The History of Sir Richard Calmady: A Romance
"My own darling," Katherine murmured.
"Yes, please say that!" he cried, looking up eagerly. "I am your
darling, mother, aren't I, just the same? Dr. Knott said something
about you just now. He's an awfully fine old chap. I like him. He
talked to me for a long time after we'd sent Winter away, and he was
ever so kind. And he told me it was bad for you too, you know--for both
of us. I'm afraid I had not thought much about that before. I've been
thinking about it since. And I began to be afraid that--that I might be
a nuisance,--that you might be ashamed of me, later, when I am grown
up, since I've always got to be like this, you see."
The boy's voice broke.
"Mother, mother, you'll never despise me, who ever does, will you?" he
sobbed.
And it seemed to Lady Calmady that now she must have touched bottom in
this tragedy. There could surely be no further to go? It was well that
her mood was soft; that for a little while she had ceased to be under
the dominion of her so sadly fixed idea. In talking with Julius March
she had been reminded how constant a quantity is sorrow; how real,
notwithstanding their silence, are many griefs; how strong is human
patience. And this indirectly had fortified her. Wrung with anguish for
the boy, she yet was calm. She knelt down by the bedside and put her
arms round him.
"Most precious one--listen," she said. "You must never ask me such a
question again. I am your mother--you cannot measure all that implies,
and so you cannot measure the pain your question causes me. Only you
must believe, because I tell it you, that your mother's love will never
grow old or wear thin. It is always there, always fresh, always ready.
In utter security you can come back to it again and again. It is like
one of those clear springs in the secret places of the deep woods--you
know them--which bubble up forever. Drink, often as you may, however
heavy the drought or shrunken the streams elsewhere, those springs
remain full to the very lip."--Her tone changed, taking a tender
playfulness. "Why, my Dickie, you are the light of my eyes, my darling,
the one thing which makes me still care to live. You are your father's
gift to me. And so every kiss you give me, every pretty word you say to
me, is treasured up for his, as well as for your own, dear sake."
She leaned back, laid her head on the pillow beside his, cheek to
cheek. Katherine was a young woman still--young enough to have moments
of delicate shyness in the presence of her son. She could not look at
him now as she spoke.
"You know, dearest, if I could take your bodily misfortune upon me,
here, directly, and give you my wholeness, I would do it more readily,
with greater thankfulness and delight than I have ever done anything
in----"
But Richard raised his hand and laid it, almost violently, upon her
mouth.
"Oh stop, mother, stop!" he cried. "Don't--it's too dreadful to think
of."
He flung away, and lay at as far a distance as the width of the bed
would allow, gazing at her in angry protest.
"You can't do that. But you don't suppose I'd let you do it even if you
could," he said fiercely. Then he turned his face to the sunny western
window again. "I like to know that you're beautiful anyhow, mother,
all--all over," he said.
There followed a long silence between them. Lady Calmady still knelt by
the bedside. But she drew herself up, rested her elbows on the bed and
clasped her hands under her chin. And as she knelt there something of
proud comfort came to her. For so long she had sickened, fearing the
hour when Richard should begin clearly to gauge the extent of his own
ill-luck; yet, now the first shock of plain speech over, she
experienced relief. For the future they could be honest, she and
he,--so she thought,--and speak heart to heart. Moreover, in his so
bitter distress, it was to her--not to Mary, his good comrade, not to
Roger Ormiston, the Ulysses of his fancy--that the boy had turned. He
was given back to her, and she was greatly gladdened by that. She was
gladdened too by Richard's last speech, by his angry and immediate
repudiation of the bare mention of any personal gain which should touch
her with loss. Katherine's eyes kindled as she knelt there watching her
son. For it was very much to find him chivalrous, hotly sensitive of
her beauty and the claims of her womanhood. In instinct, in thought, in
word, he had shown himself a very gallant, high-bred gentleman--child
though he was. And this gave Katherine not only proud comfort in the
present, but cheered the future with hope.
"Look here, Dickie, darling," she said softly at last, "tell me a
little more about your talk with Dr. Knott."
"Oh! he was awfully kind," Richard answered, turning towards her again,
while his face brightened. "He said some awfully jolly things to me."
The boy put out his hand and began playing with the bracelets on
Katherine's wrists. He kept his eyes fixed on them as he fingered them.
"He told me I was very strong and well made--except, of course, for it.
And that I was not to imagine myself ill or invalidy, because I'm
really less ill than most people, you know. And--he said--you won't
think me foolish, mother, if I tell you?--he said I was a very handsome
fellow."
Richard glanced up quickly, while his colour deepened.
"Am I really handsome?" he asked.
Katherine smiled at him.
"Yes, you are very handsome, Dickie. You have always been that. You
were a beautiful baby, a beautiful little child. And now, every day you
grow more like your father. I can't quite talk about him, my dear--but
ask Uncle Roger, ask Marie de Mirancourt what he was when she knew him
first."
The boy's face flashed back her smile, as the sea does the sunlight.
"Oh! I say, but that's good news," he said. He lay quite still on his
back for a little while, thinking about it.
"That seems to give one a shove, you know," he remarked presently. Then
he fell to playing with her bracelets again. "After all, I've got a
good many shoves to-day, mother. Dr. Knott's a regular champion shover.
He told me about a number of people he'd known who had got smashed up
somehow, or who'd always had something wrong, you know--and how they'd
put a good face on it and hadn't let it interfere, but had done things
just the same. And he told me I'd just got to be plucky--he knew I
could if I tried--and not let it interfere either. He told me I mustn't
be soft, or lazy, because doing things is more difficult for me than
for other people. But that I'd just got to put my back into it, and go
in and win. And I told him I would--and you'll help me, mummy, won't
you?"
"Yes, darling, yes," Lady Calmady said.
"I want to begin at once," he went on hurriedly, looking hard at the
bracelets. "I shouldn't like to be unkind to her, mother, but do you
think Clara would give me up? I don't need a nurse now. It's rather
silly. May one of the men-servants valet me? I should like Winter best,
because he's been here always, and I shouldn't feel shy with him. Would
it bore you awfully to speak about that now, so that he might begin
to-night?"
Lady Calmady's brave smile grew a trifle sad. The boy was less
completely given back to her than she had fondly supposed. This day was
after all to introduce a new order. And the woman always pays. She was
to pay for that advance, so was the devoted handmaiden, Clara. Still
the boy must have his way--were it even towards a merely imagined good.
"Very well, dearest, I will settle it," she answered.
"You won't mind, though, mother?"
Katherine stroked the short curly hair back from his forehead.
"I don't mind anything that promises to make you happier, Dickie," she
said. "What else did you and Dr. Knott settle--anything else?"
Richard waited, then he turned on his elbow and looked full and very
earnestly at her.
"Yes, mother, we did settle something more. And something that I'm
afraid you won't like. But it would make me happier than anything
else--it would make all the difference that--that can be made, you
know."
He paused, his expression very firm though his lips quivered.
"Dr. Knott wants me to ride."
Katherine drew back, stood up straight, threw out her hands as though
to keep off some actual and tangible object of offense.
"Not that, Richard," she cried. "Anything in the world rather than
that."
He looked at her imploringly, yet with a certain determination, for the
child was dying fast in him and the forceful desires and intentions of
youth growing.
"Don't say I mustn't, mother. Pray, pray don't, because----"
He left the sentence unfinished, overtaken by the old habit of
obedience, yet he did not lower his eyes.
But Lady Calmady made no response. For the moment she was outraged to
the point of standing apart, even from her child. For a moment, even
motherhood went down before purely personal feeling--and this, by the
irony of circumstance, immediately after motherhood had made supreme
confession of immutability. But remembering her husband's death,
remembering the source of all her child's misfortune, it appeared to
her indecent, a wanton insult to all her past suffering, that such a
proposition should be made to her. And, in a flash of cruelly vivid
perception, she knew how the boy would look on a horse, the grotesque,
to the vulgar, wholly absurd spectacle he must, notwithstanding his
beauty, necessarily present. For a moment the completeness of love
failed before pride touched to the very quick.
"But, how can you ride?" she said. "My poor child, think--how is it
possible?"
Richard sat upright, pressing his hands down on the bedclothes on
either side to steady himself. The colour rushed over his face and
throat.
"It is possible, mother," he answered resolutely, "or Dr. Knott would
never have talked about it. He couldn't have been so unkind. He drew me
the plan of a saddle. He said I was to show it to Uncle Roger to-night.
Of course it won't be easy at first, but I don't care about that. And
Chifney would teach me. I know he would. He said the other day he'd
make a sportsman of me yet."
"When did you talk with Chifney?" Lady Calmady spoke very quietly, but
there was that in her tone which came near frightening the boy. It
required all his daring to answer honestly and at once.
"I talked to him the day Aunt Ella and Helen were here. I--I went down
to the stables with him and saw all the horses."
"Then either you or he did very wrong," Lady Calmady remarked.
"It was my fault, mother, all my fault. Chifney would have ridden on,
but I stopped him. Chaplin tried to prevent me. I--I told him to mind
his own business. I meant to go. I--I saw all the horses, and they were
splendid," he added, enthusiasm gaining over fear. "I saw the stables,
and the weighing-room, and everything. I never enjoyed myself so much
before. I told Chaplin I would tell you, because he ought not to be
blamed, you know. I did mean to tell you directly I came in. But all
those people were here."--Richard's face darkened. "And you remember
what happened? That put everything else out of my head."
A pause. Then he said: "Are you very angry?"
Katherine made no reply. She moved away round the foot of the bed and
stood at the sunny window in silence. Bitterness of hot humiliation
possessed her. Heretofore, whatever her trial, she had been mistress of
the situation; she had reigned a queen-mother, her authority
undisputed. And now it appeared her kingdom was in revolt, conspiracy
was rife. Richard's will and hers were in conflict; and Richard's will
must eventually obtain, since he would eventually be master. Already
courtiers bowed to that will. All this was in her mind. And a wounding
of feeling, far deeper and more intimate than this,--since Katherine's