The Golden Scarecrow. Hugh Walpole
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singing down there. How awful! He'll be going down to Crole very shortly, Roberts. Splendid air for him there. But the Square's cheerful. He likes the garden, doesn't he?"
"Oh, yes, Your Grace; all the children and the fountain. But he's a happy baby. I should say he'd like anything."
For a moment longer she looked down into the Square. The discordant voice was giving "Annie Laurie" to the world.
"Good-bye, darling." She stepped forward, shook the silver and coral rattle. "See what grannie's given you!" She left it lying near his hand, and, with a little sigh, was gone.
III
Now, as the sun was setting, the clouds had broken into little pink bubbles, lying idly here and there upon the sky. Higher, near the top of the window, they were large pink cushions, three fat ones, lying sedately against the blue. During three months now Henry Fitzgeorge Strether had been confronted with the new scene, the new urgency on his part to respond to it. At first he had refused absolutely to make any response; behind him, around him, above him, below him, were still the old conditions; but they were the old conditions viewed, for some reason unknown to him, at a distance, and at a distance that was ever increasing. With every day something here in this new and preposterous world struck his attention, and with every fresh lure was he drawn more certainly from his old consciousness. At first he had simply rebelled; then, very slowly, his curiosity had begun to stir. It had stirred at first through food and touch; very pleasant this, very pleasant that.
Milk, sleep, light things that he could hold very tightly with his hands. Now, upon this March afternoon, he watched the pink clouds with a more intent gaze than he had given to them before. Their colour and shape bore some reference to the life that he had left. They were "like" a little to those other things. There, too, shadowed against the wall, was his Friend, his Friend, now the last link with everything that he knew.
At first, during the first week, he had demanded again and again to be taken back, and always he had been told to wait, to wait and see what was going to happen. So long as his Friend was there, he knew that he was not completely abandoned, and that this was only a temporary business, with its strange limiting circumstances, the way that one was tied and bound, the embarrassment of finding that all one's old means of communication were here useless. How desperate, indeed, would it have been had his Friend not been there, reassuring pervading him, surrounding him, always subduing those sudden inexplicable alarms.
He would demand: "When are we going to leave all this?"
"Wait. I know it seems absurd to you, but it's commanded you."
"Well, but—this is ridiculous. Where are all my old powers I Where are all the others?"
"You will understand everything one day. I'm afraid you're very uncomfortable. You will be less so as time passes. Indeed, very soon you will be very happy."
"Well, I'm doing my best to be cheerful. But you won't leave me?"
"Not so long as you want me."
"You'll stay until we go back again!"
"You'll never go back again."
"Never?"
"No."
Across the light the nurse advanced. She took him in her arms for a moment, turned his pillows, then layed him down again. As he settled down into comfort he saw his Friend, huge, a great shadow, mingling with the coloured lights of the flaming sky. All the world was lit, the white room glowed. A pleasant smell was in his nostrils.
"Where are all the others? They would like to share this pleasant moment, and I would warn them about the unpleasant ones."
"They are coming, some of them. I am with them as I am with you." Swinging across the Square were the evening bells of St. Matthew's.
Henry Fitzgeorge smiled, then chuckled, then dozed into a pleasant sleep.
IV
Asleep, awake, it had been for the most part the same to him. He swung easily, lazily upon the clouds; warmth and light surrounded him; a part of him, his toes, perhaps, would be suddenly cold, then he would cry, or he would strike his head against the side of his cot and it would hurt, and so then he would cry again. But these tears would not be tears of grief, but simply declarations of astonishment and wonder.
He did not, of course, realise that as, very slowly, very gradually he began to understand the terms and conditions of his new life, so with the same gradation, his Friend was expressed in those terms. Slowly that great shadow filled the room, took on human shape, until at last it would be only thus that he would appear. But Henry would not realise the change, soon he would not know that it had ever been otherwise. Dimly, out of chaos, the world was being made for him. There a square of colour, here something round and hard that was cool to touch, now a gleaming rod that ran high into the air, now a shape very soft and warm against which it was pleasant to lean. The clouds, the sweep of dim colour, the vast horizons of that other world yielded, day by day, to little concrete things—a patch of carpet, the leg of a chair, the shadow of the fire, clouds beyond the window, buttons on some one's clothes, the rails of his cot. Then there were voices, the touch of hands, some one's soft hair, some one who sang little songs to him.
He woke early one morning and realised the rattle that his grandmother had given to him. He suddenly realised it. He grasped the handle of it with his hand and found this cool and pleasant to touch. He then, by accident, made it tinkle, and instantly the prettiest noise replied to him. He shook it more lustily and the response was louder. He was, it seemed, master of this charming thing and could force it to do what he wished. He appealed to his Friend. Was not this a charming thing that he had found? He waved it and chuckled and crowed, and then his toes, sticking out beyond the bed-clothes, were nipped by the cold so that he halloed loudly. Perhaps the rattle had nipped his toes. He did not know, but he would cry because that eased his feelings.
That morning there came with his grandmother and mother a silly young woman who had, it was supposed, a great way with babies. "I adore babies," she said. "We understand one another in the most wonderful way."
Henry Fitzgeorge looked at her as she leaned over the cot and made faces at him. "Goo-goo-gum-goo," she cried.
"What is all this?" he asked his Friend. He laid down the rattle, and felt suddenly lonely and unhappy.
"Little pet—ug—la—la—goo—losh!" Henry Fitzgeorge raised his eyes. His Friend was a long, long way away; his eyes grew cold with contempt. He hated this thing that made the noises and closed out the light. He opened his eyes, he was about to burst into one of his most abandoned roars when his stare encountered his mother. Her eyes were watching him, and they had in them a glow and radiance that gave him a warm feeling of companionship. "I know," they seemed to say, "what you are thinking of. I agree with all that you are feeling about her. Only don't cry, she really isn't worth it." His mouth slowly closed then to thank her for her assistance, he raised the rattle and shook it at her. His eyes never left her face.
"Little darling," said the lady friend, but nevertheless disappointed. "Lift him up, Jane. I'd like to see him in your arms."
But she shook her head. She moved away from the cot. Something so precious had been in that smile of her son's that she would not risk any rebuff.
Henry Fitzgeorge gave the strange lady one last look of disgust.
"If that comes again I'll bite it," he said to his Friend.
When these visitors had departed, he lay there remembering those eyes that had looked into his. All that day he remembered them, and it may be that his Friend, as he watched, sighed because the time for launching him had now come, that one more soul had passed from his sheltering arms out into the highroad of fine adventures. How easily they forget! How readily they forget! How eagerly they fling the pack of their old world from off their shoulders! He had seen, perhaps, so many go, thus lustily, upon their way, and then how many, at the end of it all, tired, worn, beaten to their very shadows, had he received at the