They and I

THEY AND I

“I wanted such charming children,” I explained – “my idea of charming children: the children I had imagined for myself. Even as babies you disappointed me.”

Robina looked astonished.

“You, Robina, were the most disappointing,” I complained. “Dick was a boy. One does not calculate upon boy angels; and by the time Veronica arrived I had got more used to things. But I was so excited when you came. The Little Mother and I would steal at night into the nursery. ‘Isn’t It wonderful,’ the Little Mother would whisper, ‘to think It all lies hidden there: the little tiresome child, the sweetheart they will one day take away from us, the wife, the mother?’ ‘I am glad It is a girl,’ I would whisper; ‘I shall be able to watch her grow into womanhood. Most of the girls one comes across in books strike one as not perhaps quite true to life. It will give me such an advantage having a girl of my own. I shall keep a note-book, with a lock and key, devoted to her.’”

“Did you?” asked Robina.

“I put It away,” I answered; “there were but a few pages written on. It came to me quite early in your life that you were not going to be the model heroine. I was looking for the picture baby, the clean, thoughtful baby, with its magical, mystical smile. I wrote poetry about you, Robina, but you would slobber and howl. Your little nose was always having to be wiped, and somehow the poetry did not seem to fIt you. You were at your best when you were asleep, but you would not even sleep when It was expected of you. I think, Robina, that the fellows who draw the pictures for the comic journals of the man in his night-shirt with the squalling baby in his arms

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must all be single men. The married man sees only sadness in the design. It is not the mere discomfort. If the little creature were ill or in pain we should not think of that. It is the reflection that we, who meant so well, have brought into the world just an ordinary fretful human creature with a nasty temper of its own: that is the tragedy, Robina. And then you grew into a little girl. I wanted the soulful little girl with the fathomless eyes, who would steal to me at twilight and question me concerning life’s conundrums.

“But I used to ask you questions,” grumbled Robina, “and you would tell me not to be silly.”

“Don’t you understand, Robina?” I answered. “I am not blaming you, I am blaming myself. We are like children who plant seeds in a garden, and then are angry with the flowers because they are not what we expected. You were a dear little girl; I see that now, looking back. But not the little girl I had in my mind. So I missed you, thinking of the little girl you were not. We do that all our lives, Robina. We are always looking for the flowers that do not grow, passing by, trampling underfoot, the blossoms round about us. It was the same with Dick. I wanted a naughty boy. Well, Dick was naughty, no one can say that he was not. But It was not my naughtiness. I was prepared for his robbing orchards. I rather hoped he would rob orchards. All the high-spirited boys in books rob orchards, and become great men. But there were not any orchards handy. We happened to be living in Chelsea at the time he ought to have been robbing orchards: that, of course, was my fault. I did not think of that. He stole a bicycle that a lady had left outside the tea-room in Battersea Park, he and another boy, the son

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of a common barber, who shaved people for three-halfpence. I am a Republican in theory, but It grieved me that a son of mine could be drawn to such companionship. They contrived to keep It for a week – till the police found It one night, artfully hidden behind bushes. Logically, I do not see why stealing apples should be noble and stealing bicycles should be mean, but It struck me that way at the time. It was not the particular steal I had been hoping for.

“I wanted him wild; the hero of the book was ever in his college days a wild young man. Well, he was wild. It cost me three hundred pounds to keep that breach of promise case out of Court; I had never imagined a breach of promise case. Then he got drunk, and bonneted a bishop in mistake for a ‘bulldog.’ I didn’t mind the bishop. That by itself would have been wholesome fun. But to think that a son of mine should have been drunk!”

“He has never been drunk since,” pleaded Robina. “He had only three glasses of champagne and a liqueur: It was the liqueur – he was not used to it. He got into the wrong set. You cannot in college belong to the wild set without getting drunk occasionally.”

“Perhaps not,” I admitted. “In the book the wild young man drinks without ever getting drunk. Maybe there is a difference between life and the book. In the book you enjoy your fun, but contrive somehow to escape the licking: in life the licking is the only thing sure. It was the wild young man of fiction I was looking for, who, a fortnight before the exam., ties a wet towel round his head, drinks strong tea, and passes easily with honours. He tried the wet towel, he tells me. It never would

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keep in its place. Added to which It gave him neuralgia; while the strong tea gave him indigestion. I used to picture myself the proud, indulgent father lecturing him for his wildness – turning away at some point in the middle of my tirade to hide a smile. There was never any smile to hide. I feel that he has behaved disgracefully, wasting his time and my money.”

“He is going to turn over a new leaf;” said Robina: “I am sure he will make an excellent farmer.”

“I did not want a farmer,” I explained; “I wanted a Prime Minister. Children, Robina, are very disappointing. Veronica is all wrong. I like a mischievous child. I like reading stories of mischievous children: they amuse me. But not the child who puts a pound of gunpowder into a red-hot fire, and escapes with her life by a miracle.”

“And yet, I daresay,” suggested Robina, “that if one put It into a book – I mean that if you put It into a book, It would read amusingly.”

“Likely enough,” I agreed. “Other people’s troubles can always be amusing. As It is, I shall be in a state of anxiety for the next six months, wondering, every moment that she is out of my sight, what new devilment she is up to. The Little Mother will be worried out of her life, unless we can keep It from her.”

“Children will be children,” murmured Robina, meaning to be comforting.

“That is what I am complaining of, Robina. We are always hoping that ours won’t be. She is full of faults, Veronica, and they are not always nice faults. She is lazy – lazy is not the word for it.”

“She is lazy,” Robina was compelled to admit.

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“There are other faults she might have had and welcome,” I pointed out; “faults I could have taken an interest in and liked her all the better for. You children are so obstinate. You will choose your own faults. Veronica is not truthful always. I wanted a family of little George Washingtons, who could not tell a lie. Veronica can. To get herself out of trouble – and provided there is any hope of anybody believing her – she does.”

“We all of us used to when we were young,” Robina maintained; “Dick used to, I used to. It is a common fault with children.”

“I know It is,” I answered. “I did not want a child with common faults. I wanted something all my own. I wanted you, Robina, to be my ideal daughter. I had a girl in my mind that I am sure would have been charming. You are not a bIt like her. I don’t say she was perfect, she had her failings, but they were such delightful failings – much better than yours, Robina. She had a temper – a woman without a temper is insipid; but It was that kind of temper that made you love her all the more. Yours doesn’t, Robina. I wish you had not been in such a hurry, and had left me to arrange your temper for you. We should all of us have preferred mine. It had all the attractions of temper without the drawbacks of the ordinary temper.”

“Couldn’t use It up, I suppose, for yourself, Pa?” suggested Robina.

“It was a lady’s temper,” I explained. “Besides,” as I asked her, “what is wrong with the one I have?”

“Nothing,” answered Robina. Yet her tone conveyed doubt. “It seems to me sometimes that an older temper would suIt you better, that was all.”

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CHAPTER VII

Dick and Veronica returned laden with parcels. They explained that “Daddy Slee,” as It appeared he was generally called, a local builder of renown, was following in his ponycart, and was kindly bringing the bulkier things with him.

“I tried to hustle him,” said Dick, “but coming up after he had washed himself and had his tea seemed to be his idea of hustling. He has got the reputation of being an honest old Johnny, slow but sure; the others, they tell me, are slower. I thought you might care, later on, to talk to him about the house.”

Veronica took off her things and put them away, each one in its proper place. She said, if no one wanted her, she would read a chapter of “The Vicar of Wakefield,” and retired upstairs. Robina and I had an egg with our tea; Mr. Slee arrived as we had finished, and I took him straight into the kitchen. He was a large man, with a dreamy expression and a habIt of sighing. He sighed when he saw our kitchen.

“There’s four days’ work for three men here,” he said, “and you’ll want a new stove. Lord! what trouble children can be!”

Robina agreed with him.

“Meanwhile,” she demanded, “how am I to cook?” “Myself, missie,” sighed Mr. Slee, “I don’t see how you are

going to cook.”

“We’ll all have to tramp home again,” thought Dick.

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“And tell Little Mother the reason, and frighten her out of her life!” retorted Robina indignantly.

Robina had other ideas. Mr. Slee departed, promising that work should be commenced at seven o’clock on Monday morning. Robina, the door closed, began to talk.

“Let Pa have a sandwich,” said Robina, “and catch the sixfifteen.”

“We might all have a sandwich,” suggested Dick; “I could do with one myself.”

“Pa can explain,” said Robina, “that he has been called back to town on business. That will account for everything, and Little Mother will not be alarmed.”

“She won’t believe that business has brought him back at nine o’clock on a Saturday night,” argued Dick; “you think that Little Mother hasn’t any sense. She’ll see there’s something up, and ask a hundred questions. You know what she is.”

“Pa,” said Robina, “will have time while in the train to think out something plausible; that’s where Pa is clever. With Pa off my hands I sha’n’t mind. We three can live on cold ham and things like that. By Thursday we will be all right, and then he can come down again.”

I pointed out to Robina, kindly but firmly, the utter absurdity of her idea. How could I leave them, three helpless children, with no one to look after them? What would the Little Mother say? What might not Veronica be up to in my absence? There were other things to be considered. The donkey might arrive at any moment – no responsible person there to receive him – to see to It that his simple wants would be provided for. I should have to interview Mr. St. Leonard again to fix up final

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details as regarded Dick. Who was going to look after the cow, about to be separated from us? Young Bute would be down again with plans. Who was going to take him over the house, explain things to him intelligibly? The new boy might turn up – this simple son of the soil Miss Janie had promised to dig out and send along. He would talk Berkshire. Who would there be to understand him – to reply to him in dialect? What was the use of her being impetuous and talking nonsense?

She went on cutting sandwiches. She said they were not helpless children. She said if she and Dick at forty-two hadn’t grIt enough to run a six-roomed cottage It was time they learned.

“Who’s forty-two?” I demanded.

“We are,” explained Robina, “Dick and I – between us. We shall be forty-two next birthday. Nearly your own age.”

“Veronica,” she continued, “for the next few days won’t be a child at all. She knows nothing of the happy medium. She is either herself or she goes to the opposite extreme, and tries to be an angel. Till about the end of the week It will be like living with a vision. As for the donkey, we’ll try and make him feel as much at home as if you were here.”

“I don’t mean to be rude, Pa,” Robina explained, “but from the way you put It you evidently regard yourself as the only one among us capable of interesting him. I take It he won’t mind for a night or two sharing the shed with the cow. If he looks shocked at the suggestion, Dick can knock up a partition. I’d rather for the present, till you come down again, the cow stopped where she was. She helps to wake me in the morning. You may reckon you have settled everything as far as Dick is

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concerned. If you talk to St. Leonard again for an hour It will be about the future of the Yellow Races or the possibility of life in Jupiter. If you mention terms he will be insulted, and if he won’t let you then you will be insulted, and the whole thing will be off. Let me talk to Janie. We’ve both of us got sense. As for Mr. Bute, I know all your ideas about the house, and I sha’n’t listen to any of his silly arguments. What that young man wants is someone to tell him what he’s got to do, and then let there be an end of it. And the sooner that handy boy turns up the better. I don’t mind what he talks. All I want him to do is to clean knives and fetch water and chop wood. At the worst I’ll get that home to him by pantomime. For conversation he can waIt till you come down.”

That is the gist of what she said. It didn’t run exactly as I have put It down. There were points at which I interrupted, but Robina never listens; she just talks on, and at the end she assumes that, as a matter of course, you have come round to her point of view, and persuading her that you haven’t means beginning the whole thing over again.

She said I hadn’t time to talk, and that she would write and tell me everything. Dick also said he would write and tell me everything; and that if I felt moved to send them down a hamper – the sort of thing that, left to themselves, Fortnum & Mason would put together for a good-class picnic, say, for six persons – I might rely upon It that nothing would be wasted.

Veronica, by my desire, walked with me to the end of the lane. I talked to her very seriously. Her difficulty was that she had not been blown up. Had she been blown up, then she

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