CHAPTER X

It was breakfast-time, and Alice said to Marigold:

“Will you be going to see the little cripple to-day, Princess?”

“Of course. I want to see what he thought of you and the jelly. He told me I had a lovely face. I like little boys so much better than full-grown men. They always look as if they meant exactly what they say.”

“I notice, Princess, that anything in the line of a compliment always pleases you.”

“Of course, Alice, you spiteful bitter-sweet! Especially when the compliment hits so near the truth. I’m sure he would have made a fine soldier had he lived and not been crippled. It takes a brave man to tell you in simple, straightforward language that you’re beautiful. Good-bye, dear, and cook a nice dinner, for perhaps I’ll ask him in.”

So Marigold ran away into the next house, and a sunbeam got entangled in her hair and couldn’t get out again, so played about there all the morning.

“Patches, I’ve come to see you. I’ve brought a few grapes this time to pay my entrance fee.”

She noticed the spiritless, sad little face light up as she entered, and the quick, delicate colour mount to his cheeks.

“Mother liked the plum-cake very much, thank you, and she guessed Dr Quack and the district visitor. But--but I’d rather you didn’t bring the cake and things. I haven’t anything to give you back, neither has mother. If you would come now and again just to--to--to sing, I would like it best of anything.”

Marigold sat down and laid her soft cheek against his hand as it lay on the chair-arm.

“I’ll come sometimes without bringing anything, Patches; but when we have them, I might as well bring them. Grapes will be good for you, dear.”

“Your hair is just like one of my queens--the sunbeams are playing about all over it”--and Marigold felt the other hand steal gently across and touch her hair very softly, and she thanked the Serpent that she had been made so beautiful to give pleasure to this one little cripple child.

“How did you like my aunt?” she asked aloud.

“Very much, thank you. She is so strong and kind. She carried me to bed quite easily, and mother said it was wonderful the way she did.”

“Did Dr Quack come yesterday?”

“N--no.” And suddenly Marigold felt something drop into her hair, but was too tactful to look up, and a tear gathered in her own eyes. “He hasn’t been for three days now. I expect he’s got tired of it. I’ve been frightened all along he would. If I had both legs and was strong, it would be different.”

And suddenly a pair of tender arms were holding the wasted body very tight.

“Don’t talk like that, Patches; it isn’t kind. If he’s a good man, he would never get tired of coming to see you when you’re ill. But anyway, I’ll always come. Perhaps if I sing, it will be the next best thing, won’t it?”

“Yes, it’s very kind of you. But you won’t ever get tired, will you--not till I die?” and the little thin hands caught hold of hers with a terrible weakness and fear, and the big black eyes looked into her sad ones.

“No, I won’t leave you,” she said, a sudden unaccountable passion trembling in her voice, “not--not till you _live_. I won’t talk of death--I don’t understand it.”

“Don’t you? But I do. It comes like a great suffocating wave and presses against your chest and face, and your arms and legs get weak and cold, and your brain keeps going round in weak whirls so that you can’t think or see properly, and the pain goes the same way. That’s how I was the night before last once, and that’s how I was once before, and poor mother was so tired she slept through all the coughing, though her door was open that leads in to me. And oh!” he continued in a whisper, “it isn’t mother I want at times like that, she’s too weak and tired and her arms are so thin. I want--I want Dr Quack--I’m frightened all alone--I don’t know how it is, but I’m frightened.”

And he turned away from her to the other arm of the chair, and gave way to a violent fit of crying.

Then Marigold pulled herself together with inward reproaches and some alarm. What had she been about to allow him to get into this state?

“Patches!” said she, with fear and entreaty in her voice, “Patches! _don’t_ cry, please don’t--I can’t bear to see you cry. See! Look! I’ve brought my tambourine--I’m going to dance for you, a dance I learnt far away, in a land where people never die till they get grumpy and old and disagreeable.”

And as she rattled the bells, taking it from the case, he looked up, and by degrees his sobs subsided.

Then Marigold pushed the table and everything else as far back as possible, and arranged his chair in the best position for him to see, and executed one of the prettiest step-dances imaginable, singing lightly all the time. And how quickly he forgot his tears in watching her! And when it was over, and she sank laughing breathlessly into a chair, a charming heap of rags and golden curls, how he clapped and banged with his little crutch, so that Alice, basting the chicken next door, smiled and was well satisfied, feeling the High Priest quite forgotten.

“Oh! I would like that again! I would like that again!” said he. “It was beautiful.”

“I know some that would please you still better, only you have to be dressed in yards and yards of silk for them--rags won’t do.”

“I like the rags best, then I can see your feet too. How is it you are so beautiful? No one else along the row is.”

His eyes were sparkling, and he leant forward in his chair as he asked the question, expecting her to give him some solution to the puzzle. But before she had time to answer--if, indeed, she could have done--the latch was again lifted and the door opened quickly.

Marigold, still panting, looked across, startled, and an electric silence settled on the room, as the stranger looked in surprise from one to the other. Personal descriptions are somewhat tedious, you have been introduced to Mr Barringcourt before. And not only surprise, but some displeasure, came into his face. Both of the inmates noticed it, and it brought a restraint into the room that was entirely foreign to it five minutes since. But for all that, he said easily enough:

“Good-morning, Tim! You’ve made new friends, I see,” and his voice was pleasant.

“Jealous,” said Marigold to herself wisely; whilst Tim answered shyly, looking at her appealingly the while:

“Yes, sir--it’s Miss--Miss Rags.”

Marigold by this time was standing, her hands folded in front of her, in the delightfully innocent position that so perfectly suited her.

“And he says you’re Dr Quack, and I’ve christened him Patches, to make us a trio,” and she looked up at him roguishly, innocence and fun shining in her eyes.

But the stranger was not melted by her manner, and did not even take the trouble to smile in reply. He began setting the room to rights, and at the end said to her:

“Before you begin those antics again, you’d best sweep the floor well. This kitchen’s full of dust and stew.”

Marigold made ready to answer, but he had turned away from her, and was sitting on the table before the fire, his back turned in her direction.

Was ever anything more rude, more pointed? Tears of anger were in her eyes, yet she opened the door quietly and slipped out home, closing it as quietly behind her.

“Where does she come from, Tim?” asked Mr Barringcourt, nodding his head in that direction when she had passed the window.

“Next door,” he answered, still shyly. Somehow he felt childishly and unaccountably that he had not been as faithful to this oldest friend as he might have been, and oh! how pleased he was to see him again, to know he was actually in the room, strong and healthy, so unlike himself.

“Has she been there long?”

“No--they came on Monday. She lives with her aunt. I--I--thought you’d like her.”

“She would be all right if she took more pains to dress herself decently. I don’t approve of women being in rags. What does she do?”

“Nothing, I don’t think. I liked her being in rags, it made us more friendly. I thought she was an angel till she told me to look at her dress, then I knew she was only poor like me. But indeed, Dr Quack, she is very clean with the rags; and when you put your head on her shoulder, it is as sweet as violets.”

But the doctor shrugged his shoulders, as if this scarcely appealed to him.

“Who brought you the grapes?” he asked, looking round.

“She did.”

“Where does she get her money from?”

“I expect when people see how beautiful she is they give it her. She can dance and sing, you know.”

“Umph!” Then in a different voice he said: “Well, what have you been doing since I went away?”

“Have you been away?”

“Yes. I was called away unexpectedly, that is why I never came to see you. Is the cough better?”

“It gets worser, I think. The night before last it was very bad--so bad, that I thought you’d be sure to come for me.”

Their eyes met--the wonderful shadowy eyes with their marvellous depths of beauty and expression, and the brilliant fever-stricken ones with their haunting expression of weakness and disease.

And then very quietly he got up off the table, and lifted the boy very gently out of the chair, and sat down himself, setting him on his knee. It was plain little Tim had been there often before, by the way he nestled up to the broad shoulder, and the look of peace and satisfaction on his face. And the strong arm went round him as tenderly as a woman’s.

“I’ll come for you some day, Timothy, all in good time. You’ll have to suffer a little bit first, but you’ll be brave over it. We all have to suffer sometimes, you know; and yours will be less than others have to bear, and you need not fear, for when you really need me, I shall be with you. Now it’s bedtime, you can sleep as long as you like. I’ve got all the morning papers here with me; whilst you sleep, I’ll read.”

And soon the little head was still, the eyelids closed, and the hard, heavy breathing alone broke the silence.

Thus over an hour passed away--Mr Barringcourt, preoccupied in reading, quite unaware that Alice had twice come and peeped discreetly through the window. Then at last the child moved, and presently awoke.

“Over an hour this time, Timothy. You will have less pain to-night. You see this little bottle? Ask your mother to give you a teaspoonful in water. You’ll sleep like a trooper then--snore like one too.”

“If I snore I’ll disturb Miss Rags. She sleeps in the room next mine. She heard me coughing and crying the other night--that’s why she came in to see.”

“Miss Rags is young and healthy. A sleepless night will do her no harm, now and then. It might move her to get up and mend her clothes.”

“Do you think she ought to mend them really?” he asked wistfully.

“I think so certainly.”

“You like her, don’t you, Dr Quack?” he asked again, this time sitting up and looking at him intently. “You like her, don’t you? She sings beautifully--about the fairies dancing in the moonlight, and she is good and kind. You don’t mind her coming to see me now and then, do you?”

The other smiled.

“No, Timothy. She may come as often as she likes, so long as she goes when she isn’t wanted. She looks lively enough to be good company for you in your duller hours. Good-morning! I’ll be round to-morrow, certain sure. Tell her the time, if she comes in again--half-past ten, and if she’s sensible she’ll take the hint.”