The Adventures of Harry Richmond. Complete. George Meredith
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silk, and said that how to appear before a parcel of dreadful men, and perhaps a live duke into the bargain, was more than she knew, and more than could be expected of a lone widow woman. ‘Not for worlds!’ she answered my petition to accompany her. She would not, she said, have me go to my papa there for anything on earth; my papa would perish at the sight of me; I was not even to wish to go. And then she exclaimed, ‘Oh, the blessed child’s poor papa!’ and that people were cruel to him, and would never take into account his lovely temper, and that everybody was his enemy, when he ought to be sitting with the highest in the land. I had realized the extremity of my forlorn state on a Sunday that passed empty of my father, which felt like his having gone for ever. My nursemaid came in to assist in settling Mrs. Waddy’s bonnet above the six crisp curls, and while they were about it I sat quiet, plucking now and then at the brown silk, partly to beg to go with it, partly in jealousy and love at the thought of its seeing him from whom I was so awfully separated. Mrs. Waddy took fresh kisses off my lips, assuring me that my father would have them in twenty minutes, and I was to sit and count the time. My nursemaid let her out. I pretended to be absorbed in counting, till I saw Mrs. Waddy pass by the window. My heart gave a leap of pain. I found the street-door open and no one in the passage, and I ran out, thinking that Mrs. Waddy would be obliged to take me if she discovered me by her side in the street.
I was by no means disconcerted at not seeing her immediately. Running on from one street to another, I took the turnings with unhesitating boldness, as if I had a destination in view. I must have been out near an hour before I understood that Mrs. Waddy had eluded me; so I resolved to enjoy the shop-windows with the luxurious freedom of one whose speculations on those glorious things all up for show are no longer distracted by the run of time and a nursemaid. Little more than a glance was enough, now that I knew I could stay as long as I liked. If I stopped at all, it was rather to exhibit the bravado of liberty than to distinguish any particular shop with my preference: all were equally beautiful; so were the carriages; so were the people. Ladies frequently turned to look at me, perhaps because I had no covering on my head; but they did not interest me in the least. I should have been willing to ask them or any one where the Peerage lived, only my mind was quite full, and I did not care. I felt sure that a great deal of walking would ultimately bring me to St. Paul’s or Westminster Abbey; to anything else I was indifferent.
Toward sunset my frame was struck as with an arrow by the sensations of hunger on passing a cook’s-shop. I faltered along, hoping to reach a second one, without knowing why I had dragged my limbs from the first. There was a boy in ragged breeches, no taller than myself, standing tiptoe by the window of a very large and brilliant pastry-cook’s. He persuaded me to go into the shop and ask for a cake. I thought it perfectly natural to do so, being hungry; but when I reached the counter and felt the size of the shop, I was abashed, and had to repeat the nature of my petition twice to the young woman presiding there.
‘Give you a cake, little boy?’ she said. ‘We don’t give cakes, we sell them.’
‘Because I am hungry,’ said I, pursuing my request.
Another young woman came, laughing and shaking lots of ringlets.
‘Don’t you see he’s not a common boy? he doesn’t whine,’ she remarked, and handed me a stale bun, saying, ‘Here, Master Charles, and you needn’t say thank you.’
‘My name is Harry Richmond, and I thank you very much,’ I replied.
I heard her say, as I went out, ‘You can see he’s a gentleman’s son.’ The ragged boy was awaiting me eagerly. ‘Gemini! you’re a lucky one,’ he cried; ‘here, come along, curly-poll.’ I believe that I meant to share the bun with him, but of course he could not be aware of my beneficent intentions: so he treated me as he thought I was for treating him, and making one snatch at the bun, ran off cramming it into his mouth. I stood looking at any hand. I learnt in that instant what thieving was, and begging, and hunger, for I would have perished rather than have asked for another cake, and as I yearned for it in absolute want of food, the boy’s ungenerous treatment of me came down in a cloud on my reason. I found myself being led through the crush of people, by an old gentleman, to whom I must have related an extraordinary rigmarole. He shook his head, saying that I was unintelligible; but the questions he put to me, ‘Why had I no hat on in the open street?—Where did my mother live?—What was I doing out alone in London?’ were so many incitements to autobiographical composition to an infant mind, and I tumbled out my history afresh each time that he spoke. He led me into a square, stooping his head to listen all the while; but when I perceived that we had quitted the region of shops I made myself quite intelligible by stopping short and crying: ‘I am so hungry.’ He nodded and said, ‘It ‘s no use cross-examining an empty stomach. You’ll do me the favour to dine with me, my little man. We’ll talk over your affairs by-and-by.’
My alarm at having left the savoury street of shops was not soothed until I found myself sitting at table with him, and a nice young lady, and an old one who wore a cap, and made loud remarks on my garments and everything I did. I was introduced to them as the little boy dropped from the sky. The old gentleman would not allow me to be questioned before I had eaten. It was a memorable feast. I had soup, fish, meat, and pastry, and, for the first time in my life, a glass of wine. How they laughed to see me blink and cough after I had swallowed half the glass like water. At once my tongue was unloosed. I seemed to rise right above the roofs of London, beneath which I had been but a wandering atom a few minutes ago. I talked of my wonderful father, and Great Will, and Pitt, and the Peerage. I amazed them with my knowledge. When I finished a long recital of Great Will’s chase of the deer, by saying that I did not care about politics (I meant, in my own mind, that Pitt was dull in comparison), they laughed enormously, as if I had fired them off. ‘Do you know what you are, sir?’ said the old gentleman; he had frowning eyebrows and a merry mouth ‘you’re a comical character.’
I felt interested in him, and asked him what he was. He informed me that he was a lawyer, and ready to be pantaloon to my clown, if I would engage him.
‘Are you in the Peerage?’ said I.
‘Not yet,’ he replied.
‘Well, then,’ said I, ‘I know nothing about you.’
The young lady screamed with laughter. ‘Oh, you funny little boy; you killing little creature!’ she said, and coming round to me, lifted me out of my chair, and wanted to know if I knew how to kiss.
‘Oh, yes; I’ve been taught that,’ said I, giving the salute without waiting for the invitation; ‘but,’ I added, ‘I don’t care about it much.’
She was indignant, and told me she was going to be offended, so I let her understand that I liked being kissed and played with in the morning before I was up, and if she would come to my house ever so early, she would find me lying next the wall and ready for her.
‘And who lies outside?’ she asked.
‘That’s my papa,’ I was beginning to say, but broke the words with a sob, for I seemed to be separated from him now by the sea itself.
They petted me tenderly. My story was extracted by alternate leading questions from the old gentleman and timely caresses from the ladies. I could tell them everything except the name of the street where I lived. My midnight excursion from the house of my grandfather excited them chiefly; also my having a mother alive who perpetually fanned her face and wore a ball-dress and a wreath; things that I remembered of my mother. The ladies observed that it was clear I was a romantic child. I noticed that the old gentleman said ‘Humph,’ very often, and his eyebrows were like a rook’s nest in a tree when I spoke of my father walking away with Shylock’s descendant and not since returning to me. A big book was fetched out of his library, in which he read my grandfather’s name. I heard him mention it aloud. I had been placed on a stool beside a tea-tray near the fire, and there I saw the old red house of Riversley, and my mother dressed in white, and my aunt Dorothy; and they all complained that I had ceased to love them, and must go to bed, to which I had no objection. Somebody carried me up and undressed me, and promised me a great game of kissing in the morning.
The next day in the strange house I heard that the old gentleman had sent one of his clerks down to my grandfather at Riversley, and communicated with the constables