To him thus standing the pantry door was flung open, and in the doorway stood Miss Francie. Francie Forsyte was then aged twelve, a dark-haired child with thin legs always outgrowing their integuments. Her Celtic-grey eyes shone ominously.
“You’re not to go, Smith. I won’t have it. You couldn’t help being drunk when the burglars came.”
“‘Ush! Miss Francie,” said Smith, “the Master says I’ve got to.”
Francie put a hand into his.
“Dear Smith!”
Smith’s round face grew almost long.
“It’s my fault, Miss; I WAS tipsy, there’s no denyin’.”
“But how could you tell the burglars were coming?”
“I couldn’t, Miss Francie, and that’s a fact.”
“Well, then!”
“If I ‘adn’t been tipsy,” said Smith with sudden violence, “I’D ‘ave given ’em what for!” And he worked his arm up to the angle which best displayed his formidable biceps.
“Oh! Smith,” said Francie, “you ARE strong! Feel; I haven’t got ANY!” And she angled her arm, thin, like a stick. Then the thought coming to her that soon there would be no Smith to show her lack of muscle to, the water started into her eyes.
“You’re NOT to go,” she cried again. “Here’s Eustace, he’ll say so too.”
The youngest but one of the five young Rogers was now eleven, dark-haired and thin-faced like his sister, and, like her, grey-eyed, but of a calm which contrasted forcibly with Francie’s fervour. He was recovering from the mumps, which had conveniently delayed his return to school.
“Have you really got to go, Smiff?” he said. “I wouldn’t, if I were you. I should just stay.”
Smith smiled. His smile was that of the sun at noonday.
“Faver’ll forget,” added Eustace.
Smith closed an eye, a practice which beyond all things endeared him to children.
“Will’e, Master Eustace? I don’t fink.”
“I do fink,” said Eustace. “The best way wiv Faver is to take no notice. He can’t birch YOU; look at your muscle.”
Again Smith crooked his arm to the proper position. He never spent ten minutes with the children without having to do this at least once.
“Smith,” said Francie, “we’ll come with you and speak to Father.”
Smith shook his head.
“I expect he hasn’t seen your muscle,” said Eustace.
Smith smiled. Like all powerful, good-tempered, easy-going men, he was unable to say “No.”
“That’s settled then,” said Francie; “when Father comes in, Eustace and I will come for you. Come along, Eustace.”
She turned at the door: “You shan’t go–DEAR Smith!”
Smith in the centre of his pantry, slowly shook his rounded head.
He was still in undetermined mood when visited by the constable whom Roger had set in motion. Now the temperament of Smith was pre-eminently suited to the police. Sunk in humility, without edge, and highly human, it appealed to authority as cream to a cat. The constable, who had come to carp and question, remained to chat and quaff. He quaffed Roger’s beer, and said:
“S’far as I can see, ’twas accidental like; a man may sleep so sound, no burglar’d wake ’im. That was your trouble, mate. You’d ‘ad a nightcap no doubt. I’ll do me best with your governor.”
Upstairs in the dining-room Mrs. Roger was staring at the bronze clock and rehearsing a sentence which began:
“Roger, I wish you would reconsider your decision about Smith; there are many reasons why–” and then nothing would come but: “it will be out of the frying-pan into the fire,” which she could not feel to be quite dignified. Unaware of these forces being marshalled against him, Roger, alert, and with an eye on a new board announcing the sale of a house by auction, returned from the police station where he had been rendering a just and faithful account of his silver, and entered his hall with the latchkey which he had been one of the first householders to have made. As he divested himself of his overcoat a light, thin, ghostly shape flitted from the darkness under the stairs into the smell of mutton rising from the basement; another shape at the top of the stairs bestrode the banisters, waited till Roger had entered the dining-room, slid down with a run, and vanished also.
Startled by her husband’s entry, Mrs. Roger took the stopper out of the cut glass bottle of pickled walnuts on the sideboard, and said:
“Oh! Roger, I wish–I wish–”
“What do you wish?” said Roger. “Some nonsense. Don’t let that smell out; I can’t bear a vinegary smell.”
“It’s Smith,” murmured Mrs. Roger. “I wish you–”
“That’ll do,” said Roger; “he’s got to go.”
Mrs. Roger stoppered the bottle.
“Oh! very well, dear; only where we shall get–”
“Plenty of good fish in the sea,” said Roger. “Where’s that policeman they sent round?”
“He’s still in the basement, I fancy.”
“He would be. They’re no good! What’s this?”
Through the doorway was coming a procession led by Francie. It took up a position on the far side of the mahogany–from left to right, Francie, Smith, Eustace, and the policeman.
“How’s this, Smith?” said Roger, caressing his left whisker. “I told you to be off. Have you got something to say?”
“Yes,” said Francie, her voice shrill: “Smith’s not going.”
“What!” cried Roger.
“All wight, Faver!” said Eustace quietly.
“All right? What d’you mean by that, you impudent young shaver?”
“Seems as ‘ow your butler was asleep, Sir,” said the constable impressively.
“Of course he was asleep. He was drunk.”
“Well, Sir, I’d ‘ardly call it that,” said the constable. “Not up to snuff at the moment, as you might say.”
“If you’ve any excuse to make, Smith,” said Roger, “make it before you pack off.”
Smith shook his head. “None, Sir, I’m sure.”
On one side and the other Francie and Eustace tugged at his sleeves, as if inciting him to show his muscle.
“Very well then,” said Roger, “you can go. I’ll talk to you in a moment, constable. You children run off, and don’t let me catch you–”
“If Smith goes,” said Francie, loudly, “we’re going too.”
Roger stared. It was his first experience of revolt.
“Go to my study, you two,” he said, “and wait till I come. Mary, take them out.”
But over Mrs. Roger a spell seemed to have been cast; she did not move. Crimson shame had covered Smith’s face; the constable stood stolid. Roger’s spare figure stiffened. He made but half of either Smith or the constable, but the expression on his face, sharp, firm and sour, redressed the balance.
“Go along,” he said to Smith.
Smith moved towards the door, but the two children had placed their backs against it. Roger’s very whiskers seemed to go red.
“This is too much of a good thing,” burst from his tightened lips.
At this moment of exquisite deadlock the sense of duty which dominated a sober Smith came to the rescue. With a deep sigh he took a child by the belt with each hand, lifted them bodily from the door, set them down, and went out.
“Go to my study, you two,” said Roger again.
The two children went out into the hall.
“Are you going to the study, Fwancie?”
“He’ll birch us.”
“He shan’t,” said Eustace. “Let’s arm ourselves with knives.”
“No,” said Francie; “let’s go away with Smith.”
“Smiff will only bwing us back,” said Eustace; “let’s go by ourselves.”
“All right,” said Francie.
“We’ll take Faver’s umbwella and our money-box.”
“We shan’t be able to open it.”
“No, but we can sell it to someone; it wattles.”
“All right, quick!”
With their father’s umbrella and the locked money-box, the two children opened the front door and, running across Kensington Road, were soon in Hyde Park, the money-box rattling all the way.
“How much is there in it?” said Eustace.
“Four shillings and elevenpence.”
“Let’s sell it for five shillings, then. The box cost a shilling.”
“Who to?”
“We’ll find an old gentleman.”
They walked along the Row under the umbrella, for it was raining. Francie had neither hat nor coat, Eustace his school cap, black with a red stripe.
“Look!” said Francie. “There’s one!”
They approached a bench whereon sat a tall, bulky figure, who had placed his hands on the handle of his stick with a view to rising. He had a grey goatee beard, a grey beaver hat, and a long watch-chain looped on his brown velvet waistcoat.
Francie, who carried the money-box, held it out.
“Hullo!” said the old gentleman: “what have you got there?”
“It’s our money-box,” said Francie; “we want to sell it. It’s got four and elevenpence in coppers.”
“But it’s worf more,” said Eustace.
“The deuce it is!” said the old gentleman. His voice rumbled, and his eyes, grey and rather bloodshot, twinkled. “Why do you want to sell it?”
“Because we haven’t got the key,” said Francie.
“So we can’t get the money out,” added Eustace. “It belongs to us and we shall want it out, you see.”
“What d’you want it out for?” said the old gentleman.
“To buy our dinner.”
“You’re a rum couple,” said the old gentleman. “What’s your name?”
“Will you buy the box?” said Eustace: “then we’ll tell you.”
“What should I do with the box, heh?”
“You could carry it in one of your big pockets?”
“Well,” said the old gentleman, “here’s five bob. Hand it over. Now, what’s your name?”
“Forsyte,” said Francie. “I’m Francie, and this is Eustace.”
“Forsyte?” grunted the old gentleman. “The deuce it is! Where d’you live?”
“Are you to be twusted?” asked Eustace, tilting the umbrella backwards.
The old gentleman uttered a guffaw.
“What do you want to trust me for?”
“Well, you see,” said Eustace cautiously, “we’re wunning away for the pwesent.”
“Oh!” said the old gentleman, and rumbled.
“We had to,” said Francie, “because of Smith. It’s a long story.”
“Well,” said the old gentleman, rising, “come and have your dinner with me, and tell me all about it. What’s your father’s Christian name?”
“Roger.”
“Oh! Ah!” said the old gentleman. “Well, I know your uncles Jolyon and Swithin, and your cousin Jo. My name’s Nicholas Treffry. Ever heard it?”
“No,” said Eustace.
“I have,” cried Francie. “Father says you’re notorious. What does that mean?”
The ‘notorious’ Mr. Treffry chuckled.
“My carriage is out there at the Gate. Come along and I’ll show you why he calls me notorious.”
The two children looked at each other, then Eustace whispered:
“All wight, he’s wespectable.”
“The deuce, he is!” said Mr. Treffry unexpectedly. “Come along, young shavers.”
The two children accompanied him silently to the Gate. Outside stood a pair of fine horses harnessed to a phaeton with the hood up. A tiger stood at their heads.
“Up you get!” said Mr. Treffry.
Francie mounted with alacrity. Eustace hung back.
“Where are you going to take us?”
“The Albany–know it?”
“Yes,” said Eustace, “George went there once.”
“Respectable enough for you, heh?”
“Yes,” said Eustace, and furling the umbrella, mounted beside his sister.
Mr. Treffry clambered heavily to his driver’s seat alongside.
“Let go, Tim.”
The horses sprang forward, the tiger let go, and, running, caught on behind.
The carriage swung from side to side; Francie’s eyes danced.
“I–I like it,” she said.
“Your father’d have a fit, if he saw us,” chuckled Mr. Treffry. “He lives in Prince’s Gate, doesn’t he?”
Eustace looked round at him, and in imitation of Smith, closed his left eye.
“You’re a cool young man,” said Mr. Treffry.
The pavements of those days not being precisely smooth, they made but a rough passage to the Albany, where, after they had been made clean and comfortable under the auspices of the valet, the children repaired to a low panelled room with pictures of dogs and horses on the walls, a case of guns in one corner, and some black Chinese tea chests, embossed with figures and flowers in coloured lacquer.
“Now,” said Mr. Treffry, “let’s have some prog.”
The prog consisted of grouse and pancakes and spiky artichokes, and each child was given a glass of wine.
“Well,” said Mr. Treffry, “what was it all about, heh?”
Francie related the story of Smith.
“H’m!” Mr. Treffry rumbled. “So your father lost his spoons?”
“And we’ve got his umbwella,” said Eustace.
“Well, I’ll see you’re not birched, though I daresay you deserve it. Your mother must be in a pretty stew. Green, have the phaeton round again.”
They made an even rougher passage back to Prince’s Gate.
“Here’s your money-box,” said Mr. Treffry.
“But you bought it!”
“Tut! Here! My dear! Take my card to your master.”
Francie caught the maid by the sleeve.
“Has Smith gone, Annie?”
“Not yet, Miss. We’ve all been in a state about you.”
“Hooray! D’you hear, Eustace? Smith hasn’t gone.”
“All wight, don’t make a wow!”
Roger, Mrs. Roger, three maids and Smith all seemed to have gathered from nowhere in particular.
“How are you?” said Mr. Treffry, advancing in front of the children. “I thought you’d be in a stew. I’m your brother Jolyon’s partner–Nicholas Treffry. These young shavers ran out to cool their heads. I’ve given ’em their dinner and brought ’em back none the worse.”
“H’m!” said Roger profoundly.
“They ought to be birched, no doubt,” continued Mr. Treffry, looking bigger and bigger; “but I promised they shouldn’t be. You,” he added, pointing to Smith, “the chap who got drunk?”
“Yes, sir.”
“H’m! Let him off this time. Here’s your umbrella.”
Roger took the umbrella.
“Well,” he said,” I don’t know what’s coming to things.” He held out his hand to Mr. Treffry. “My brother’s always talking about you. He says you’ll break your neck one of these days.”
“H’m! He’s a careful chap, Jo. Glad you’ve got ’em back. Good-bye to you, Ma’am. Good-bye, young shavers.”
And, rumbling, Mr. Treffry passed out.
There was a silence.
“Well,” said Roger at last, while a little smile twitched between his whiskers and vanished into them, “don’t let me hear a word more about anything from any of you.” And he withdrew into the dining-room.
Francie rushed at Smith, and mechanically felt his muscle.
“Dear Smith!”
“Muvver,” said Eustace, “we had gwouse, pancakes, and spiky artichokes, and we dwove like Jehu.”
So ended the revolt at Roger’s, which, together perhaps with the Franco–German war, in that same year laid the foundations of a looser philosophy.
JUNE’S FIRST LAME DUCK, 1876
The life of little June Forsyte until the age of nearly eight had been spent in superintending the existence of her dolls. Not until the autumn of 1876 did she find a human being whose destiny she could control.
It happened thus: The stables of her grandfather old Jolyon Forsyte’s house in Stanhope Gate where June and, incidentally, her mother resided with her grandparents, were round the corner. They consisted of two stalls and a loose box occupied by the carriage horses Brownie and Betty and by her pony Bruce. Above were the three rooms of the coachman Betters, his wife, and little daughter, the groom living God knew more precisely where.
One October noon, in her long blue habit, with her spirit and her eyes looking up out of her flaming hair, June was lifted from her pony at the stable door.
“That pony’s artful, Miss June; don’t you give him more than two carrots, or ‘e’ll think he can do what ‘e likes with you.”
“Darling!” said June in a voice strangely deep for a small child. Having given the pony four carrots she remained standing beside it in the stall, fervently stroking its nose. In the next stall the groom was hissing while he wisped down Betty, preferred by Betters as a mount to Brownie–“an ‘oss that did that not throw you up.”
“George, which do you think is the most beautiful, Brownie or Betty?”
The groom jerked his head at the loose box.
“That ‘oss is the best-lookin’, Miss June.”
“Then I shall give Brownie one carrot and Betty two–it isn’t her fault, is it, poor darling?”
Having given the carrots and had her capped head nuzzled, she went out and stood in the yard. Betters had disappeared up the stairway to his rooms, whence a smell of onions indicated that Mrs. Betters, a small pale puckered woman, was cooking steak.
The yard was deserted but for a pigeon, towards which June ran so that the pigeon at once left for the roof. Hurt in her feelings June had gathered up her tail, and was moving towards the house when round the corner came a little girl blubbering into her sleeve.
“Susie Betters, what are you crying for?”
The little girl, who was plain and thin, blubbered the louder.
“They pinched me; they said I was a thief ‘cos I only took the top what belonged to me.” She displayed some pinch marks on her arms and some mud stains on her frock.
“Who pinched you?”
“The boys and girls I go to school with.”
“Did you pinch them back?”
“Nao.”
“Then I will. Horrid little children. Don’t cry, Susie. I’ll protect you.”
Susie looked down half a head and her mouth opened.
“We’ll go and look for them. I’ve got my whip. They won’t dare touch you again. You aren’t brave, are you?”
“Nao,” said Susie.
June swished the whip, which had the thickness of the top joint of a fishing rod. “Come on!”
They went round the corner, followed by June’s tail.
There was no sign of any children.
“We’ll go and tell the teacher.”
“Nao.”
“Why not?”
“They’ll larrup me proper, if we do.”
“Why don’t they like you, Susie? Is it because you’re ugly?” Susie wailed again. “Don’t cry! It’s not your fault that you’re ugly.”
Susie wailed the louder.
Two small boys and a girl had suddenly appeared and stood pointing in a somewhat vulgar manner. June raised her whip.
The children nudged each other.
“Ill-bred little children!” said June, quoting from her governess.
One of the boys emitted a piercing whistle.
“Did you pinch little Susie Betters?”
The children laughed in a still more vulgar manner.
“You’re dirty little morkins,” cried June; “and I’m going to larrup you.”
The children gave before the onslaught, skipping sideways with uncouth noises; one of the boys shoved June so that she tripped over her tail, and sprawled, a small blue figure, on the ground. The children, then, pinching Susie warmly, yelled in unison, and vanished.
June rose, her habit dirty, her whip gone, her cheeks crimson. Susie was wailing as she had not yet wailed.
“Don’t! It’s babyish to cry.”
“They pinched me again.”
“Where?”
“On my ba-ase.”
“Come with me, and show my Gran,” said June. “He’ll soon astonish their weak nerves. You shall have my pudding, too. Come on!” And she dragged the reluctant Susie to the mansion of old Jolyon.
“Francois,” said June to the Swiss servant, “this is Susie Betters; she’s been pinched, and she’s to have my pudding. She isn’t brave, so she’s not to be frightened. I want my Gran to see her pinches. Come on, Susie!”
Still tugging Susie, she passed into the dining-room.
Old Jolyon, who never went to the City on Saturdays, was in his armchair by the fire, reading The Times and waiting for lunch to be announced. Across the dining table laid for five he looked at the two small figures, and his eyes twinkled.
“Well, my ducky, what have you got there?”
“Susie Betters, Gran; she’s been pinched behind. I wanted you to see.”
She pulled Susie round to the chair, whence old Jolyon looked shrewdly at his coachman’s daughter.
“H’m!” he said: “you’re a thin little toad.”
“Yes; she’s going to have my pudding. She’s too thin altogether, and she’s too pale. Her face is dirty, too, but it isn’t her fault.”
“What’s come to your habit?” said old Jolyon. “Did you fall off?”
“Oh! no; I just sat down in the street while I was larruping those morkins and they took my whip and ran away.”
“H’m! Pretty pair of shoes altogether!”
He stretched out and rang the bell.
“Take this little girl downstairs, Francois, and have her face washed, and give her a good dinner; and tell that page chap to run over and let Betters know she’s here. You go and get brushed,” he added to June, “before your mother sees you, and don’t say anything about it.”
The two children went out. In the hall June said:
“I want to see her face washed, Francois.”
“Veree well, Mees June.”
During lunch June fidgeted, with difficulty prevented by old Jolyon’s eyes from telling her story.
When her mother and governess had withdrawn, she approached her grandfather, who had lighted his after-lunch cigar, and stood between his knees.
“I’m going to be Susie Betters’ friend, Gran.”
“Oh!” said old Jolyon. “Mite like you–picking up lame ducks.”
“Is Susie a lame duck?”
Old Jolyon nodded. “Shouldn’t be surprised if they pinched her more than ever now. She looks to me a poor thing.”
“Well, I’m going to protect her.”
“How?” said old Jolyon, twinkling.
“I shall dare them to pinch her.”
“First catch your hare–”
“I know,” said June, suddenly. “She can do lessons with ME, Gran, instead of going to school.”
Old Jolyon shook his head.
“That cock won’t fight. Coming to the Zoo?”
June clapped her hands, then said at once:
“No. I must look after Susie.”
Old Jolyon stared. It was his first introduction to the real nature of his little grand-daughter.
“She’s a poor timid little stick,” he said; “and you’ll never make anything of her.”
When June had gone, he sat contemplating the ash of his cigar. Children! What things they thought of! She would learn some day that you couldn’t go ‘protecting’ everything you came across. Sooner the better, perhaps! Generous little thing–though; giving up the Zoo. Lessons! “What would her mother say to that? She was such a good woman–that you never knew.” And old Jolyon sighed. If his son hadn’t married such a good woman, it might all have turned out very different; and Jo–Well, well! A nap! Just forty winks. And, crushing out his cigar, he leaned back with eyes fixed on ‘Dutch Fishing Boats at Sunset’; and his thin hand with pointed nails depending over the arm of his old chair. A warmhearted little thing! Lame ducks!…
In spite of the misgivings of the good woman afraid of the effect on her accent, and the opposition of her governess, too deep for words, June had her way. Susie Betters, almost unnecessarily clean, sat every morning at the schoolroom table shedding tears over her vowels and aitches. Delivered from pinches, and advanced in all material things, soap, pudding, and frocks, she seemed at first to exude as much water per day as ever, for June frequently protected her from the governess.
“You oughtn’t to make Susie cry, Miss Pearson, just because she speaks commonly. She doesn’t know any better. You can’t help being common, can you, Susie?”
This protection, indeed, produced as much water as any educational exhortations. Out of school hours she taught Susie every game she knew and some she didn’t; instructed her in dressing and undressing dolls; delivered her from the Italian greyhound; helped her to burn her cheeks cooking cocoanut ice and toffee; and prick her fingers sewing at dolls’ nightgowns. When Susie was put in the corner, June had invariably to be put in the opposite corner–so loyal was she to her ‘lame duck.’ The ‘good woman’ watched the experiment with equanimity–it would help June not to be selfish. Old Jolyon, with innate sagacity, waited for its inevitable end; he had no belief in ‘lame ducks.’
The end came stealthily with every ounce of weight that Susie Betters put on from the dinners and teas she ate, and every deepening of the contempt which familiarity slowly bred in her. She had ceased to exude water, her cheeks were becoming pink, and she wore a sky blue ribbon in hair no longer unwashed. In fact she had come to be ‘twice the child’; and she no longer excited June’s compassion. The habit of protection, however, lasted till the middle of November. It vanished in one day.
Susie had a doll, given her by June, which, following the law of compensation–advocated by the then fashionable philosopher Mr. Emerson–she treated in the manner in which she herself was treated, possessing its soul, placing its body in corners, and harassing it over her knee for its own good. With the increase of adipose, her treatment of the doll became more and more protective, if not arbitrary. It was not long before this treatment excited June’s concern, and the doll began to seem to her a ‘lame duck.’
One Saturday morning when the doll had been whipped and put first in one corner and then in another, her feelings became too much for her.
“You oughtn’t to treat poor Amy like that, Susie, it’s a shame!”
Susie answered:
“Why not? She’s my doll!”
“Well, you shan’t!” said June. “So there!”
“I will,” said Susie, and promptly turned up the doll’s petticoats.
June’s eyes grew very blue, her hair seemed to shine.
“If you whip her,” she said, “I’ll whip you.”
“Will you?” said Susie. “I’m bigger than you.”
She laid the doll over her knee.
“Stop!” said June.
“I won’t!”
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15
“You’re not to go, Smith. I won’t have it. You couldn’t help being drunk when the burglars came.”
“‘Ush! Miss Francie,” said Smith, “the Master says I’ve got to.”
Francie put a hand into his.
“Dear Smith!”
Smith’s round face grew almost long.
“It’s my fault, Miss; I WAS tipsy, there’s no denyin’.”
“But how could you tell the burglars were coming?”
“I couldn’t, Miss Francie, and that’s a fact.”
“Well, then!”
“If I ‘adn’t been tipsy,” said Smith with sudden violence, “I’D ‘ave given ’em what for!” And he worked his arm up to the angle which best displayed his formidable biceps.
“Oh! Smith,” said Francie, “you ARE strong! Feel; I haven’t got ANY!” And she angled her arm, thin, like a stick. Then the thought coming to her that soon there would be no Smith to show her lack of muscle to, the water started into her eyes.
“You’re NOT to go,” she cried again. “Here’s Eustace, he’ll say so too.”
The youngest but one of the five young Rogers was now eleven, dark-haired and thin-faced like his sister, and, like her, grey-eyed, but of a calm which contrasted forcibly with Francie’s fervour. He was recovering from the mumps, which had conveniently delayed his return to school.
“Have you really got to go, Smiff?” he said. “I wouldn’t, if I were you. I should just stay.”
Smith smiled. His smile was that of the sun at noonday.
“Faver’ll forget,” added Eustace.
Smith closed an eye, a practice which beyond all things endeared him to children.
“Will’e, Master Eustace? I don’t fink.”
“I do fink,” said Eustace. “The best way wiv Faver is to take no notice. He can’t birch YOU; look at your muscle.”
Again Smith crooked his arm to the proper position. He never spent ten minutes with the children without having to do this at least once.
“Smith,” said Francie, “we’ll come with you and speak to Father.”
Smith shook his head.
“I expect he hasn’t seen your muscle,” said Eustace.
Smith smiled. Like all powerful, good-tempered, easy-going men, he was unable to say “No.”
“That’s settled then,” said Francie; “when Father comes in, Eustace and I will come for you. Come along, Eustace.”
She turned at the door: “You shan’t go–DEAR Smith!”
Smith in the centre of his pantry, slowly shook his rounded head.
He was still in undetermined mood when visited by the constable whom Roger had set in motion. Now the temperament of Smith was pre-eminently suited to the police. Sunk in humility, without edge, and highly human, it appealed to authority as cream to a cat. The constable, who had come to carp and question, remained to chat and quaff. He quaffed Roger’s beer, and said:
“S’far as I can see, ’twas accidental like; a man may sleep so sound, no burglar’d wake ’im. That was your trouble, mate. You’d ‘ad a nightcap no doubt. I’ll do me best with your governor.”
Upstairs in the dining-room Mrs. Roger was staring at the bronze clock and rehearsing a sentence which began:
“Roger, I wish you would reconsider your decision about Smith; there are many reasons why–” and then nothing would come but: “it will be out of the frying-pan into the fire,” which she could not feel to be quite dignified. Unaware of these forces being marshalled against him, Roger, alert, and with an eye on a new board announcing the sale of a house by auction, returned from the police station where he had been rendering a just and faithful account of his silver, and entered his hall with the latchkey which he had been one of the first householders to have made. As he divested himself of his overcoat a light, thin, ghostly shape flitted from the darkness under the stairs into the smell of mutton rising from the basement; another shape at the top of the stairs bestrode the banisters, waited till Roger had entered the dining-room, slid down with a run, and vanished also.
Startled by her husband’s entry, Mrs. Roger took the stopper out of the cut glass bottle of pickled walnuts on the sideboard, and said:
“Oh! Roger, I wish–I wish–”
“What do you wish?” said Roger. “Some nonsense. Don’t let that smell out; I can’t bear a vinegary smell.”
“It’s Smith,” murmured Mrs. Roger. “I wish you–”
“That’ll do,” said Roger; “he’s got to go.”
Mrs. Roger stoppered the bottle.
“Oh! very well, dear; only where we shall get–”
“Plenty of good fish in the sea,” said Roger. “Where’s that policeman they sent round?”
“He’s still in the basement, I fancy.”
“He would be. They’re no good! What’s this?”
Through the doorway was coming a procession led by Francie. It took up a position on the far side of the mahogany–from left to right, Francie, Smith, Eustace, and the policeman.
“How’s this, Smith?” said Roger, caressing his left whisker. “I told you to be off. Have you got something to say?”
“Yes,” said Francie, her voice shrill: “Smith’s not going.”
“What!” cried Roger.
“All wight, Faver!” said Eustace quietly.
“All right? What d’you mean by that, you impudent young shaver?”
“Seems as ‘ow your butler was asleep, Sir,” said the constable impressively.
“Of course he was asleep. He was drunk.”
“Well, Sir, I’d ‘ardly call it that,” said the constable. “Not up to snuff at the moment, as you might say.”
“If you’ve any excuse to make, Smith,” said Roger, “make it before you pack off.”
Smith shook his head. “None, Sir, I’m sure.”
On one side and the other Francie and Eustace tugged at his sleeves, as if inciting him to show his muscle.
“Very well then,” said Roger, “you can go. I’ll talk to you in a moment, constable. You children run off, and don’t let me catch you–”
“If Smith goes,” said Francie, loudly, “we’re going too.”
Roger stared. It was his first experience of revolt.
“Go to my study, you two,” he said, “and wait till I come. Mary, take them out.”
But over Mrs. Roger a spell seemed to have been cast; she did not move. Crimson shame had covered Smith’s face; the constable stood stolid. Roger’s spare figure stiffened. He made but half of either Smith or the constable, but the expression on his face, sharp, firm and sour, redressed the balance.
“Go along,” he said to Smith.
Smith moved towards the door, but the two children had placed their backs against it. Roger’s very whiskers seemed to go red.
“This is too much of a good thing,” burst from his tightened lips.
At this moment of exquisite deadlock the sense of duty which dominated a sober Smith came to the rescue. With a deep sigh he took a child by the belt with each hand, lifted them bodily from the door, set them down, and went out.
“Go to my study, you two,” said Roger again.
The two children went out into the hall.
“Are you going to the study, Fwancie?”
“He’ll birch us.”
“He shan’t,” said Eustace. “Let’s arm ourselves with knives.”
“No,” said Francie; “let’s go away with Smith.”
“Smiff will only bwing us back,” said Eustace; “let’s go by ourselves.”
“All right,” said Francie.
“We’ll take Faver’s umbwella and our money-box.”
“We shan’t be able to open it.”
“No, but we can sell it to someone; it wattles.”
“All right, quick!”
With their father’s umbrella and the locked money-box, the two children opened the front door and, running across Kensington Road, were soon in Hyde Park, the money-box rattling all the way.
“How much is there in it?” said Eustace.
“Four shillings and elevenpence.”
“Let’s sell it for five shillings, then. The box cost a shilling.”
“Who to?”
“We’ll find an old gentleman.”
They walked along the Row under the umbrella, for it was raining. Francie had neither hat nor coat, Eustace his school cap, black with a red stripe.
“Look!” said Francie. “There’s one!”
They approached a bench whereon sat a tall, bulky figure, who had placed his hands on the handle of his stick with a view to rising. He had a grey goatee beard, a grey beaver hat, and a long watch-chain looped on his brown velvet waistcoat.
Francie, who carried the money-box, held it out.
“Hullo!” said the old gentleman: “what have you got there?”
“It’s our money-box,” said Francie; “we want to sell it. It’s got four and elevenpence in coppers.”
“But it’s worf more,” said Eustace.
“The deuce it is!” said the old gentleman. His voice rumbled, and his eyes, grey and rather bloodshot, twinkled. “Why do you want to sell it?”
“Because we haven’t got the key,” said Francie.
“So we can’t get the money out,” added Eustace. “It belongs to us and we shall want it out, you see.”
“What d’you want it out for?” said the old gentleman.
“To buy our dinner.”
“You’re a rum couple,” said the old gentleman. “What’s your name?”
“Will you buy the box?” said Eustace: “then we’ll tell you.”
“What should I do with the box, heh?”
“You could carry it in one of your big pockets?”
“Well,” said the old gentleman, “here’s five bob. Hand it over. Now, what’s your name?”
“Forsyte,” said Francie. “I’m Francie, and this is Eustace.”
“Forsyte?” grunted the old gentleman. “The deuce it is! Where d’you live?”
“Are you to be twusted?” asked Eustace, tilting the umbrella backwards.
The old gentleman uttered a guffaw.
“What do you want to trust me for?”
“Well, you see,” said Eustace cautiously, “we’re wunning away for the pwesent.”
“Oh!” said the old gentleman, and rumbled.
“We had to,” said Francie, “because of Smith. It’s a long story.”
“Well,” said the old gentleman, rising, “come and have your dinner with me, and tell me all about it. What’s your father’s Christian name?”
“Roger.”
“Oh! Ah!” said the old gentleman. “Well, I know your uncles Jolyon and Swithin, and your cousin Jo. My name’s Nicholas Treffry. Ever heard it?”
“No,” said Eustace.
“I have,” cried Francie. “Father says you’re notorious. What does that mean?”
The ‘notorious’ Mr. Treffry chuckled.
“My carriage is out there at the Gate. Come along and I’ll show you why he calls me notorious.”
The two children looked at each other, then Eustace whispered:
“All wight, he’s wespectable.”
“The deuce, he is!” said Mr. Treffry unexpectedly. “Come along, young shavers.”
The two children accompanied him silently to the Gate. Outside stood a pair of fine horses harnessed to a phaeton with the hood up. A tiger stood at their heads.
“Up you get!” said Mr. Treffry.
Francie mounted with alacrity. Eustace hung back.
“Where are you going to take us?”
“The Albany–know it?”
“Yes,” said Eustace, “George went there once.”
“Respectable enough for you, heh?”
“Yes,” said Eustace, and furling the umbrella, mounted beside his sister.
Mr. Treffry clambered heavily to his driver’s seat alongside.
“Let go, Tim.”
The horses sprang forward, the tiger let go, and, running, caught on behind.
The carriage swung from side to side; Francie’s eyes danced.
“I–I like it,” she said.
“Your father’d have a fit, if he saw us,” chuckled Mr. Treffry. “He lives in Prince’s Gate, doesn’t he?”
Eustace looked round at him, and in imitation of Smith, closed his left eye.
“You’re a cool young man,” said Mr. Treffry.
The pavements of those days not being precisely smooth, they made but a rough passage to the Albany, where, after they had been made clean and comfortable under the auspices of the valet, the children repaired to a low panelled room with pictures of dogs and horses on the walls, a case of guns in one corner, and some black Chinese tea chests, embossed with figures and flowers in coloured lacquer.
“Now,” said Mr. Treffry, “let’s have some prog.”
The prog consisted of grouse and pancakes and spiky artichokes, and each child was given a glass of wine.
“Well,” said Mr. Treffry, “what was it all about, heh?”
Francie related the story of Smith.
“H’m!” Mr. Treffry rumbled. “So your father lost his spoons?”
“And we’ve got his umbwella,” said Eustace.
“Well, I’ll see you’re not birched, though I daresay you deserve it. Your mother must be in a pretty stew. Green, have the phaeton round again.”
They made an even rougher passage back to Prince’s Gate.
“Here’s your money-box,” said Mr. Treffry.
“But you bought it!”
“Tut! Here! My dear! Take my card to your master.”
Francie caught the maid by the sleeve.
“Has Smith gone, Annie?”
“Not yet, Miss. We’ve all been in a state about you.”
“Hooray! D’you hear, Eustace? Smith hasn’t gone.”
“All wight, don’t make a wow!”
Roger, Mrs. Roger, three maids and Smith all seemed to have gathered from nowhere in particular.
“How are you?” said Mr. Treffry, advancing in front of the children. “I thought you’d be in a stew. I’m your brother Jolyon’s partner–Nicholas Treffry. These young shavers ran out to cool their heads. I’ve given ’em their dinner and brought ’em back none the worse.”
“H’m!” said Roger profoundly.
“They ought to be birched, no doubt,” continued Mr. Treffry, looking bigger and bigger; “but I promised they shouldn’t be. You,” he added, pointing to Smith, “the chap who got drunk?”
“Yes, sir.”
“H’m! Let him off this time. Here’s your umbrella.”
Roger took the umbrella.
“Well,” he said,” I don’t know what’s coming to things.” He held out his hand to Mr. Treffry. “My brother’s always talking about you. He says you’ll break your neck one of these days.”
“H’m! He’s a careful chap, Jo. Glad you’ve got ’em back. Good-bye to you, Ma’am. Good-bye, young shavers.”
And, rumbling, Mr. Treffry passed out.
There was a silence.
“Well,” said Roger at last, while a little smile twitched between his whiskers and vanished into them, “don’t let me hear a word more about anything from any of you.” And he withdrew into the dining-room.
Francie rushed at Smith, and mechanically felt his muscle.
“Dear Smith!”
“Muvver,” said Eustace, “we had gwouse, pancakes, and spiky artichokes, and we dwove like Jehu.”
So ended the revolt at Roger’s, which, together perhaps with the Franco–German war, in that same year laid the foundations of a looser philosophy.
JUNE’S FIRST LAME DUCK, 1876
The life of little June Forsyte until the age of nearly eight had been spent in superintending the existence of her dolls. Not until the autumn of 1876 did she find a human being whose destiny she could control.
It happened thus: The stables of her grandfather old Jolyon Forsyte’s house in Stanhope Gate where June and, incidentally, her mother resided with her grandparents, were round the corner. They consisted of two stalls and a loose box occupied by the carriage horses Brownie and Betty and by her pony Bruce. Above were the three rooms of the coachman Betters, his wife, and little daughter, the groom living God knew more precisely where.
One October noon, in her long blue habit, with her spirit and her eyes looking up out of her flaming hair, June was lifted from her pony at the stable door.
“That pony’s artful, Miss June; don’t you give him more than two carrots, or ‘e’ll think he can do what ‘e likes with you.”
“Darling!” said June in a voice strangely deep for a small child. Having given the pony four carrots she remained standing beside it in the stall, fervently stroking its nose. In the next stall the groom was hissing while he wisped down Betty, preferred by Betters as a mount to Brownie–“an ‘oss that did that not throw you up.”
“George, which do you think is the most beautiful, Brownie or Betty?”
The groom jerked his head at the loose box.
“That ‘oss is the best-lookin’, Miss June.”
“Then I shall give Brownie one carrot and Betty two–it isn’t her fault, is it, poor darling?”
Having given the carrots and had her capped head nuzzled, she went out and stood in the yard. Betters had disappeared up the stairway to his rooms, whence a smell of onions indicated that Mrs. Betters, a small pale puckered woman, was cooking steak.
The yard was deserted but for a pigeon, towards which June ran so that the pigeon at once left for the roof. Hurt in her feelings June had gathered up her tail, and was moving towards the house when round the corner came a little girl blubbering into her sleeve.
“Susie Betters, what are you crying for?”
The little girl, who was plain and thin, blubbered the louder.
“They pinched me; they said I was a thief ‘cos I only took the top what belonged to me.” She displayed some pinch marks on her arms and some mud stains on her frock.
“Who pinched you?”
“The boys and girls I go to school with.”
“Did you pinch them back?”
“Nao.”
“Then I will. Horrid little children. Don’t cry, Susie. I’ll protect you.”
Susie looked down half a head and her mouth opened.
“We’ll go and look for them. I’ve got my whip. They won’t dare touch you again. You aren’t brave, are you?”
“Nao,” said Susie.
June swished the whip, which had the thickness of the top joint of a fishing rod. “Come on!”
They went round the corner, followed by June’s tail.
There was no sign of any children.
“We’ll go and tell the teacher.”
“Nao.”
“Why not?”
“They’ll larrup me proper, if we do.”
“Why don’t they like you, Susie? Is it because you’re ugly?” Susie wailed again. “Don’t cry! It’s not your fault that you’re ugly.”
Susie wailed the louder.
Two small boys and a girl had suddenly appeared and stood pointing in a somewhat vulgar manner. June raised her whip.
The children nudged each other.
“Ill-bred little children!” said June, quoting from her governess.
One of the boys emitted a piercing whistle.
“Did you pinch little Susie Betters?”
The children laughed in a still more vulgar manner.
“You’re dirty little morkins,” cried June; “and I’m going to larrup you.”
The children gave before the onslaught, skipping sideways with uncouth noises; one of the boys shoved June so that she tripped over her tail, and sprawled, a small blue figure, on the ground. The children, then, pinching Susie warmly, yelled in unison, and vanished.
June rose, her habit dirty, her whip gone, her cheeks crimson. Susie was wailing as she had not yet wailed.
“Don’t! It’s babyish to cry.”
“They pinched me again.”
“Where?”
“On my ba-ase.”
“Come with me, and show my Gran,” said June. “He’ll soon astonish their weak nerves. You shall have my pudding, too. Come on!” And she dragged the reluctant Susie to the mansion of old Jolyon.
“Francois,” said June to the Swiss servant, “this is Susie Betters; she’s been pinched, and she’s to have my pudding. She isn’t brave, so she’s not to be frightened. I want my Gran to see her pinches. Come on, Susie!”
Still tugging Susie, she passed into the dining-room.
Old Jolyon, who never went to the City on Saturdays, was in his armchair by the fire, reading The Times and waiting for lunch to be announced. Across the dining table laid for five he looked at the two small figures, and his eyes twinkled.
“Well, my ducky, what have you got there?”
“Susie Betters, Gran; she’s been pinched behind. I wanted you to see.”
She pulled Susie round to the chair, whence old Jolyon looked shrewdly at his coachman’s daughter.
“H’m!” he said: “you’re a thin little toad.”
“Yes; she’s going to have my pudding. She’s too thin altogether, and she’s too pale. Her face is dirty, too, but it isn’t her fault.”
“What’s come to your habit?” said old Jolyon. “Did you fall off?”
“Oh! no; I just sat down in the street while I was larruping those morkins and they took my whip and ran away.”
“H’m! Pretty pair of shoes altogether!”
He stretched out and rang the bell.
“Take this little girl downstairs, Francois, and have her face washed, and give her a good dinner; and tell that page chap to run over and let Betters know she’s here. You go and get brushed,” he added to June, “before your mother sees you, and don’t say anything about it.”
The two children went out. In the hall June said:
“I want to see her face washed, Francois.”
“Veree well, Mees June.”
During lunch June fidgeted, with difficulty prevented by old Jolyon’s eyes from telling her story.
When her mother and governess had withdrawn, she approached her grandfather, who had lighted his after-lunch cigar, and stood between his knees.
“I’m going to be Susie Betters’ friend, Gran.”
“Oh!” said old Jolyon. “Mite like you–picking up lame ducks.”
“Is Susie a lame duck?”
Old Jolyon nodded. “Shouldn’t be surprised if they pinched her more than ever now. She looks to me a poor thing.”
“Well, I’m going to protect her.”
“How?” said old Jolyon, twinkling.
“I shall dare them to pinch her.”
“First catch your hare–”
“I know,” said June, suddenly. “She can do lessons with ME, Gran, instead of going to school.”
Old Jolyon shook his head.
“That cock won’t fight. Coming to the Zoo?”
June clapped her hands, then said at once:
“No. I must look after Susie.”
Old Jolyon stared. It was his first introduction to the real nature of his little grand-daughter.
“She’s a poor timid little stick,” he said; “and you’ll never make anything of her.”
When June had gone, he sat contemplating the ash of his cigar. Children! What things they thought of! She would learn some day that you couldn’t go ‘protecting’ everything you came across. Sooner the better, perhaps! Generous little thing–though; giving up the Zoo. Lessons! “What would her mother say to that? She was such a good woman–that you never knew.” And old Jolyon sighed. If his son hadn’t married such a good woman, it might all have turned out very different; and Jo–Well, well! A nap! Just forty winks. And, crushing out his cigar, he leaned back with eyes fixed on ‘Dutch Fishing Boats at Sunset’; and his thin hand with pointed nails depending over the arm of his old chair. A warmhearted little thing! Lame ducks!…
In spite of the misgivings of the good woman afraid of the effect on her accent, and the opposition of her governess, too deep for words, June had her way. Susie Betters, almost unnecessarily clean, sat every morning at the schoolroom table shedding tears over her vowels and aitches. Delivered from pinches, and advanced in all material things, soap, pudding, and frocks, she seemed at first to exude as much water per day as ever, for June frequently protected her from the governess.
“You oughtn’t to make Susie cry, Miss Pearson, just because she speaks commonly. She doesn’t know any better. You can’t help being common, can you, Susie?”
This protection, indeed, produced as much water as any educational exhortations. Out of school hours she taught Susie every game she knew and some she didn’t; instructed her in dressing and undressing dolls; delivered her from the Italian greyhound; helped her to burn her cheeks cooking cocoanut ice and toffee; and prick her fingers sewing at dolls’ nightgowns. When Susie was put in the corner, June had invariably to be put in the opposite corner–so loyal was she to her ‘lame duck.’ The ‘good woman’ watched the experiment with equanimity–it would help June not to be selfish. Old Jolyon, with innate sagacity, waited for its inevitable end; he had no belief in ‘lame ducks.’
The end came stealthily with every ounce of weight that Susie Betters put on from the dinners and teas she ate, and every deepening of the contempt which familiarity slowly bred in her. She had ceased to exude water, her cheeks were becoming pink, and she wore a sky blue ribbon in hair no longer unwashed. In fact she had come to be ‘twice the child’; and she no longer excited June’s compassion. The habit of protection, however, lasted till the middle of November. It vanished in one day.
Susie had a doll, given her by June, which, following the law of compensation–advocated by the then fashionable philosopher Mr. Emerson–she treated in the manner in which she herself was treated, possessing its soul, placing its body in corners, and harassing it over her knee for its own good. With the increase of adipose, her treatment of the doll became more and more protective, if not arbitrary. It was not long before this treatment excited June’s concern, and the doll began to seem to her a ‘lame duck.’
One Saturday morning when the doll had been whipped and put first in one corner and then in another, her feelings became too much for her.
“You oughtn’t to treat poor Amy like that, Susie, it’s a shame!”
Susie answered:
“Why not? She’s my doll!”
“Well, you shan’t!” said June. “So there!”
“I will,” said Susie, and promptly turned up the doll’s petticoats.
June’s eyes grew very blue, her hair seemed to shine.
“If you whip her,” she said, “I’ll whip you.”
“Will you?” said Susie. “I’m bigger than you.”
She laid the doll over her knee.
“Stop!” said June.
“I won’t!”
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15