The Fallen Leaves. Wilkie Collins
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to be my father; it’s my duty to call you Mister—or Sir, as we say to our elders at Tadmor. I have left all my friends behind me at the Community—and I feel lonely out here on this big ocean, among strangers. Do me a kindness, sir. Call me by my Christian name; and give me a friendly slap on the back if you find we get along smoothly in the course of the day.”
“Which of your names shall it be?” Mr. Hethcote asked, humouring this odd lad. “Claude?”
“No. Not Claude. The Primitive Christians said Claude was a finicking French name. Call me Amelius, and I shall begin to feel at home again. If you’re in a hurry, cut it down to three letters (as they did at Tadmor), and call me Mel.”
“Very good,” said Mr. Hethcote. “Now, my friend Amelius (or Mel), I am going to speak out plainly, as you do. The Primitive Christian Socialists must have great confidence in their system of education, to turn you adrift in the world without a companion to look after you.”
“You’ve hit it, sir,” Amelius answered coolly. “They have unlimited confidence in their system of education. And I’m a proof of it.”
“You have relations in London, I suppose?” Mr. Hethcote proceeded.
For the first time the face of Amelius showed a shadow of sadness on it.
“I have relations,” he said. “But I have promised never to claim their hospitality. ‘They are hard and worldly; and they will make you hard and worldly, too.’ That’s what my father said to me on his deathbed.” He took off his hat when he mentioned his father’s death, and came to a sudden pause—with his head bent down, like a man absorbed in thought. In less than a minute he put on his hat again, and looked up with his bright winning smile. “We say a little prayer for the loved ones who are gone, when we speak of them,” he explained. “But we don’t say it out loud, for fear of seeming to parade our religious convictions. We hate cant in our Community.”
“I cordially agree with the Community, Amelius. But, my good fellow, have you really no friend to welcome you when you get to London?”
Amelius answered the question mysteriously. “Wait a little!” he said—and took a letter from the breast-pocket of his coat. Mr. Hethcote, watching him, observed that he looked at the address with unfeigned pride and pleasure.
“One of our brethren at the Community has given me this,” he announced. “It’s a letter of introduction, sir, to a remarkable man—a man who is an example to all the rest of us. He has risen, by dint of integrity and perseverance, from the position of a poor porter in a shop to be one of the most respected mercantile characters in the City of London.”
With this explanation, Amelius handed his letter to Mr. Hethcote. It was addressed as follows:—
To John Farnaby, Esquire,
Messrs. Ronald & Farnaby,
Stationers,
Aldersgate Street, London.
CHAPTER 2
Mr. Hethcote looked at the address on the letter with an expression of surprise, which did not escape the notice of Amelius. “Do you know Mr. Farnaby?” he asked.
“I have some acquaintance with him,” was the answer, given with a certain appearance of constraint.
Amelius went on eagerly with his questions. “What sort of man is he? Do you think he will be prejudiced against me, because I have been brought up in Tadmor?”
“I must be a little better acquainted, Amelius, with you and Tadmor before I can answer your question. Suppose you tell me how you became one of the Socialists, to begin with?”
“I was only a little boy, Mr. Hethcote, at that time.”
“Very good. Even little boys have memories. Is there any objection to your telling me what you can remember?”
Amelius answered rather sadly, with his eyes bent on the deck. “I remember something happening which threw a gloom over us at home in England. I heard that my mother was concerned in it. When I grew older, I never presumed to ask my father what it was; and he never offered to tell me. I only know this: that he forgave her some wrong she had done him, and let her go on living at home—and that relations and friends all blamed him, and fell away from him, from that time. Not long afterwards, while I was at school, my mother died. I was sent for, to follow her funeral with my father. When we got back, and were alone together, he took me on his knee and kissed me. ‘Which will you do, Amelius,’ he said; ‘stay in England with your uncle and aunt? or come with me all the way to America, and never go back to England again? Take time to think of it.’ I wanted no time to think of it; I said, ‘Go with you, papa.’ He frightened me by bursting out crying; it was the first time I had ever seen him in tears. I can understand it now. He had been cut to the heart, and had borne it like a martyr; and his boy was his one friend left. Well, by the end of the week we were on board the ship; and there we met a benevolent gentleman, with a long gray beard, who bade my father welcome, and presented me with a cake. In my ignorance, I thought he was the captain. Nothing of the sort. He was the first Socialist I had ever seen; and it was he who had persuaded my father to leave England.”
Mr. Hethcote’s opinions of Socialists began to show themselves (a little sourly) in Mr. Hethcote’s smile. “And how did you get on with this benevolent gentleman?” he asked. “After converting your father, did he convert you—with the cake?”
Amelius smiled. “Do him justice, sir; he didn’t trust to the cake. He waited till we were in sight of the American land—and then he preached me a little sermon, on our arrival, entirely for my own use.”
“A sermon?” Mr. Hethcote repeated. “Very little religion in it, I suspect.”
“Very little indeed, sir,” Amelius answered. “Only as much religion as there is in the New Testament. I was not quite old enough to understand him easily—so he wrote down his discourse on the fly-leaf of a story-book I had with me, and gave it to me to read when I was tired of the stories. Stories were scarce with me in those days; and, when I had exhausted my little stock, rather than read nothing I read my sermon—read it so often that I think I can remember every word of it now. ‘My dear little boy, the Christian religion, as Christ taught it, has long ceased to be the religion of the Christian world. A selfish and cruel Pretence is set up in its place. Your own father is one example of the truth of this saying of mine. He has fulfilled the first and foremost duty of a true Christian—the duty of forgiving an injury. For this, he stands disgraced in the estimation of all his friends: they have renounced and abandoned him. He forgives them, and seeks peace and good company in the New World, among Christians like himself. You will not repent leaving home with him; you will be one of a loving family, and, when you are old enough, you will be free to decide for yourself what your future life shall be.’ That was all I knew about the Socialists, when we reached Tadmor after our long journey.”
Mr. Hethcote’s prejudices made their appearance again. “A barren sort of place,” he said, “judging by the name.”
“Barren? What can you be thinking of? A prettier place I never saw, and never expect to see again. A clear winding river, running into a little blue lake. A broad hill-side, all laid out in flower-gardens, and shaded by splendid trees. On the top of the hill, the buildings of the Community, some of brick and some of wood, so covered with creepers and so encircled with verandahs that I can’t tell you to this day what style of architecture they were built in. More trees behind the houses—and, on the other side of the hill, cornfields, nothing but cornfields rolling away and away in great yellow plains, till they reached the golden sky and the setting sun, and were seen no more. That was our first view of Tadmor, when the stage-coach dropped us at the town.”
Mr. Hethcote still held out. “And what about the people who live in this earthly Paradise?”