Читать книгу The Admirable Tinker - Edgar Jepson - Страница 10

Table of Contents

The child sat very still on Selina's lap, shrinking back as far as possible from Sir Tancred. Selina kept talking to him, and his father spoke to him several times, but he uttered never a sound. Once when Sir Tancred moved suddenly, he threw up his little thin arm to guard his face; and Sir Tancred swore.

They agreed that he would be happier if they took no notice of him for a while, and sat quiet. He seemed relieved, for he sank into an easier position on Selina's lap, and presently they saw him stroke his coat with a caressing gesture, as though its softness pleased him. After a long while, he sat up, looked at the horse, said in a quaint, thin whisper, "Gee-gee—mine like gee-gee"; and then looked swiftly round with frightened eyes, fearful lest he had drawn attention to his existence.

Suddenly he began to blink, then, lulled by the motion of the cab, he fell asleep. They sat quiet, and had reached a more civilised part of London, when Sir Tancred said, "Do you think I could hold him without waking him?"

Selina nodded, and lifted him into his arms, and so they came to the Hotel Cecil.

When the cab stopped, the child awoke frightened, and at once began to struggle. Sir Tancred handed him over to Selina, who soothed him, and carried him to the lift. As soon as they were in his rooms, Sir Tancred rang for a waiter, and when he came, bade him bring up bread and hot milk at once. The child heard the words and said plaintively, "Mine hungly! Mine hungly!"

"All right, my lamb," said Selina. "You shall have dinner very soon."

When the waiter brought the bread and milk, Selina prepared it, and sat down at the table with the child on her knee. In a flash his grimy little hands were in the basin, and he was thrusting the bread and milk into his mouth with both of them. Selina pushed the bowl out of his reach, and fed him with a spoon, very slowly, nor did she give him much. Sir Tancred watched his ravenous eating with a constricted heart. When she had given him as much as she thought good for him, Selina put the bowl out of sight. The look of supreme content on his little face was even more pathetic in its extravagance than his ravenous hunger. He curled himself up on Selina's lap, surveyed the room for a while with drowsy eyes, and fell asleep.

Sir Tancred opened the note from Lord Crosland, which he had left unheeded on the table; it ran:

"DEAR BEAULEIGH:

"I have moved myself and my belongings to 411 and 412, till you have got things arranged. I'm off to Lord's for the day, but shall dine at the Cecil. Let us dine together.

"Yours sincerely,

"CROSLAND."

Sir Tancred felt relieved, and grateful for Lord Crosland's thoughtfulness.

"We shall be able to have these rooms to ourselves," he said to Selina.

"Yes, sir," said Selina. "And he'll want some clothes. When he's had a little sleep, and I've given him a bath, I'd better go out and get some."

"No: I'll go now myself," said Sir Tancred. "Then, when he's had his bath, they'll be ready for him."

He hurried down into a cab, and drove to Swan & Edgar's. There he bought the finest little vests and petticoat and frocks and socks and coats they could find him. On his way back with his purchases he remembered shoes, stopped the cab at the boot-maker's, and bought a dozen pairs. When he came back to his rooms, followed by two waiters loaded with parcels, he heard a splashing in the bathroom, and when they had set down their loads and were gone, Selina came to him and said, "I should like you to come and look at him, sir."

She had been crying.

Sir Tancred went into the bathroom, and found Hildebrand Anne splashing in the bath: "Hallo, Tinker," he said cheerfully, and turned sick at the sight of the wales and bruises about the thin little body.

"Look at that, sir," said Selina fiercely; and she touched the worst of them.

The child winced at her touch, gentle as it was, and said in his quaint, thin voice, "Halbut did do that. Mine not like Halbut. No: mine not like Halbut." And he shook his little head vigorously.

Sir Tancred groaned, and wished with all his heart that he had taken advantage of his brief meeting with Halbut to give him a sound thrashing. Then he thought with a vindictive satisfaction how bitterly the brute would feel the loss of liquors consequent upon the loss of his income. He went out, rang for a waiter, and bade him send for a doctor.

When the doctor came he examined the bruises, and felt all the tiny bones carefully. He declared that none of them were broken and that, in spite of having been starved, the child was sound and healthy. The moment the doctor's grip on him loosed, Tinker wriggled off his knee and fled to Selina, who carried him away along with a selection from the parcels to dress him.

"A bad case," said the doctor. "But I've seen worse, much worse. I hope you'll put the matter into the hands of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, and have the parents prosecuted—picked him up in the gutter I suppose."

"I haven't made up my mind about prosecuting them," said Sir Tancred.

"Oh, have them prosecuted! Have them prosecuted! It stops others," said the doctor. "And besides, they might get the cat: it's the only thing brutes of this kind understand." Then he added thoughtfully, "There's one uncommon thing about this child—quite uncommon."

"What's that?"

"His vitality—he ought to be in bed, half-dying, with those bruises, and starved as he is. But you saw how he struggled to get away from me. Well, I'll write you a prescription for as strong a tonic as I dare give a child."

He wrote the prescription, promised to be round every morning, and took his fee. As he went away he said, "Someone ought to get six month's hard labour for maltreating him."

After a while Selina brought in Tinker, dressed in his new clothes, with his mat of hair cut close to his head. He was still grimy—many baths were yet needed before he would be clean; but Sir Tancred saw that, once clean, and his peaked face filled out a little, he would be a very pretty baby. His features were fine, his eyes of a deep blue, his head was small and well-shaped, and the close-cut hair clustered about it in little curls.

He clung to Selina's gown, and Sir Tancred bade her sit down, and see what he would do. It was a long time before he stirred from her side, and then only a little way, moving with a curious, stealthy gait, casting fearful glances at Sir Tancred. He was attracted by the bright stuffs which covered the furniture, and went from piece to piece, stroking it. Then he saw himself in the unnecessarily mirrored door of the sideboard, and surveyed his image with an almost excited curiosity, and, it almost seemed, approbation.