The Following of the Star Part 34

For a moment she felt a pang of compunction at having so peremptorily stopped the hide-and-seek; but salved her conscience by the remembrance of the magnificent Christmas-tree, loaded with gifts, standing ready in the ante-room, for the morrow's festivities.

Poor little forsaken girls and boys! She had no mother-love to give them. But she gave them what she could--gold, frankincense; in many cases the climate in which their parents lived provided the myrrh, when they had to be told at school of the death, in a far-off land, of a pa.s.sionately loved and longed-for mother, whose possible home-coming before long, had been the one gleam of light on the grey horizon of a lonely little heart's school-life.

Poor desolate little children; orphaned, yet not orphans!

Diana laid down her pen, and stretched her hand towards the bell, to send word that the hide-and-seek might go on. Then smiled at her own weakness. Why, even their mothers would have been obliged sometimes to say: "Hus.h.!.+" If only Diana had known it, their own mothers would have said "Hus.h.!.+" far more often than she did!

She took up her pen, and her surroundings were completely forgotten, as she talked to David.

"RIVERSCOURT, Christmas-eve.

"MY DEAR DAVID,--How well you timed your Christmas letter.

It reached me this morning. So I have it for Christmas-eve, Christmas-day, and Boxing-day--all three important anniversaries to us. Had I but thought of it in time, I might have kept a sheet for each day. Instead of which, in my eagerness for news concerning the Church of the Holy Star, I read your whole long letter through, the very moment I received it. However, it will bear reading twice, or even three times; it is so full of interest.

"Indeed I shall be with you in thought at the opening ceremony. I intend to motor over to Winchester, and spend the time in prayer and meditation in your little Chapel of the Epiphany.

"It will not by any means be my first pilgrimage there, David. It is the place of all others where I find I can most easily pray for your work. I kneel where you knelt, and look up at the stained gla.s.s representation of the Wise Men. It brings back every word of the sermon you preached this day last year.

"When you were there, did you happen to notice the window on the left, as you kneel at the rail? It represents the Virgin bending over the Baby Christ. She is holding both His little feet in one of her hands. I can't understand why; but that action seems so extraordinarily to depict the tenderness of her mother-love. I dislike babies myself, exceedingly; yet, ever since I saw that window, I have been pursued by the desire to hold a baby's two little feet in my hand that way, just to see how it feels! I am certain your mother often held your feet so, when you were a wee baby, David; and I am equally certain my mother never held mine. Don't you think tenderness, shown to little children, before they are old enough to know what tenderness means, makes a difference to their whole lives? I am sure I grew up hard-hearted, simply because no demonstration of affection was ever poured out upon me in my infancy. You grew up so sweet and affectionate to every one, simply because your mother lavished love upon you, kissed your curls, and held both your baby feet in one of her tender hands, when you were a tiny wee little kiddie, and knew nothing at all about it! There! Now you have one of my theories of life, thought out as I knelt in your little chapel, meaning to spend the whole time in prayer for your work.

"Last time I was there, just as I left the chapel, Even-song was beginning. I slipt quietly down the cathedral and sat at the very bottom of the vast nave. The service was going on away up in the choir, through distant gates.

The music seemed to come floating down from heaven. They sang the 'Nunc Dimittis' to Garrett in F. 'Lord,' whispered the angel voices, on gently floating harmony: 'Lord, now lettest Thou Thy servant depart in peace.' 'Depart in peace,' repeated the silvery trebles, soaring back to heaven! I thought of you; and of how you quoted it, looking up at the picture of Simeon in the temple, as we walked down old St. Botolph's Church. How relieved you were to be off, David; and how glad to go.

"I still make pilgrimages to St. Botolph's, when spending any time in town; or when I take a panic over your health, or your many African perils, snakes, poisoned darts, and such like things--not to mention an early hippopotamus, dancing a cake-walk in your front-garden, before breakfast.

"The verger is becoming accustomed to my visits. At first she watched me with suspicion, evidently fearing lest I had designs on the cherubs of the lectern, or purposed carving my name upon the altar-rail. When she found my prayer and meditation covered no such sinister intentions, she gave up prowling round, and merely kept an eye on me from her seat at the bottom of the church. Last time I went, I had quite a long talk with her, and found her a most interesting and well-informed person; well up in the history of the old church, and taking a touching pride and delight in it; evidently fulfilling her duties with reverent love and care; not in the perfunctory spirit one finds only too often among church officials.

"But, oh David, what a contrast between this refined, well-educated woman, and the extraordinary old caretaker at that church to which you went when you were first ordained!

Did I tell you, I made a pilgrimage there? I thought it a beautiful church, and took a quite particular interest in seeing the pulpit, and all the other places in which you performed, for the first time, the sacred functions of your holy office.

"But I can't return there, David, or remember it with pleasure, because of the appalling old gnome who haunts it, and calls herself the 'curtiker'. I never saw anything quite so terrifyingly dirty, or so weirdly coming to pieces in every possible place and yet keeping together. And there was no avoiding her. She appeared to be ubiquitous.

"When I first entered the church, she was on her knees in the aisle, flopping a very grimy piece of house flannel in and out of a zinc pail, containing what looked like an unpleasant compound of ink and soapsuds. Our acquaintance began by her exhorting me, in a very loud voice, to keep out of the 'pile.' The pail was the very last place into which one would desire to go. So, carefully keeping out of it, and avoiding the flops of the flannel, which landed each time in quite unexpected places, I fled up the church.

A moment later, as I walked round the pulpit examining the panels, she popped up in it triumphant, waving a black rag, which I suppose did duty for a duster. Her sudden appearance, in the place where I was picturing you giving out your first text, made me jump nearly out of my skin.

Whereupon she said: 'Garn!' and came chuckling down the steps, flapping her black rag on the bal.u.s.trade. I hadn't a notion what 'garn' meant; but concluded it was c.o.c.kney for 'go on,' and hurriedly went.

"But it was no good dodging round pillars or taking circuitous routes down one aisle and up another, in attempts to avoid her. Wherever I went, she was there before me; always brandis.h.i.+ng some fresh implement connected with the process which, in any other hands, might have been church cleaning. So at last I gave up trying to avoid her, and stood my ground bravely, in the hopes of gleaning information from her very remarkable conversation.

I say 'bravely,' because she became much more terrifying when she talked. She held her left eye shut, with her left hand, put her face very close to mine, and looked at me out of the right eye. She didn't seem able to talk without looking at me; or to look at me, without holding one eye shut.

"I was dining at the Brands' that evening, and happened to say to the man who took me in: 'Do you know how terrifying it is to talk to a person who holds one eye shut, and looks at you with the other?' He wanted to know what I meant; so I showed how my old lady had done it, with head pushed forward, and elbow well up. Everybody else went into fits; but my man turned out to be a rising oculist, and took it quite seriously; declared it must be a bad case of astigmatism; asked the name of the church, and is going off there to examine her eyes and prescribe gla.s.ses!

"I tell you all this, in case she was a protege of yours; for she remembers you, David.

"I am doubtful as to what manner of reception she will give to my friend the oculist. I felt bound to tell him she would most probably say 'Garn!' and his convulsive amus.e.m.e.nt, seemed to me disproportionate to the mildness of the joke. Her incomprehensible remarks, and her astonis.h.i.+ng c.o.c.kney make rational conversation with her very difficult.

While I was in the church, a mild-looking curate came in, and tried to explain something which was wanted. I could not hear the conversation, but I saw her, at the bottom of the church, holding her eye, and glaring at him. She came back to me, brandis.h.i.+ng a dustpan. ''Ear that?' she said.

'Garn! As I always say to 'em: "A nod's as good as a wink to a blind 'orse!'"

"Now that sounded like a proverb, and she said it as if it were a very deep p.r.o.nouncement, which might settle all ecclesiastical difficulties, and solve all parochial problems. But, when one comes to think of it, what on earth does it mean?

"Well, David, she remembers you; so I have no doubt whatever that you know all about her; when she became a widow--all caretakers are widows, aren't they? how, and from what cause; the exact number of her children; how many she has buried, and how many are out in the world; what 'carried off' the former, and what are the various occupations of the latter. Not possessing your wonderful faculty for unearthing the family history and inner life of caretakers, I only know, that her favourite conviction is: that a nod's as good as a wink to a blind horse; and--that she remembers you.

"I felt shy about mentioning you, while I was examining all the places of special interest; but when I reached the door, to which she accompanied me, gaily twirling a moulting feather broom, I turned, and ventured to ask whether she remembered you. She instantly clapped her hand over her eye; but the other gleamed at me, with a concentrated scorn, for asking so needless a question; and with ill-disguised mistrust, as if I were a person who had no business to have even a nodding acquaintance with you.

"'It would taike a lot of furgittin' ter furgit _'im_!' she observed, her face threateningly near mine; the whirling feather broom moulting freely over both of us. ''E's the sort of gent as maikes a body remember?'

"So now, my dear David, we know why I never forget to write to you by each mail. You are the sort of gent who makes a body remember!

"I asked her what she chiefly recollected about you. She stared at me for a minute, with chill disapproval. Then her face illumined, suddenly. ''Is smoile,' she said.

"I fled to my motor. I felt suddenly hysterical. She had such quaint black grapes in her bonnet; and you _have_ rather a nice smile you know, David.

"Not many smiles come my way, nowadays, excepting Mrs.

Mallory's; and they are so very ready-made. You feel you could buy them in Houndsditch, at so much a gross. I know about Houndsditch, because it is exactly opposite St.

Botolph's, out of Bishopsgate Street. I tried to have a little friendly conversation with the people who stand in the gutter all along there, selling extraordinary little toys for a penny; also studs and b.u.t.tonhooks, and bootlaces. They told me they bought them in Houndsditch by the gross. One man very kindly offered to take me to Houndsditch, and show me where they bought them. It was close by; so I went. He walked beside me, talking volubly all the way. He called me 'Lidy,' all the time. It sounded uncomfortably like a sort of pet-name, such as 'Liza or 'Tilda; but I believe it was Bishopsgate for 'Lady', and intended to be very respectful.

"The wholesale shop was a marvellous place; so full of little toys, and beads, and scent-bottles, and bootlaces, that you just crowded in amongst them, and wondered whether you would ever get out again.

"My very dirty friend, was also very eager, and pushed our way through to the counter. He explained to a salesman that I was a 'lidy' who wanted to 'buoy.' The salesman looked amused; but there seemed no let or hindrance in the way of my 'buoying,' so I bought heaps of queer things, kept samples of each, and gave all the rest to my friend for his stock-in-trade. He was so vociferous in his thanks and praises, and indiscriminate mention of both future states, that I dreaded the walk back to Bishopsgate. But, fortunately, Knox, having seen me cross the road, had had the gumption to follow; so there stood the motor blocking the way in Houndsditch. Into it I fled, and was whirled westward, followed by a final: 'Gawd bless yur, lidy!' from my grateful guide.

"These people alarm me so, because I am never sure what they may not be going to say next. When _you_ talk to them, David, you always seem able to hold the conversation. But if _I_ talk to them, almost immediately it is they who are talking to me; while I am nervously trying to find a way to escape from what I fear they are about to say.

"But I was telling you of Mrs. Mallory's smiles----

"Just as I wrote that, my dear David, Mrs. Mallory appeared at the door, wearing one of them, and inquired whether I was aware that it was nearly eleven o'clock; all the children were asleep, and she was waiting to help me 'do Santa Claus'?

"So I had to leave off writing, then and there, and 'do Santa Claus' for my large family, with Mrs. Mallory's help.

I began my letter early in the afternoon; and, with only short breaks for tea and dinner, have been writing ever since. Time seems to fly while I sit scribbling to you of all my foolish doings. I only hope they do not bore you, David. If the reading of them amuses you, as much as the writing amuses me, we ought both to be fairly well entertained.

"Now I am back in the library, having been round to all the beds, leaving behind at each a fat, mysterious, lumpy, rustling, stocking! Oh, do you remember the feel of it, as one sat up in the dark? One had fallen asleep, after a final fingering of its limp emptiness. One woke--remembered!--sat up--reached out a breathless hand--and lo! it was plump and full--filled to overflowing.

Santa Claus had come!

"I wish Santa Claus would come to empty hearts!

"David you don't know how hard it is to go the round of those little beds upstairs, and see the curly tumbled heads on the pillows; feeling so little oneself about each individual head, yet knowing that each one represents a poor mother, thousands of miles away, who has gone to bed aching for a sight of the tumbled curls on which I look unmoved; who would give anything--anything--to be in my shoes just for that five minutes.

"There is a tiny girl here now, we call her 'Little Fairy,'

whose mother died eight weeks ago, just as the parents were preparing to return to England. The little one is not to be told until the father arrives, and tells her himself. She thinks both are on the way. She talks very little of the father, who appears to be a somewhat austere man; but every day she says: 'Mummie's tumming home! Mummie's tumming home!' When her little feet begin to dance as she trips across the hall, I know they are dancing to the tune of 'Mummie's tumming home!' Each evening she gives me a soft little cheek to kiss, saying anxiously: 'Not my mouf, Mrs.

Rivers; I's keeping that for mummie!' It's breaking me, David. If it goes on much longer I shall have to gather her into my arms, and tell her the truth, myself.

"Oh, why--why--why do people do these things in the name of religion; on account of so-called Christian work.

"I wish I loved children! Do you think there is something radically wrong with one's whole nature, when one isn't naturally fond of children?