CHAPTER VIII

Next morning at breakfast Marigold said to Alice:

“I did not sleep at all well last night; I heard a child coughing and then sobbing in the darkness. And when one ceased the other began--and I kept waiting and listening for the sounds, and at last I buried my head in the pillow and cried as well.”

“In the dark, sounds like that are more distressing,” said Alice sympathetically. “It’s the woman next door--her child, I mean. She goes out washing and charring, and has to leave her little boy--he’s a cripple, and consumptive.”

“How did you find out?”

“Oh! she came in this morning early, and asked me would I go in and see to him once or twice in the day as he’s had an extra bad night, and the neighbour on the other side is bad with rheumatics?”

“I wonder if she would mind me going to see him?”

“She wouldn’t mind--but you are safest here. They’re saying now consumption’s infectious.”

“Sure sign that to-morrow they’ll say it isn’t. I should like to go. I wonder if they eat when they’re consumptive?”

“A bit now and then.”

“What have we in the house?”

“Cold chicken--a shoulder of lamb--pine-apple jelly, plum-cake--ras----”

“I wonder if he would like plum-cake?”

“More like the jelly for an invalid.”

“But children are not like grown-up people, Alice. I love the plum-cake myself--that is why I never eat more than one slice. I am sure he would like the plum-cake.”

“Well, there’d be no harm in trying him.”

“Let me go and ask. He won’t know one of us from the other.”

“It’s the infection I’m thinking of.”

“I’m wearing my jewelled amulet. I’m going, so you needn’t say another word about it. If ever I begin to ask you _should_ I do a thing, you turn a regular tyrant. That’s how it is I have become so despotic.” So, when breakfast was over, Marigold set off with a slice of plum-cake on a fascinating china plate, that had a story on it almost as good as our own willow pattern.

She tapped gently on the door and then walked in. The little kitchen within was tidy, though poverty-stricken. A round deal table, one or two straw-seated chairs, a deal dresser, a two-shelved plate-rail, a diminutive fireplace--little else except the occupant.

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.