoherent noises like young animals. Then we were snatched by rough tweed arms, a small, stiff moustache rasped our cheeks, and—"Father!" we squealed, at last, in chorus.
"I found I could catch an early train," he said, "so I just hopped on, for I was in a desperate hurry to see you. What are you doing here, at this hour?" He stared at the cobbler.
"This is Mr. Martindale," I explained. "He mends our boots, and tells us stories, and he's got a bird named Coppertoes."
"So you are a friend of my boys," said father.
"Ay. And they're grand little lads, sir. I have a daughter of my own I'm very proud of, sir. She was lost for seventeen years, and your sons helped me to find her."
His daughter came to the door then to call him to breakfast. She had a yellow braid over each shoulder, and Coppertoes was sitting on her wrist with a piece of chickweed in his bill. Father stopped to admire them both.
"By George," he said, when we had left them, "if all your friends are as interesting as those, I should like to meet them."
"They are that," I said, happily, "and here's another of them."
It was Granfa, standing at the gate, his blue eyes staring with amazement. He raised his broom to his shoulder and stood at attention as we drew near.
"What a sight for the nation!" he exclaimed. "Welcome home my dear son-in-law. I be terrible proud to hand my charges over to 'ee. Us have got along famous while you was over to South Ameriky."
I trembled for fear father should say something to hurt Granfa's feelings, but he seemed to understand him at once, and shook him by the hand, and made him a present of some tobacco on the spot.
"Merciful Heaven!" screamed Mrs. Handsomebody. "Davy!" "Mr. Curzon!" She clutched her curl-papers in one hand and the front of her purple wrapper in the other. "We did not expect you for an hour yet."
Father laughed. "Well, I've saved you some of the trouble of preparing by coming early. How very well you are looking. And how well-cared-for the children. I'm delighted. I think I shall take them over to the hotel where my luggage has been sent and have a talk with them and come back later. Will that suit you?"
But Mrs. Handsomebody insisted that he have a proper breakfast, and installed us in the parlour while she retired to assume the decent armour of the day.
Father sat facing the stuffed birds. He put The Seraph on his knee, and Angel and I hung on either side of him. We were suddenly shy of him, and it seemed enough to be near him, and to feel the all-surrounding power and protection of him. His cheeks were incredibly sun-browned, with a ruddy glow beneath; his moustache and the hair at his temples were almost golden. I liked the greenish grey of his tweed suit that seemed to match his clear, wide-open eyes.
He made a wry face at the stuffed birds and then he whispered: "Old chaps, have you been happy here?"
We nodded. The past was gone. What did it matter! "Oh, but, we want to be wiv you! Don't leave us," breathed The Seraph, burrowing his face into the rough tweed shoulder.
Angel and I burrowed against him too. "Don't leave us again," we whispered.
He began to kiss us, and to rumple our heads, and to bite The Seraph's cheek. The Seraph, drunk with joy, jumped down, and pulling open the door of the glass case tried to drag a lovebird from its perch to present to father. We were just able to stop him when our governess returned.
She was dignified and smiling, in black satin and a gold chain. Mary Ellen had the breakfast laid in the dining-room and we sat about him, watching him eat. With what admiration we beheld his masterful attack on the bacon and eggs! It became awe when we saw the quantity of marmalade that he spread upon his toast.
And Mrs. Handsomebody beamed fatuously at him!
Between mouthfuls he talked. "Do you remember how I used to call you Wiggie? And the time I hid the white rat in your bonnet box?"
Mrs. Handsomebody cackled. The Seraph kicked the table leg, unreproved. I drifted after Mary Ellen to the kitchen. "Isn't he fine?" I bragged.
"Divil a finer," agreed she.
"And 'tis yersilf, Masther John," she added, "is the very spit av him. Shure it's you should be the proud bye."
"And, Mary Ellen, you are to come and live with us, you know, and have all the 'followers' you want."
"Och," she laughed, "I'm done wid followers, me dear. To tell ye the truth, Mr. Watlin and I are plannin' to git hitched up, before the New Year. An uncle of his have died and left him enough to start him in the butcherin' business on his own account. So maybe you'll dance at me weddin' yet."
"I'll give you a nice present, Mary Ellen, dear," I promised, putting my arm around her.
"Yes," she went on, squeezing me, "and the cook next door was tellin' me last night, that the word is goin' about that Miss Margery an' Misther Harry is engaged too. So there's love in the air, Masther John. D'ye mind the time 'twas yersilf was in love wid little Miss Jane? Bless yer little heart."
I fled back to the dining-room.
Mary Ellen was now dispatched to blow her whistle for a hansom, and almost before we realized it we found ourselves rolling smoothly to the hotel where father was to stay.
Next, we were in his very room, exploring, with adventurous fingers, all his admirable, tobacco-smelling belongings. When his back was turned, Angel even unsheathed his razor and flourished it, for one hair-lifting second. But father caught him and promised that he should become acquainted with the razor-strop also, if he grew too bold.
We went out and bought chocolates and toys and brought them back to his room to play with. The morning passed in a delicious dream. Then luncheon downstairs with him, the eyes of many people on us.
Among them I discovered, before long, the laughing blue eyes of Lady Simon. She was not looking at me, but very eagerly at father, as though she were trying to make him see her. In a moment she succeeded, and, without a word of explanation to us he jumped up and strode across to the table where she and Lord Simon sat. The Seraph ran after him and was gathered into her arms while she smiled and talked to father over his curls.
"Wonder if she's askin' him for another lapis lazarus necklace," said Angel, his mouth full of charlotte russe, "she'd better not, 'cos we're all he can afford now."
I did not like the idea either, so when father came back with The Seraph hanging to his coat tails, I remarked, with some asperity:
"She said you nearly ruined yourself once to buy her a pair of cream-coloured ponies."
"Yes, and a lapis lazarus necklace," added Angel, accusingly.
"I want a cweam-culled pony!" shouted The Seraph.
Father leaned over us with almost the expression of Mrs. Handsomebody in his eye.
"You shall all have ponies," he said, "any old colour you like, cream, or pink, or blue, if you'll shut up and be good."
Dazzled by the vision of a herd of rainbow-coloured ponies we suffered ourselves to be led in silence from the dining-room. Outside, father said, still with the look of Mrs. Handsomebody in his eye:
"I have to make a call on a lady in Argyle Road, my godmother. Do you feel prepared to come, and be good boys, or shall I send you back to your governess?"
"Argyle Road!" exclaimed Angel. "That's where Giftie lived."
"Want to see Giftie!" came from The Seraph, "and Colin."
"Are you going to be good?"
"Rather," said Angel. "Please take us."
Another hansom was called. We were quite prepared to see it stop before the large square house where Giftie lived. It stopped. There was a clamour of barks from three Scottish terriers as we entered the gate. In a second I had Giftie in my arms; her little, hard wriggling body pressed to my breast; her little red tongue showing between her pointed white teeth. She was wild with the joy of welcoming us, but Colin walked solemnly away, his tail very much in the air. The third dog I felt sure was one of Giftie's pups. "His name is Tam," shouted the tall grey-haired lady, having suddenly appeared, and I discovered then that we were in the drawing-room, and pulled off my cap, and smiled up at her.
"I've been saving him for you," she went on, "hoping you would turn up. The other two are sold. But Tam is for you boys, and oh, Davy," turning to father, "you must let me have them for Christmas. We shall have an enormous Christmas Tree, and look! it's beginning to snow."
It was true. Great white flakes were softly whirling past the windows, shutting us away from the outer world. The fire seemed to burn the brighter for them, the air seemed full of happiness and gay adventure. We bent over our new possession on the hearthrug in ecstasy. Tam, in ferocious playfulness, tried to show us all part of his body at once. But when we overcame him, and pinned him down, he lay limply, with his tongue out at one side, and the promise of many a future romp in his roguish brown eyes. Giftie brought a woollen bedroom slipper from upstairs to worry for our amusement. Even Colin grew friendly. The talk went on above our heads, the far-off talk of grown-ups. But stay—it was not so incomprehensible after all! What was it she was saying? A pantomime! A deserving Charity. Had tickets. Suppose we take the children. Would it bore Davy? Davy said it wouldn't.
Was all our new life to be a whirl like this? Now we were back in the hansom cab bowling through the madly dancing snowflakes. Now we were back at Mrs. Handsomebody's having tea with a double portion of jam; being scrubbed and brushed, and warned of our behaviour, sliding on the slippery soles of new boots; sniffing the fresh linen of clean handkerchiefs; watching Mrs. Handsomebody tie her bonnet strings with trembling fingers.
In a four-wheeler now, squeezed very closely together; the wheels moving heavily through the ever-deepening snow; lights flashing by the snowy windows, father's leg and boot pressing against me cruelly but giving a delicious sense of protection and good fellowship. Then the blazing light, and heat, and pressing crowd of the lobby; a sense of terror lest the pompous man who took tickets would refuse to accept those tendered by father; immense relief, as a thin, bounding individual led us down the sloping aisle. Father's guiding hand on our shoulders; we were in our seats.
On my right sat father, and beyond him Angel. On my left The Seraph and Mrs. Handsomebody, her hands clasped tensely in her lap. But who was that in the golden light beyond Angel? Who indeed but our old friend Captain Pegg who had come, it appeared, with Giftie's mistress. Lucky Angel to be next him, laughing and whispering with him! Then, lucky me to be pushed between the seats to shake his hand.
"Shiver my timbers, John," he whispered, "but I have great days to tell you of! Days of plunder and bloodshed, my hearty. I went back to the old life, for a while, you know. Look here!" He drew aside his coat and around his waist I saw that he wore a belt of alligator skin into which was thrust a curved and glittering bowie knife!
The curtain was going up. I was pulled back into my seat. My pulses throbbed as scene by scene the pantomime was disclosed before my happy eyes. Here was I, John Curzon, part of quite as good a play as yon. Pirates, love, fluttering banners, swashbuckling clowns, life stretched before me, a jolly adventure with Angel and The Seraph always there to share the fun. Now the Seraph's head had dropped to Mrs. Handsomebody's lap. He was half asleep. Her black kid hand patted his back. She was gazing with a rapt smile at the stage.
The pantomime was nearly over. The night of danger and dark alarm was past. Rosy morning broke upon the mountain side, and Columbine, reclining in a pearl-pink shell, opened her eyes and smiled upon a flowery world.
I felt father's cheek against my head. His hand covered mine. He whispered:
"Happy, John?"
I nodded, clutching his fingers. And so we met the New Day together.