Читать книгу Autobiography of a Child - Hannah Lynch - Страница 6

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I must have been about five when my sovereignty was seriously threatened by the coming of Stevie. The ceremony of arrival I do not remember. He seems to have started into my life like Jack out of his box to kneel for ever in his single attitude—upon a sofa, with his elbows on a little table drawn up in front of the sofa, and his head resting either on one or both palms.

Do not ask me if he ever slept, lay down, or walked as other children. I have no memory of him except kneeling thus upon the parlour sofa, looking at me or out of the window with beautiful unearthly eyes of the deepest brown, full of passionate pain and revolt. Only for my tender nurse did this fierce expression soften to a wistfulness still more sad.

That Stevie's head was impressive, almost startlingly great, even eyes so young as mine could discern. Auburn hair the colour of rich toned wood, that only reveals the underlying red when the sun or firelight draws it out, and looks like heavy shadow upon a broad white forehead when no gleam is upon it; strong features not pinched but beautified by disease, and a depth and eloquence of regard such as are rarely looked for under children's lids.

The head expressed not pathos so much as tragedy. The frame I never saw; I cannot tell if Stevie were tall or dwarfed. A tipsy town nurse had dropped him down the length of two long flights of stairs, and a strong child's back was broken.

He did not bear his sorrow patiently, I fear, but with sullen courage and with a corrosive silent fretting. He hated me in envy of my health and nimble limbs, but what he hated still more than even the sight of my vivacious pleasures was any question about his health. I never saw a glance so deadly as that with which he responded to the kindly hope of Mary Jane's mamma that his back was feeling better. If a look could kill, Mary Jane had been motherless on the spot.

But alas for me! no longer a sole sovereign. My serene al fresco kingdom was invaded by the darker passions. I did not like Stevie. He was a boy a little girl might be sorry for in her better moments, but could not love.

He was querulous whenever I was near, and had a spiteful thirst for whatever I had set my heart upon. Nurse transferred the better part of her affection and attention to him. This was as it should be, but I was sadly sore about it in those unreasoning times. The little packages of round hard sweets in transparent glazed paper, pink and violet, that Jim Cochrane used to bring me home from the big shop we called the Co. (i.e., Co-operative Store), were now offered to Stevie, who took all my old privileges as his due.

Even Mary Jane would sit on the window-sill, when she should have been playing with me outside, and gaze at him in prolonged owlish fascination, drawn by the fierce pain of those suffering eyes, with their terrible tale of revolt and anger. Stevie got into the way of tolerating Mary Jane's society.

You see she could sit still for hours; she was a quiet little body who enjoyed her sampler and a book—not a creature of nerves, that raced and danced through the hours and was dropped into slumber by exhausted limbs. He would even let Mary Jane sit at his table and stroke his white hand with an air of deprecating tenderness, while he stared silently out upon the noisy green, where boys and girls were romping with straight backs and strong limbs.

What wonder this poor little fellow with the soul of a buccaneer hated us all. Did his favourite books, read and re-read, not amply reveal his tastes, though of these he never spoke? The lust of travel, of adventure, of daring deed filled his dreaming, and yet he never had the courage to ask a soul if he should one day be well and fit to meet the glory of active manhood.

Let remembrance dwell rather with this thought than upon the darker side of his temper, upon the subtle cruelty of the glance that met mine, upon the quiver of baffled desire that shook his fine nostrils and the vindictive clutch of his bloodless fingers whenever I thoughtlessly raced near him. If he gave me my first draught of the soul's bitters, I still owe him pity and sympathy, and I had my pleasures abroad to console me for his hate.

There were the wide fields and the birds, the swans on the pond, our friend the applewoman, and a band of merry shock-headed playmates outside for me. There were the seasons for my choosing: the spring lanes in their bloomy fragrance; the warm summer mornings, when it was good to sit under trees and pretend to be a bewitched palace waiting for the coming of the prince, or dabble on the brim of pool edges; the autumn luxuriance of fallen leaves, which lent the charmed excitement of rustle to our path along the lanes: and the frost of winter, with the undying joys of sliding and snowballs and the fun of deciphering the meaning of Jack Frost's beautiful pictures on the window-panes and his tricks upon the branches.

If Stevie disliked my restlessness, it gave him great satisfaction to despise my artistic sensibilities, and jeer at my lack of learning. I adored music, and often amused myself for hours at a time crooning out what I must have conceived as splendid operas, until my voice would break upon a shower of tears.

I naturally thought my wordless singing must be very beautiful to move me to such an ecstasy of emotion, and I think I enjoyed the tears even more than my melancholy howling. But Stevie did not. On the first occasion of this odd performance, he watched me in a convulsion of unjoyous laughter.

"What an awful fool you are, Angela!" he hissed, when he saw the pathetic tears begin to roll quickly down my cheeks. I rushed from the parlour, and the sweet water of artistic emotion turned into the bitter salt of chagrin.

I must have inherited this tendency from my mother's father, a music-daft Scotsman, who was never quite sure whether he was Hamlet or Bach. At long intervals he would stroll out of town by the Kildare road in an operatic cloak and a wide-leafed sombrero, to inspect us. He had a notion that I, if left to my own devices, might turn out a second Catherine Hayes, and after his visits I invariably returned to my dirges and cantatas with ardour.

During the year that Stevie lived at nurse's, visits from the people I significantly called my Sunday parents (because, I suppose, I wore my Sunday frock and shoes in their honour) were more frequent. Golden-haired little ladies, in silk frocks and poky bonnets, came and looked at me superciliously. The bland hauteur of one of those town creatures in superior raiment once maddened me to that degree (it was the dog-days, no doubt) that I walked up to the chair on which she complacently sat, and hit her cheek.

This naturally afforded my mother an excuse for pronouncing me dangerous and prolonging my absence from the family circle.

I was, I will admit, a desperate little spitfire, full of uncontrollable passion. But I had some rudimentary virtue, I am glad to know. I never lied, and I was surprisingly valiant for a delicately-built little girl.

I cannot remember the period of transition, but I suddenly see Stevie in quite a new part. The vitality and unfathomable yearning burnt themselves out of his eyes, and there was a wearied gentleness in them even for me. He would watch me quiescently without envy or bitterness, and speak to me in slow unfamiliar tones. He turned with indifference from his books, and seemed to know no active desires.

"Does your back hurt, Stevie?" I asked, staring at him solemnly. Even now I can feel the moving sadness of his grave look.

"It always hurts;" and then he added, with a ring of his old spite, "but you needn't be sorry for me, Angela."

"I am sorry, ever so sorry, Stevie," I sobbed, not knowing why.

"I wasn't good to you at all," he muttered, dreamily.

"Oh, I don't mind now. I'm fonder of you, Stevie. I wish you'd get well, I do. I wouldn't mind being ill to keep you company."

"I think I'd be fond of you, Angela, if I got well. Would you mind," he looked at me uneasily for help in his awkwardness, and then a little pink colour came into his cheek, and he spoke so low that it was hard to hear him—"I think I'd like you to put your arms round my neck and kiss me, Angela."

It was our first kiss and our last. The impulsive affection of my embrace pleased him, and he kept my cheek near his for some moments, while in silence we both gazed out upon the blotch of dusty green that mingled with the pale blue of the sky. I feared to move or even wink an eyelid, this new mood of Stevie's so awed me.

"You may have my books and my penknife," said Stevie, breaking the spell. "They're awful nice books. Grandpa gave them to me. I'll explain the pictures to-morrow. But perhaps you wouldn't like boys' books, Angela," he said, dejectedly, and scanned my face in a humble way.

"Oh yes, I would," I cried, eagerly.

"Then you'll be fonder of me," he sighed, satisfied. "Grandpa once read me about a little boy that was ill like me, and he had a sister. He was very fond of her. He didn't hate people that are well, like me, but I don't think that's true, Angela. A boy can't feel good and nice if he is always in pain, can he? It wouldn't be so hard for little girls, for they don't mind sitting still so much."

This, I think, is how he talked, musingly, with none of the old vehement revolt of voice and glance that still lingers with me as the most vivid interpretation of his personality.

"I can't believe any boy was ever like that queer little fellow. I wonder, if grandpa knew I wanted it very much, would he bring out that book and read it all over again to me. I want to see if it's realler."

I drew my arms away from his neck, and ran off screaming for nurse to drive into town, and tell grandpa to come and read about a sick little boy to Stevie.

Nurse came to him, ready to do his slightest behest. I still see her standing looking at him anxiously, and see lifted to her that awful quietude of gaze, out of a face sharply thinned so suddenly.

"Bring me some gingerbread-nuts and lots of pipes to blow bubbles with," he said, and I felt the childish request soothed nurse's alarm.

"Faith, an' ye'll have them galore, my own boy," she cried, "if nurse has to walk barefoot to Dublin for them."

Mary Jane's mother came over to stay with us while nurse drove off to town. Stevie knelt in his eternal position, with his cheek against his open palm and cushions piled around him. He did not speak, but stared out of the window.

I went and sat with "Robinson Crusoe" on the window-ledge, to watch nurse's departure and wave my hand to her. Not to wave my hand from the window and blow kisses to her would be to miss the best part of the fun of this unexpected incident.

The world outside rested in the unbroken stillness of noon. When nurse was out of sight, I turned to acquaint Stevie with the fact. His eyes were shut. So he remains in my memory, a kneeling statue of monumental whiteness and stillness.

A strange way for a little lad to die! Not a sigh, not a stir of hand or body, not a cry, no droop of head or jaw. A long, silent stare upon the sunny land, lids quietly dropped, and then the long unawakeable sleep. To my thinking it was an ideal close to a short life of such unrest and pain and misery. It was indeed rest robbed of all the horrors of death.

The horror remained for one who loved him, and this was no blood relative, but an ignorant nurse. Mary Jane's mamma came to see how matters were with the children. Stevie, as I thought, still slept, kneeling with his cheek upon his palm, and elbow resting on a cushion between it and the table. She looked at him quickly, flung up her hands, and trembled from head to foot. Then she bethought herself of me, and ordered me to go and sit with my book in the garden, and keep very still.

That was a long afternoon. I thought nurse would never come back. I had looked at all the pictures, spoken to each flower, hunted for ladybirds, and solaced myself with operatic diversion. Now I wanted to go back to Stevie, but the door was shut against me and the blinds were all drawn down, though it was not night—the sun had not even begun to dip westward.

Judge my delight to catch the sound of wheels along the road. I raced down to the gate to meet nurse and see all the wonders from town. Grandpa was not with her, and she came up the little path swinging her basket blithely.

"They knew the book at once, and I've got it—'tis by a man called Dickens. Your grandpa and mamma will come to-morrow and read it. They're giving a grand party to-night. Such a power of flowers and jellies and things. But the pipes I've brought Stevie in dozens and gingerbread-nuts galore."

Then her eye fell upon the blinded windows, and the colour flew from her blooming rustic face. She was nearly as white as Stevie inside. She flung away her basket, and the pipes, the book, and cakes rolled out on the gravel, to my amazement. More wonderful still, she broke out in wild guttural sounds and whirled around in a dance of madness.

I had never seen a grown person behave so oddly, and it enchanted me. I caught her skirt and began to spin round too in an ecstasy of shrill sympathy. She looked down at me in a queer wild way, as if she had never seen me before and resented my kindness, and then she cast me from her with such unexpected force that I fell among the flower-beds, too astounded to cry. Decidedly, grown-up people, I reflected, are hard to understand.

I had given up wondering at all the unusual things that happened the rest of that day. People kept coming and going, and spoke softly, often weeping. Nobody paid the least attention to me, though I repeatedly asserted that I was hungry. Then at last a comparative stranger took me into the kitchen, and made me a bowl of bread and milk. She forgot the sugar, and I was very angry. Big people often do forget the essential in a thoughtless way.

Men, too, came pouring in, and talked in undertones, looking at me as if I had been naughty. I resented those looks quite as much as the unwonted neglect of my small person, and was cheered, just upon the point of tears, by the appearance of Mary Jane, who invited me to go home and sleep with her that night.

I did not object. I never objected to any fresh excitement, and I was fond of Mary Jane's brindled cat. But why did Mary Jane cry over me and treat me as a prisoner all next day? She managed to keep me distracted in spite of her tears, and I slept a second night with the brindled cat in my arms, quite happy.

The second day of imprisonment did not pass so well. I was restless, and wanted to see Stevie again. I wanted several things that nobody seemed to understand, and I moped in a corner and wept, miserable and misunderstood. On the morning of the third day I could bear my lot no longer. I scorned Mary Jane's hollow friendship, and ran away without hat or jacket.

Outside nurse's gate knots of villagers were gathered in their best clothes. It looked like Sunday. I ran past them and shot in through the open hall-door. Nobody saw me, and I made straight for Stevie's room, which he never left before noon. I felt a rogue, and smiled in pleased recognition of the fact. How glad Stevie would be to see me!

The door was ajar, and I entered cautiously. On Stevie's bed I saw a long queer box with a lid laid beside it, and there was quite a quantity of flowers, and tapers were lit upon a table beside the bed. Was Stevie going away? But what use were candles when the sun was shining as brightly as possible?

I wanted to see what was inside the box, and drew over a chair which enabled me to climb upon the bed. Anger shook me like a frenzy. To put sick Stevie in a horrid box! Whoever heard of such a monstrous thing? It was worse than any of the dreadful things the wicked fairies did in stories.

They had taken care, I noted, to pad the box with nice white satin to make it soft; and they put a pretty new nightgown, with satin and white flowers all over it, on Stevie. All the same, I was not going to be softened by these small concessions of cruel people. Stevie I supposed to be in a bewitched sleep, like the poor princess, and I was determined to save him. I did not blame nurse. I imagined she was down-stairs in enchanted slumber too. I would save her afterwards.

After calling passionately on Stevie, touching his face, which was colder than stone, I slipped my hands over him down the sides of the box, nearly toppling in myself in the energy of labour.

I see myself now, with pursed lips and frowning brows, panting in the extremity of haste. At last my hands met under the poor narrow shoulders, and I proceeded to drag the body out of the box.

I had nearly accomplished the feat, and Stevie's head and one arm hung over the side, when the door opened and my stepfather stood upon the threshold, dazed with horror, I can now believe. His look so terrified me that I clambered down from the chair, with an inclination to cry.

"What have they done to Stevie?" I gasped, as I saw him gently lift back the dark head and desecrated limb.

My stepfather's eyes brimmed over, and he took me into his arms, murmuring vague words about heaven and angels, with his wet cheek pressed upon mine. This was how I learnt that Stevie was dead.