so two years passed away. nurse bundle was still with me. with her i "did lessons" after a fashion. i learned to read, i had many of the psalms and a good deal of poetry—sacred and secular—by heart. in an old-fashioned, but slow and thorough manner, i acquired the first outlines of geography, arithmetic, etc., and what mrs. bundle taught me i repeated to rubens. but i don't think he ever learned the "capital towns of europe," though we studied them together under the same oak tree.
we had a happy two years of it together under the bundle dynasty, and then trouble came.
i was never fond of demonstrative affection from strangers. the ladies who lavish kisses and flattery upon one's youthful head after eating papa's good dinner—keeping a sharp protective eye on their own silk dresses, and perchance pricking one with a brooch or pushing a curl into one eye with a kid-gloved finger—i held in unfeigned abhorrence. but over and above my natural instinct against the unloving fondling of drawing-room visitors, i had a special and peculiar antipathy to miss eliza burton.
at first, i think i rather admired her. her[13] rolling eyes, the black hair plastered low upon her forehead,—the colour high, but never changeable or delicate—the amplitude and rustle of her skirts, the impressiveness of her manner, her very positive matureness, were just what the crude taste of childhood is apt to be fascinated by. she was the sister of my father's man of business; and she and her brother were visiting at my home. she really looked well in the morning, "toned down" by a fresh, summer muslin, and all womanly anxiety to relieve my father of the trouble of making the tea for breakfast.
"dear mr. dacre, do let me relieve you of that task," she cried, her ribbons fluttering over the sugar-basin. "i never like to see a gentleman sacrificing himself for his guests at breakfast. you have enough to do at dinner, carving large joints, and jointing those terrible birds. at breakfast a gentleman should have no trouble but the cracking of his own egg and the reading of his own newspaper. now do let me!"
miss burton's long fingers were almost on the tea-caddy; but at that moment my father quietly opened it, and began to measure out the tea.
"i never trouble my lady visitors with this," he said, quietly. "i am only too well accustomed to it."
child as i was, i felt well satisfied that my father would let no one fill my mother's place. for so it was, and all miss burton's efforts failed to put her, even for a moment, at the head of his table.
i do not quite know how or when it was that i began to realize that such was her effort. i remember once hearing a scrap of conversation between our most respectable and respectful butler and the[14] housekeeper—"behind the scenes"—as the former worthy came from the breakfast-room.
the lank lawyer wagged my hand of a morning, and said, "and how is miss eliza's little beau?"
the lank lawyer wagged my hand of a morning, and said, "and how is miss eliza's little beau?"
"and how's the new missis this morning, mr. smith?" asked the housekeeper, with a bitterness not softened by the prospect of possible dethronement.
"another try for the tea-tray, ma'am," replied smith, "but it's no go."
"a brazen, black-haired old maid!" cried the housekeeper. "to think of her taking the place of that sweet angel, mrs. dacre (and she barely two years in her grave), and pretending to act a mother's part by the poor boy and all. i've no patience!"
on one excuse or another, the burtons contrived to extend their visit; and the prospect of a marriage between my father and miss burton was now discussed too openly behind his back for me to fail to hear it. then nurse bundle on this subject hardly exercised her usual discretion in withholding me from servants' gossip, and servants' gossip from me. her own indignation was strongly aroused, and i had no difficulty in connecting her tearful embraces, and her allusions to my dead mother, with the misfortune we all believed to be impending.
at first i had admired miss burton's bouncing looks. then my head had been turned to some extent by her flattery, and by the establishment of that most objectionable of domestic jokes, the parody of love affairs in connection with children. miss burton called me her little sweetheart, and sent me messages, and vowed that i was quite a little man of the world, and then was sure that i was a desperate flirt. the lank lawyer wagged my hand of a morning, and said, "and how is [15]miss eliza's little beau?" and i laughed, and looked important, and talked rather louder, and escaped as often as i could from the nursery, and endeavoured to act up to the character assigned me with about as much grace as ?sop's donkey trying to dance. i must have become a perfect nuisance to any sensible person at this period, and indeed my father had an interview with nurse bundle on the subject.
"master reginald seems to me to be more troublesome than he used to be, nurse," said my father.
"indeed you say true, sir," said mrs. bundle, only too glad to reply; "but it's the drawing-room and not the nursery as does it. miss burton is always a begging for him to be allowed to stay up at nights and to lunch in the dining-room, and to come down of a morning, and to have a half-holiday in an afternoon; and, saving your better knowledge, sir, it's a bad thing to break into the regular ways of children. it ain't for their happiness, nor for any one else's."
"you are perfectly right, perfectly right," said my father, "and it shall not occur again. ah! my poor boy," he added in an irrepressible outburst, "you suffer for lack of a mother's care. i do what i can, but a man cannot supply a woman's place to a child."
mrs. bundle's feelings at this soliloquy may be imagined. "you might have knocked me down with a feather, sir," she assured the butler (unlikely as it seemed!) in describing the scene afterwards. she found strength, however, to reply to my father's remark.
"indeed, sir, a mother's place never can be filled to a child by no one whatever. least of all such[16] a mother as he had in your dear lady. but he's a boy, sir, and not a girl, and in all reason a father is what he'll chiefly look to in a year or two. and for the meanwhile, sir, i ask you, could master reginald look better or behave better than he did afore the company come? it's only natural as smart ladies who knows nothing whatever of children, and how they should be brought up, and what's for their good, should think it a kindness to spoil them. any one may see the lady has no notion of children, and would be the ruin of master reginald if she had much to do with him; but when the company's gone, sir, and he's left quiet with his papa, you'll find him as good as any young gentleman needs to be, if you'll excuse my freedom in speaking, sir."
whatever my father thought of mrs. bundle's freedom of speech, he only said,
"master reginald will be quite under your orders for the future, nurse," and so dismissed her.
and mrs. bundle having "said her say," withdrew to say it over again in confidence to the housekeeper.
as for me, if my vanity was stronger than my good taste for a while, the quickness of childish instinct soon convinced me that miss burton had no real affection for me. then i was puzzled by her spasmodic attentions when my father was in the room, and her rough repulses when i "bothered" her at less appropriate moments. i got tired of her, too, of the sound of her voice, of her black hair and unchanging red cheeks. and from the day that i caught her beating rubens for lying on the edge of her dress, i lived in terror of her. those rolling black eyes had not a pleasant look[17] when the lady was out of temper. and was she really to be the new mistress of the house? to take the place of my fair, gentle, beautiful mother? that wave of household gossip which for ever surges behind the master's back was always breaking over me now, in expressions of pity for the motherless child of "the dear lady dead and gone."
"i don't like black hair," i announced one day at luncheon; "i like beautiful, shining, golden hair, like poor mamma's."
"don't talk nonsense, reginald," said my father, angrily, and shortly afterwards i was dismissed to the nursery.
if i had only had my childish memory to trust to, i do not think that i could have kept so clear a remembrance of my mother as i had. but in my father's dressing-room there hung a water-colour sketch of his young wife, with me—her first baby—on her lap. it was a very happy portrait. the little one was nestled in her arms, and she herself was just looking up with a bright smile of happiness and pride. that look came full at the spectator, and perhaps it was because it was so very lifelike that i had (ever since i could remember) indulged a curious freak of childish sentiment by nodding to the picture and saying, "good-morning, mamma," whenever i came into the room. such little superstitions become part of one's life, and i freely confess that i salute that portrait still! i remember, too, that as time went on i lost sight of the fact that it was i who lay on my mother's lap, and always regarded the two as mamma and sister alice—that ever-baby sister whom i had once kissed, and no more. i generally saw them at least once a day, for it was my privilege to play in my father's dressing-room[18] during part of his toilet, and we had a stereotyped joke between us in reference to his shaving, which always ended in my receiving a piece of the creamy lather on the tip of my nose.
but it was one evening when the shadow hanging over the household was deepest upon me, that i slipped unobserved out of the drawing-room where miss burton was "performing" on my mother's piano, and crept slowly and sadly upstairs. i went slowly, partly out of my heavy grief, and partly because i carried rubens in my arms. had not the lawyer kicked him because he lay upon the pedal? i was resolved that after such an insult he should not so much as have the trouble of walking upstairs. so i carried him, and as i went i condoled with him.
"did the nasty man kick him? my poor ru, my darling, dear ru! the pedal is yours, and not his, and the whole house is yours, and not his nor miss burton's; and oh, i wish they would go!"
as i whined, rubens whined; as i kissed him he licked me, and the result was unfavourable to balance, and i was obliged to sit down on a step. and as i sat i wept, and as i wept that overpowering mother-need came over me, which drives even the little ragamuffin of the gutter to carry his complaints to "mother" for comfort and redress. and i took up rubens in my arms again, sobbing, and saying, "i shall go to mamma!" and so weeping and in the darkness we crept into the dressing-room.
i could see nothing, but i knew well where "mamma" was, and standing under the picture, i sobbed out my incoherent complaint.
"good-evening, mamma! good-evening, sis[19]ter alice! please, mamma, it's me and rubens." (sobs on my part, and frantic attempts by rubens to lick every inch of my face at once.) "and please, mamma, we're very miser-r-r-r-rable. and oh! please, mamma, don't let papa marry miss burton. please, please don't, dear, beautiful, golden mamma! and oh! how we wish you could come back! rubens and i."
my voice died away with a wail which was dismally echoed by rubens. then, suddenly, in the darkness came a sob that was purely human, and i was clasped in a woman's arms, and covered with tender kisses and soothing caresses. for one wild moment, in my excitement, and the boundless faith of childhood, i thought my mother had heard me, and come back.
but it was only nurse bundle. she had been putting away some clothes in my father's bedroom, and had been drawn to the dressing-room by hearing my voice.
i think this scene decided her to take some active steps. i feel convinced that in some way it was through her influence that a letter of invitation was despatched the following day to aunt maria.
