XI. The Runaway Perambulator
I sometimes met David in public places such as the Kensington Gardens,where he lorded it surrounded by his suite and wearing the blank faceand glass eyes of all carriage-people. On these occasions I alwaysstalked by, meditating on higher things, though Mary seemed to think mevery hardhearted, and Irene, who had become his nurse (I forget how,but fear I had something to do with it), ran after me with messages,as, would I not call and see him in his home at twelve o'clock, at whichmoment, it seemed, he was at his best.
No, I would not.
"He says tick-tack to the clock," Irene said, trying to snare me.
"Pooh!" said I.
"Other little 'uns jest says 'tick-tick,'" she told me, with a flush ofpride.
"I prefer 'tick-tick,'" I said, whereat she departed in dudgeon.
Had they had the sense to wheel him behind a tree and leave him, I wouldhave looked, but as they lacked it, I decided to wait until he couldwalk, when it would be more easy to waylay him. However, he was acautious little gorbal who, after many threats to rise, always seemed tocome to the conclusion that he might do worse than remain where he was,and when he had completed his first year I lost patience with him.
"When I was his age," I said to Irene, "I was running about." Iconsulted them casually about this matter at the club, and they had allbeen running about at a year old.
I made this nurse the following offer: If she would bring the dilatoryboy to my rooms and leave him there for half an hour I would look athim. At first Mary, to whom the offer was passed on, rejected it withhauteur, but presently she wavered, and the upshot was that Irene,looking scornful and anxious, arrived one day with the perambulator.Without casting eyes on its occupant, I pointed Irene to the door: "Inhalf-an-hour," I said.
She begged permission to remain, and promised to turn her back, and soon, but I was obdurate, and she then delivered herself of a passionatelyaffectionate farewell to her charge, which was really all directedagainst me, and ended with these powerful words: "And if he takes offyour socks, my pretty, may he be blasted for evermore."
"I shall probably take off her socks," I said carelessly to this.
Her socks. Do you see what made Irene scream?
"It is a girl, is it not?" I asked, thus neatly depriving her ofcoherent speech as I pushed her to the door. I then turned round to--tobegin, and, after reflecting, I began by sitting down behind the hood ofhis carriage. My plan was to accustom him to his new surroundings beforebursting on the scene myself.
I had various thoughts. Was he awake? If not, better let himwake naturally. Half-an-hour was a long time. Why had I not saidquarter-of-an-hour? Anon, I saw that if I was to sit there much longer Ishould have said an hour, so I whistled softly; but he took no notice.I remember trying to persuade myself that if I never budged till Irene'sreturn, it would be an amusing triumph over Mary. I coughed, but stillthere was no response. Abruptly, the fear smote me. Perhaps he is notthere.
I rose hastily, and was striding forward, when I distinctly noticed acovert movement somewhere near the middle of the carriage, and heard alow gurgle, which was instantly suppressed. I stopped dead at this sharpreminder that I was probably not the only curious person in the room,and for a long moment we both lay low, after which, I am glad toremember, I made the first advance. Earlier in the day I had arrangedsome likely articles on a side-table: my watch and chain, my bunch ofkeys, and two war-medals for plodding merit, and with a glance at these(as something to fall back upon), I stepped forward doggedly, looking(I fear now) a little like a professor of legerdemain. David was sittingup, and he immediately fixed his eyes on me.
It would ill become me to attempt to describe this dear boy to you,for of course I know really nothing about children, so I shall say onlythis, that I thought him very like what Timothy would have been had heever had a chance.
I to whom David had been brought for judgment, now found myself beingjudged by him, and this rearrangement of the pieces seemed so naturalthat I felt no surprise; I felt only a humble craving to hear himsignify that I would do. I have stood up before other keen judges anddeceived them all, but I made no effort to deceive David; I wanted to,but dared not. Those unblinking eyes were too new to the world to behooded by any of its tricks. In them I saw my true self. They opened forme that pedler's pack of which I have made so much ado, and I foundthat it was weighted less with pretty little sad love-tokens than withignoble thoughts and deeds and an unguided life. I looked dejectedly atDavid, not so much, I think, because I had such a sorry display for him,as because I feared he would not have me in his service. I seemed toknow that he was making up his mind once and for all.
And in the end he smiled, perhaps only because I looked so frightened,but the reason scarcely mattered to me, I felt myself a fine fellow atonce. It was a long smile, too, opening slowly to its fullest extent (asif to let me in), and then as slowly shutting.
Then, to divert me from sad thoughts, or to rivet our friendship, orbecause the time had come for each of us to show the other what he coulddo, he immediately held one foot high in the air. This made him slidedown the perambulator, and I saw at once that it was very necessary toreplace him. But never before had I come into such close contact witha child; the most I had ever done was, when they were held up to me, toshut my eyes and kiss a vacuum. David, of course, though no doubt hewas eternally being replaced, could tell as little as myself how itwas contrived, and yet we managed it between us quite easily. Hisbody instinctively assumed a certain position as I touched him, whichcompelled my arms to fall into place, and the thing was done. I feltabsurdly pleased, but he was already considering what he should do next.
He again held up his foot, which had a gouty appearance owing toits being contained in a dumpy little worsted sock, and I thought heproposed to repeat his first performance, but in this I did him aninjustice, for, unlike Porthos, he was one who scorned to do the samefeat twice; perhaps, like the conjurors, he knew that the audience weremore on the alert the second time.
I discovered that he wanted me to take off his sock!
Remembering Irene's dread warnings on this subject I must say that Ifelt uneasy. Had he heard her, and was he daring me? And what dire thingcould happen if the sock was removed? I sought to reason with him, buthe signed to me to look sharp, and I removed the sock. The part of himthus revealed gave David considerable pleasure, but I noticed, as acurious thing, that he seemed to have no interest in the other foot.
However, it was not there merely to be looked at, for after giving mea glance which said "Now observe!" he raised his bare foot and ran hismouth along the toes, like one playing on a barbaric instrument. He thentossed his foot aside, smiled his long triumphant smile and intimatedthat it was now my turn to do something. I thought the best thing Icould do would be to put his sock on him again, but as soon as I triedto do so I discovered why Irene had warned me so portentously againsttaking it off. I should say that she had trouble in socking him everymorning.
Nevertheless I managed to slip it on while he was debating what to dowith my watch. I bitterly regretted that I could do nothing with itmyself, put it under a wine-glass, for instance, and make it turn intoa rabbit, which so many people can do. In the meantime David, occupiedwith similar thoughts, very nearly made it disappear altogether, and Iwas thankful to be able to pull it back by the chain.
"Haw-haw-haw!"
Thus he commented on his new feat, but it was also a reminder to me, atrifle cruel, that he was not my boy. After all, you see, Mary had notgiven him the whole of his laugh. The watch said that five and twentyminutes had passed, and looking out I saw Irene at one end of the streetstaring up at my window, and at the other end Mary's husband staring upat my window, and beneath me Mary staring up at my window. They had allbroken their promise.
I returned to David, and asked him in a low voice whether he would giveme a kiss. He shook his head about six times, and I was in despair. Thenthe smile came, and I knew that he was teasing me only. He now noddedhi
s head about six times.
This was the prettiest of all his exploits. It was so pretty that,contrary to his rule, he repeated it. I had held out my arms to him, andfirst he shook his head, and then after a long pause (to frighten me),he nodded it.
But no sooner was he in my arms than I seemed to see Mary and herhusband and Irene bearing down upon my chambers to take him from me, andacting under an impulse I whipped him into the perambulator and was offwith it without a license down the back staircase. To the KensingtonGardens we went; it may have been Manitoba we started for, but wearrived at the Kensington Gardens, and it had all been so unpremeditatedand smartly carried out that I remember clapping my hand to my head inthe street, to make sure that I was wearing a hat.
I watched David to see what he thought of it, and he had not yet madeup his mind. Strange to say, I no longer felt shy. I was grownsuddenly indifferent to public comment, and my elation increased whenI discovered that I was being pursued. They drew a cordon round me nearMargot Meredith's tree, but I broke through it by a strategic movementto the south, and was next heard of in the Baby's Walk. They held bothends of this passage, and then thought to close on me, but I slippedthrough their fingers by doubling up Bunting's Thumb into Picnic Street.Cowering at St. Govor's Well, we saw them rush distractedly up the Hump,and when they had crossed to the Round Pond we paraded gaily in theBroad Walk, not feeling the tiniest bit sorry for anybody.
Here, however, it gradually came into David's eyes that, after all, Iwas a strange man, and they opened wider and wider, until they were thesize of my medals, and then, with the deliberation that distinguisheshis smile, he slowly prepared to howl. I saw all his forces gatheringin his face, and I had nothing to oppose to them; it was an unarmed managainst a regiment.
Even then I did not chide him. He could not know that it was I who haddropped the letter.
I think I must have stepped over a grateful fairy at that moment, forwho else could have reminded me so opportunely of my famous manipulationof the eyebrows, forgotten since I was in the fifth form? I alone ofboys had been able to elevate and lower my eyebrows separately; whenthe one was climbing my forehead the other descended it, like the twobuckets in the well.
Most diffidently did I call this accomplishment to my aid now, andimmediately David checked his forces and considered my unexpectedmovement without prejudice. His face remained as it was, his mouth opento emit the howl if I did not surpass expectation. I saw that, like thefair-minded boy he has always been, he was giving me my chance, andI worked feverishly, my chief fear being that, owing to his youth,he might not know how marvellous was this thing I was doing. It is anappeal to the intellect, as well as to the senses, and no one on earthcan do it except myself.
When I paused for a moment exhausted he signed gravely, with unchangedface, that though it was undeniably funny, he had not yet decidedwhether it was funny enough, and, taking this for encouragement, at itI went once more, till I saw his forces wavering, when I sent my lefteyebrow up almost farther than I could bring it back, and with that Ihad him, the smile broke through the clouds.
In the midst of my hard-won triumph I heard cheering.
I had been vaguely conscious that we were not quite alone, but had notdared to look away from David; I looked now, and found to my annoyancethat I was the centre of a deeply interested gathering of children.There was, in particular, one vulgar little street-boy--
However, if that damped me in the moment of victory, I was soon totriumph gloriously in what began like defeat. I had sat me down on oneof the garden-seats in the Figs, with one hand resting carelessly on theperambulator, in imitation of the nurses, it was so pleasant to assumethe air of one who walked with David daily, when to my chagrin I sawMary approaching with quick stealthy steps, and already so near me thatflight would have been ignominy. Porthos, of whom she had hold, boundedtoward me, waving his traitorous tail, but she slowed on seeing that Ihad observed her. She had run me down with my own dog.
I have not mentioned that Porthos had for some time now been a visitorat her house, though never can I forget the shock I got the first timeI saw him strolling out of it like an afternoon caller. Of late he hasavoided it, crossing to the other side when I go that way, and rejoiningme farther on, so I conclude that Mary's husband is painting him.
I waited her coming stiffly, in great depression of spirits, and notedthat her first attentions were for David, who, somewhat shabbily, gaveher the end of a smile which had been begun for me. It seemed to relieveher, for what one may call the wild maternal look left her face, andtrying to check little gasps of breath, the result of unseemly running,she signed to her confederates to remain in the background, and turnedcurious eyes on me. Had she spoken as she approached, I am sure herwords would have been as flushed as her face, but now her mouth puckeredas David's does before he sets forth upon his smile, and I saw that shethought she had me in a parley at last.
"I could not help being a little anxious," she said craftily, but I mustown, with some sweetness.
I merely raised my hat, and at that she turned quickly to David--Icannot understand why the movement was so hasty--and lowered her faceto his. Oh, little trump of a boy! Instead of kissing her, he seized herface with one hand and tried to work her eyebrows up and down with theother. He failed, and his obvious disappointment in his mother was asnectar to me.
"I don't understand what you want, darling," said she in distress, andlooked at me inquiringly, and I understood what he wanted, and lether see that I understood. Had I been prepared to converse with her, Ishould have said elatedly that, had she known what he wanted, still shecould not have done it, though she had practised for twenty years.
I tried to express all this by another movement of my hat.
It caught David's eye and at once he appealed to me with the mostperfect confidence. She failed to see what I did, for I shyly gave hermy back, but the effect on David was miraculous; he signed to her to go,for he was engaged for the afternoon.
What would you have done then, reader? I didn't. In my great moment Ihad strength of character to raise my hat for the third time and walkaway, leaving the child to judge between us. I walked slowly, for I knewI must give him time to get it out, and I listened eagerly, but thatwas unnecessary, for when it did come it was a very roar of anguish. Iturned my head, and saw David fiercely pushing the woman aside, that hemight have one last long look at me. He held out his wistful arms andnodded repeatedly, and I faltered, but my glorious scheme saved me,and I walked on. It was a scheme conceived in a flash, and ever sincerelentlessly pursued, to burrow under Mary's influence with the boy,expose her to him in all her vagaries, take him utterly from her andmake him mine.