Marigold A story
There he sat beside the fire, the coal-bucket near at hand, and he in
the comfortless arm-chair without a cushion. Marigold looked at him
with an interest even unusual in her.
He looked so young, and yet so death-like--so near the mysteries of
age, and yet so far away. He might be anything from eight to ten,
though he was altogether wasted and fragile. The bright brown eyes
looked big and unnatural, the small mouth was drawn as if by constant
pain, the waxen fingers twined and intertwined as, without speaking or
moving, he sat and looked at her.
His little coat had been patched and repatched, and his slippers were
a woman’s worn-out pair--Marigold noticed it all with a big gulp in
her throat. It was the first time she had come so near to the tragedy
of youth and its simple silence. From her--at last--his eyes wandered
to the plum-cake, then back to her and at last he smiled. But, when
she saw the light come into his sad eyes and his pale lips part in the
childish smile, then a big tear rolled out of both her eyes, and she
shut the door and ran across to him laughing.
“Oh! you naughty boy! Why didn’t you smile before instead of
frightening me so? See, here is a piece of plum-cake. Do you like it,
or don’t you--or would you rather have something else?”
A shy colour had mounted in his cheeks, and he leaned rather to the far
arm of the chair.
“I like it. Thank you, ma’am.”
“You mustn’t call me ma’am. See, I’m in rags--all in rags--worse than
you.”
This time he turned a little more and looked at her--and then he turned
his eyes on himself. And then, with a queer little smile, he looked up
at her.
“Yes. I’m not in rags; I’m in patches.”
And Marigold laughed, yet said to herself:
“Who _is_ he like? I love him, I love him better than the great
High Priest. He’s more human, poor little fellow, although he’s so near
death--nearer my own age, too.”
“That’s what we’ll call each other,” she said aloud. “I’m Rags--you’re
Patches. Now Patches, does your mother allow you a whole slice of
plum-cake, or have you only to have half?”
“The doctor said I might eat anything I liked, thank you.”
“Fancy a doctor saying that! What a nice man he must be!”
“He’s only come lately. The one I used to have got influenza in the
winter, and has had to go away. He was a very nice man. He didn’t
charge mother much, and he often came to see me; but _this_
one--the _new_ one--he doesn’t charge a penny. He told mother he
was a quack--and that the quack was the poor woman’s friend. And he
found her work at a rich lady’s house. And she gets real good food
there--she didn’t always at the other places. And sometimes they send
something home for me.” How earnestly and eagerly he talked, as if
trying to get everything in before the long silence came.
“I’m not very fond of quacks,” said Marigold seriously. “As a rule,
they’re ignorant, meddlesome men who know nothing--after the style of
some dissenting clergy.”
“You couldn’t help liking him. He tells such lovely stories. And when
the pain is bad he always takes your hand--and it all goes away. Only
I never like to leave off his hand when once I’ve taken hold. I feel
weaker than ever after.”
“He wasn’t with you last night.”
“How do you know about last night?”
“I heard you coughing and--and----”
“Crying! I could not help it. I was very tired, and the pain wouldn’t
let me go to sleep whichever way I turned.”
“Have you often bad nights like that?”
“No, I haven’t had. But mother says father got pretty bad before the
end. He was like me, you know. I’ll eat the plum-cake now, if you don’t
mind.”
“What are you fondest of? Do you like reading?”
“My eyes get tired soon. I like thinking best.”
“What about?”
“Kings and queens and big soldiers. If I had lived I should have been
a big soldier. When the soldiers went to the war, and the bugles
sounded, I limped after them and got lost. It was very cold and snowy,
and I was out all night till a policeman found me. That is how I began
to be ill. And Dr Quack, when I told him, said it shows I was born
to be a soldier. He says it’s the next best thing to being killed in
the war--because I’m going to die, you know, through following the
soldiers. It’s over two years since that they went away. Dr Quack says
they’ll be coming back now soon.”
“His real name isn’t Dr Quack, is it?”
The boy nodded seriously.
“He said it was himself. He told my mother--and he never smiled once,
so I know he spoke the truth. Mother doesn’t like him half so much as I
do, because he likes the windows open and she doesn’t. And mother says
he isn’t easy to talk to. But I think he is. She says father was a very
comfortable man, and had some consideration for her feelings--about the
draughts, you know.”
“I don’t think draughts are pleasant things myself,” said Marigold.
“You don’t want draughts, you want fresh air.”
“Yes,” said the boy, looking up at her eagerly and feverishly, “I know.
And he says that soon he is coming to take me away to a place where the
air is beautiful and all the houses big and fine. And I shall have a
sword and learn the proper way of fighting like a man. But if he isn’t
quick I’m afraid it’ll be too late. It was Monday morning he told me of
it all, and I felt that I was getting better. And then last night I was
all alone in the dark and nothing seemed true, and I kept calling out
for him to come--‘Dr Quack!’ because he had said he would come when
the night was darkest. And it was very, very dark, and yet he never
came at all.”
“Perhaps he didn’t know you were so bad. You’ll have to tell him when
he comes again.”
“Yes. Do you live next door?”
“Yes, we have a little cottage just like yours.”
“Who else lives there?”
“My--my aunt.”
“Is she good to you?”
“Very.”
“Who is it that sings, and laughs, and makes all the noise--thumps up
the stairs, I mean, and thumps down them?”
“Well, I expect that’s a mixture. Part me and part my--my aunt.”
“You do the singing and laughing, don’t you?”
“Yes.”
“I like to hear you laughing--then I laugh too. But I love best to hear
you sing. That’s the way my queens sing when I’m thinking. Only they
don’t laugh so much. You see the kings are off at the battles fighting,
so they wouldn’t feel inclined.”
“No, of course not. But do you really think that I could sing like a
queen? Remember, Patches, I’m nothing--only Rags.”
“I mean their voices are very sweet like yours. Of course they’re not
like you in looks. They’re all tall and beautiful.”
“And what am I?”
“I don’t know,” he said, looking at her in a puzzled way. “I’ll explain
you to Dr Quack, perhaps he’ll know. Anyway, you’re little to start
with, and you’re very ragged. But--but,” with sudden impulsiveness, “I
like you. I think you have a lovely face. When you looked through the
door I didn’t think you were real at first. And I never knew you were
in rags till you told me so.”
“When my aunt thumps up the stairs, does it annoy you?”
“No. It’s company. I like to imagine what she’s going up for. She goes
up so often.”
“It’s bad management on her part, I suppose, but I never interfere with
her. She will be coming in to see you some time to-day. She makes the
most lovely jelly. Do you like jelly?”
“Yes. I like everything.”
“You haven’t eaten all your cake.”
“No; I’m keeping part for mother. Please don’t be angry. I can’t eat
much at a time, and there isn’t much I can keep for her, and she often
keeps things for me. Let’s put a saucer over it. She’ll be _so_
surprised, and I’ll make her guess who gave it me.” So saying, he
wriggled down out of his chair--one leg being withered and short, as
Marigold had noticed as he sat--and, with various contortions and a
rough-made crutch, he sidled toward a cupboard for a saucer. He came
back to his chair very exhausted, yet with a shy, sensitive expression
on his face, and he turned half away from her as he spoke, and he said:
“Dr Quack says he’s seen many a big soldier after a battle-field with
less of a leg than I. Bullets, you know” (he had turned round to her);
“and you never know your legs are off till after--and then! oh my! it
hurts you fearful.”
“It must do,” said Marigold sympathetically.
He sat down, with an air of weariness suddenly overcoming the second’s
animation. He closed his eyes and leant his dark head against the
shabby cushion, and all the tenderness in Marigold’s heart made itself
felt in the gentle hand with which she took his hot one.
“I’ll sing you a song,” said she softly, “and you shall go to sleep.
You’ll feel better after you’ve slept a while.”
So then, sitting beside him on the stool beside the fire, she sang a
gentle lullaby they sang the babies far away in Fairy Sky.
“The drowsy flower-bells nod and sleep,
The sun has gone to his cradle,
The tiny stars all drowsily peep
At the moon now creeping over the deep
As fast as she is able.
The little green men come out of the woods,
The pink men slide from the clover,
And all the elves in little blue hoods
Patter along as the moon now floods
The land all over and over.
The sun is down, and the moon is up,
And all the world is sleeping;
The fairies drink from a golden cup,
And sing sweet songs as they daintily sup
In the moon’s all-powerful keeping.
And you, my flower-bud, while they sing,
Nestle against my bosom,
Sleep! and smile through the magic ring
That the fairies every evening fling
O’er my love, my sweet home blossom.”
So Marigold’s sweet voice went softly up and down the old-world
monotone, and she sang of the little men as feelingly as if she knew
them all by name and loved them. And when she had finished, he said:
“Sing it again--just as slow--I’m sleepy.”
So she sang it again, and before it was finished he was asleep. And
Marigold sat for a little while all by herself and cried very silently.
Then, hearing Alice’s homely foot upon the stairs next door, she got
up quietly and went out, closing the door very softly, to caution her
against letting the world in general know how heavy she was.
And Alice saw the tears, though she wasn’t supposed to, and she felt
thankful--because she believed that with women tears are the best
safety-valve for the position on the boiler lid.
CHAPTER IX
Amongst the High Priest’s many estimable qualities was this, that he
got up moderately early--not officiously so. And having got up, he
gave an hour to light reading or recreation of a simple character.
Here the clever men as a rule leave recreation till the last thing at
night--that is how it is they are often so evil-tempered first thing
in the morning. Now St Armand knew this, so half-past seven saw him
wandering through the cloisters. He had not slept well--in fact, he
hadn’t slept at all--yet he looked none the worse for it. Had you been
out in the silent streets in the dark hours of early morning, you
might have seen him once more strolling down Greensward Avenue. You
might have seen him, as a boy might, scaling the high wall of the near
garden, surveying the country beyond. And despite his white hair and
dignified appearance of age, with what a neat jump he again reached the
pavement. Twenty feet! and as gracefully as one of the gods descending
the steep rocks of Olympus. And with what wonderful gift of second
sight must he have been possessed, for suddenly you saw him stoop--the
wrinkled smile on his lips and at the corners of his eyes deepening. He
touched a certain spot of the ground with the toe of his boot.
“Here’s where the little ragged rascal fell and broke his neck.
Impudence, I suppose--looking into a garden of the gods. Poor little
Humpty-Dumpty! How his mother screamed, I make no doubt, when they took