The Son of His Father. Mrs. Oliphant
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than mamma—and there would be long conversations between those two in the winter’s afternoon, while he was playing at coach and horses, made with chairs, in the other room, the back parlour, which was the place where they had their meals. Sometimes when he got tired of the obstinacy of Dobbin, who was the big mahogany arm-chair, and who would have his own way, and jibbed abominably, he would catch a glimpse through the half-opened folding-doors of those two over the fire. They always spoke very low, and sometimes cried—and, if he came a little near, would give each other a frightened look and say, ‘Not a word before the boy.’ Johnnie’s ears got very quick to those words—he heard them when they were whispered, and sometimes he heard them through his sleep. Could they be talking of anything naughty, or what was it so necessary that he must not know?
There came a time at last when all this confused mystery came to a climax. There were hasty comings and goings, men at the door whose heavy loud knockings filled the house with dismay, stealthy entrances in the dark: for Johnnie a succession of troubled dreams, of figures flitting into his room in the middle of night, but never papa in the old jovial way to carry him down to the parlour with its staring candles. No one thought of such indulgences now. If they were wrong, they were all over. When he awoke he saw, half awake and half dreaming, sometimes his father, though he had been told he was away, sometimes his mother; other strange visitors flitting like ghosts, all confusion and disorder, the night turned into day. He was himself kept in corners in the daylight, or sent into the garden to play, or shut up in the back parlour with his toys. It seemed to Johnnie that they must think he wanted nothing but those toys, and never could understand that to play without any companions, without any wish for playing, was impossible; but he was a dutiful child, and tried to do what he was told. It was at this strange and uncomfortable period that he learned how nice it is to have a book, after you have exhausted all your solitary inventions and played at everything you know. The fascination of the books; however, added to the confusion of everything. Johnnie mixed up Robinson Crusoe with the agitating phantasmagoria of his little life. He thought that perhaps it was from the savages his father was hiding—for he was sure that it was his father he saw in those visions of the night, though every one said he had gone away. Then there came a lull in the agitation, and silence fell upon the house. Mamma and Susie cried a great deal, and were together more than ever, but Johnnie’s dreams stopped, and he saw no more in the night through his half-closed eyes the flitting figures and moving lights.
Then there came a strange scene very clearly painted upon his memory, though it was not for many years after that he was able to piece it in to his life. Johnnie had been left alone in the house with the maid, the only servant the family had, who was a simple-minded country woman, and kind to the child, though not perhaps in a very judicious way. She was kind in the way of giving him sweetmeats and pieces of cake, and the remains of dainty dishes which upstairs were not supposed to be wholesome for Johnnie, ‘as if the dear child shouldn’t have everything of the best,’ Betty said. On this day Betty was full of excitement, not capable of staying still in one place, she herself told him. She gave him his dinner, which he had to eat all by himself, a singular but not on the whole a disagreeable ceremony, since Betty was about all the time, very anxious that he should eat, and amusing him with stories.
‘Master Johnnie,’ she said, when the meal was over, ‘it do be very dull staying in the house, with nothing at all to do. Missus won’t be back till late at night. I know she can’t, poor dear. It would be more cheerful if you and me went out for a walk.’
‘But how could you leave the house, Betty, all alone by itself?’ said the little boy.
‘It won’t run away, never fear, nor nobody couldn’t steal the tables and chairs; and there ain’t nothing else left to steal, more’s the pity,’ said Betty. ‘We’ll go afore it’s dark, and it’ll cheer us up a bit: for I can’t sit still, not me, more than if I was one of the family: though you don’t know nothing about that, you poor little darlin’, Lord bless you.’
Betty, it is to be feared, would have told him readily enough, but the child was so used to hearing that he must not be told that he asked no questions. To go out, however, was certainly more cheerful than to pass another wintry afternoon in the back parlour without seeing anyone but Betty. He allowed himself to be buttoned up in his little thick blue topcoat of pilot cloth, which made him as broad as he was long, and to have his comforter wound round his neck, though he did not much like that; and then they sailed forth, Betty putting in her pocket the great key of the house door. She did not talk much, being occupied profoundly with interests of her own, of which Johnnie knew nothing, but she led him along past lines of cheerful shops all shining with Christmas presents: for Christmas was coming on, and there was an unusual traffic in the toy shops and the book shops, and all the places where pleasant things for Christmas were. Johnnie stopped and gazed, dragging at her hand, and wondered if any of the picture-books would fall to his share. His mother did not buy many pleasant things for him; but if papa came back he never forgot Johnnie; he thought to himself that surely for Christmas papa would come back—unless indeed the savages had got him. But a certain big policeman strolled by, while this thought passed through the child’s mind, and, even at seven years old, one cannot feel that savages are ineffectual creatures where such policemen are. But the thought of papa gave Johnnie a sense of mystery and alarm, since his father had disappeared in the day-time, only to be seen fitfully through half-shut eyes at night.
As the afternoon wore on, and the lights were lighted in all the shop windows, Johnnie thought this better than ever; but Betty was no longer disposed to let him gaze. She said it was time to go home, and then led him away through little dark and dingy streets which he did not know, and which tired him both in his little legs and in his mind. At last they came to a row of houses which ran along one side of a street, the other side of which was occupied by a large and lofty building. Here Betty paused a moment pondering.
‘Master Johnnie,’ she said at last, ‘if you’ll be a good boy and don’t say a word to anyone, I’ll take you to see the most wonderful place you ever saw, something which you will never, never forget all your life.’
‘What is it, Betty?’ asked Johnnie.
‘Oh, you would not understand if I was to tell you its name. But it’s something that you will always remember, and be glad you went there. But you must never, never tell; for if you were to tell anyone your mamma would be angry, and it’s not known what she would do to me.’
‘I will never tell,’ said Johnnie, upon which Betty gave him a kiss and called him ‘a poor darlin’, as knew nothing,’ and knocked at the door before which they were standing, and took him up a long, long narrow stair. Johnnie saw nothing of any importance when he was taken into a little ordinary room at the top, where two women were sitting beside a little fire, where a kettle was boiling and the table set all ready for tea.
‘This is the poor little boy,’ Betty said, after a while: and both the women looked at him, and patted him on the head, and said, ‘Poor little gentleman,’ and that he must have his tea first. He did not mind having his tea, for he was tired with his walk, and the bread and butter they gave him was sprinkled thinly over with little sweetmeats, very little tiny things, red and white, which were quite new to Johnnie. He was used to jam and honey and other things of this kind, but to eat bread and butter sprinkled with sugar-plums was quite a novelty. While he was busy in this agreeable way, one of the women put out the candles and drew up the blind from the window. And then Johnnie saw the wonderful thing which he was never to forget all his life.
Out of the little dark room there was a view into a great hall, lighted up and crammed full of people all sitting round and round in endless lines. Even in church he had never seen so many people together before. Some were seated in red dresses quite high up where everybody could see them, but the others were quite like people at church. It was very strange to see all that assembly, busy about something, sitting in rows and looking at each other, and not a word to be heard. Johnnie gazed and eat his bread and butter with the sugar-plums, and was not quite sure which was the most wonderful.
‘What are they doing?’ he asked Betty. But Betty only put her arms round him and began to sob and cry.
‘Oh, bless the child, Lord bless the child! Oh listen to him, the little innocent.’