Читать книгу Son of a Hundred Kings - Thomas B. Costain - Страница 8

This nightmare of greasy meals and of sleeping on the hard carpet of train seats with the satchel as a pillow, this continual parading of people past him who stopped and stared and discussed him loudly as though he did not exist or at any rate had no feelings to be hurt, had been going on so long that everything else was getting hazy. There had been little enough which was pleasant to remember. Most of his life had been lived with a stern woman called Aunt Callie, in a single room of a house filled with adults who liked to give her advice about him. Aunt Callie went out during the day to a library where she was employed in the repair of books, and so he had spent most of his waking hours alone or penned up in a dreary yard at the back of the house. The lady who owned the house, Mrs. Griffen, gave him his lunch, which consisted of a sandwich, a cup of tea, and a sound rap on the top of his head with a thimble-covered finger.

There had been plenty of things to make his life trying. No one would answer questions, and of course boys of this particular age are little better than animated interrogation points. Everyone was particularly reticent when his queries had to do with himself. Aunt Callie would frown and put a callused finger to her lips or she would say sharply, “That will do, Ludar!” He had ceased, it seemed, to have any name but Ludar because his aunt became quite ferocious if he made use of the rest of it.

This phase of things had started, he believed, on the day when they came to this dismal boardinghouse. Aunt Callie had taken him first to an office, a dark room filled with huge leather books and presses for the storing of letters. Ludar had been instructed to seat himself in a deep chair in a corner. His legs sticking out straight in front of him, he sat there without moving a muscle and watched an old man talk to Aunt Callie. This old man had eyes so dark and penetrating that the boy was frightened when they turned in his direction. The conversation was carried on in low tones, but Ludar was sure it had to do with him, and this added to his discomfort. He had heard someone speak of lawyers and the bags they carried over their backs, so he knew the old man was a lawyer. His bag, which was of black velvet, was hanging beside him on the arm of his chair.

Finally the adult talk ceased and the lawyer swung around in his seat and addressed the boy.

“And now, young man,” he said, “your name is Ludar Prentice.”

“Why, no, sir. My mother told me——”

The old man cut him off with a wave of his hand. “Ludar,” he declared, “we are not going to talk about your mother right now. Instead we’re going to speak of your father, whom you’ve never seen. He’s a long way off in another country, but someday you are going out there too. Your father’s name is Prentice, and if you want to go and live with him, your name must be Prentice. Ludar Prentice. Is that clear?”

“Yes, sir,” answered Ludar. But he did not think it was clear at all.

The lawyer rested his elbows on his knees, which brought his terrifying eyes on a level with Ludar’s own. “You must forget about that other name. You see, if you were to use it, there might be a great deal of trouble. There would be trouble for many people, but most especially for your father. You don’t want unpleasant things happening to him, do you? Of course not. So, your name is Prentice, and that other name is never to be spoken or even thought of again. It must be forgotten. You must keep on saying to yourself, ‘My name is Ludar Prentice, Ludar Prentice, Ludar Prentice.’ If you do that long enough you won’t make any mistakes and get people into trouble with the police. Have you been listening carefully?”

“Yes, sir.”

“And you’ll do what I’ve told you?”

“Oh yes, sir.”

“Then what is it you are to repeat in your mind?”

“My name is Ludar Prentice. My name is——”

The lawyer smiled for the first time since they had entered his office. He handed Ludar a shilling and said, “You’re a good boy.”

They went to the boardinghouse then and, as soon as they were ensconced in their room, Aunt Callie took possession of the coin. “I’m going to need every penny I can get my hands on to look after you,” she said.

Long months passed and nothing happened. Ludar followed his instructions and said many times a day, “My name is Ludar Prentice.” Whenever his real name came into his mind he felt guilty and would start to think of something else. Soon, as the old lawyer had said, it came into his mind less frequently and, finally, not at all. Aunt Callie’s temper, in the meantime, was getting shorter and she seemed to spend all her evenings writing letters. Ludar would sit in a low chair which barely brought his eyes on a level with the table and he would watch her rapidly flying fingers. He was convinced she always wrote about him. Sometimes her glance would rest on him, and then she would draw in her lips and the pen would travel faster than ever. She would lick the flap of the envelope and the back of a stamp and then weld the whole thing together with a vigorous pound of the hand. She would say: “There! I didn’t mince matters,” or “I certainly let his family know what I think of them.”

Whenever she talked to him about himself it was in a critical vein. She would say: “You take after your father, that’s clear. He was a weakling. Why my sister, who could have had any one of a dozen, was foolish enough to marry him is beyond me.” Once she said: “Your mother was weak and silly herself. Even though she was half sister to me, I must say it. What right had she to give you a romantic name like Ludar? She must have got it out of a book. Oh, you’ve no reason to be proud of it. Nor of anything, for that matter.”

Sometimes he was able to remember that he had not always lived with this unsympathetic aunt. He would have brief flashes of remembrance of an earlier and happier existence. He could recall that the people had liked him and had been kind to him. There had been one lady with a pretty face who must have been his mother because she had looked after him. It was a large place. What he recalled most often was the wandering he did in shaded gardens and between rows of tall trees, and of catching occasional glimpses of mysterious dark rooms inside the house. The clearest recollection of all was of a clock. It was on the front of a wall covered with ivy and it seemed so high up to him that he thought it must be close to the sun and stars. He had seen the people in the house wind clocks to keep them going and he wondered how this big clock got itself wound. Perhaps a giant came by in the night and reached up with a huge key to attend to it.

His departure from the house with the clock and the beautiful gardens, to go to live with Aunt Callie, had been a sudden one. All he remembered about it was that there was a hush over the place and that the lady with the pretty face, who must have been his mother, was not about. He had never seen her since. There had never been any doubt in his mind that the change had been a most unfortunate one.

After what seemed an endless stretch of time the lawyer came one evening to the house. He talked to Aunt Callie in whispers and seemed in a much more amiable mood. When he was leaving he paused at the door and shot a question at the boy, “And what is your name?”

The answer came without hesitation, “Ludar Prentice, sir.”

“Good!” The dark face achieved a semblance of a smile before the door closed on it.

A week later the lawyer returned. He handed over a lot of crinkly papers to Aunt Callie. “Everything is arranged,” he said. “His transportation has been secured right through to this town where his father is staying. In this envelope are his steamship ticket and the railway tickets as well. You’ll find everything in order.”

“And this money?” asked Aunt Callie.

“It’s for the boy. Your statement of claim against the family for the expense of keeping him is being gone over. You’ll receive a check in settlement very soon. The head of the family is striving to be fair about the whole matter.”

After saying this the old lawyer got to his feet. He patted Ludar’s head with a hand as bony as Mrs. Griffen’s. It seemed, however, to express a hint of kindness.

“My boy,” he said, “you’re going out to join your father in Canada. Are you glad?”

Ludar nodded his head soberly. “Yes, sir. But I would rather go back to my mother, sir.”

The lawyer cleared his throat hastily. “That, unfortunately, is not possible, my boy. Not at just this time. In fact, not for—for a very long time.”

Ludar wondered if this important man, who had always been treated with such respect by Aunt Callie, could settle the doubt which had been so long in his mind, the doubt which frightened him when he happened to waken in the night and found himself alone. “Please, sir, is my mother dead?”

“Well, as to that——” The man of the law looked flustered and seemed for a moment at a loss for words. “That, my boy, is a matter we’ll explain to you when you—when you’re a little older. You mustn’t let yourself think about it right now. What you must think about is this trip you’re to have on a fine large boat right across the ocean. Very few boys have trips like that.”

“No, sir.” The boy’s voice had become low and with no trace of life in it. The doubt had ceased to exist. Listening to what the stranger had said, and watching the expression on his face, Ludar had become certain that his mother was dead and that he would never see her again. So completely was he filled with the frightening knowledge that from now on he would always be alone, with no one he could turn to for kindness and love and understanding, that he paid no attention to what the lawyer was saying. It was not until Aunt Callie said sharply, “Ludar, pay attention to Mr. Collison,” that he recovered himself.

“I was telling you, my boy,” said the old man with another smile which made him look almost benevolent, “that I remember your father from the time he was born. I was very fond of him and I’m glad to see how much you take after him in your looks. I’m compelled to add that I hope the resemblance won’t be too complete in—in all respects.”

Aunt Callie drew down the corners of her mouth. She was dressed this evening in a worn working suit of a dark brown cheviot and looked even more grim than usual. “I should hope not, Mr. Collison,” she said. “That man as good as killed my sister.”

All trace of geniality left the lawyer’s face at once. His manner became so glacial that even Ludar noticed the change. “There will be no more talk of that kind, Miss Railey,” he said. “Not, at least, if you want this arrangement to be carried through.”

He bowed very stiffly then and stalked to the door. With a hand on the knob he turned and asked the same question, “What is your name?”

“Ludar Prentice, sir.”

“You at least seem capable of learning a lesson quickly. You might profit by his example, Miss Railey.”

When the door closed after him Aunt Callie put all the crinkly papers away in her purse. She remarked, “You’re leaving in four days, Ludar.” When he made no response she cried out with sudden impatience, “Well, are you too stupid to tell me if you are glad or sorry to leave?”

The truth of the matter was that he could not express his conflicting thoughts. He was glad, desperately glad, to be leaving her and this mean little boardinghouse and the ugly yard. The thought of sailing on a ship was exciting, the most exciting thing that had ever happened to him. But he had always hoped that when he did get away from this dreary life it would be back to the quiet big house and to wander once again in the gardens and chase butterflies through the tall files of hollyhocks. And nothing could compensate for the sad knowledge the evening had brought him, that he would never again see the pretty lady who had been his mother.

At lunch time the next day Mrs. Griffen peered at him sharply and asked, “Did she give you the money the lawyer left for you?”

Ludar shook his head. He had received no money. In fact, he barely understood what the word meant, for never in the span of his few years had as much as a penny found its way into his pockets. The shilling the lawyer had given him had stayed in his hand until Aunt Callie claimed it.

On the day after, Mrs. Griffen asked the same question, “Ludar, has she given you all of it?” When he shook his head a second time, the landlady went into a tantrum of angry disapproval. “I know that Callie Railey through and through. She’s going to keep it all for herself. That’s what this talk of getting oilcloth and paint means. If boarders with steady jobs weren’t so few and far between, I’d show that woman the door. Lor lum me, if I wouldn’t!”

Aunt Callie never mentioned money to him. When the day came to take the train to the seaport she surprised him by holding his coat for him. This was strange because she had been refusing sternly to help him dress for at least a year. He thought she must be sorry, after all, that he was going away and that her responsibilities, about which she had written so many letters, were at an end. The coat seemed stiff and unfamiliar, but when he asked about it, she snapped, “Ask no questions because you’ll get no answers.”

It was a cold day, and, as he had no overcoat, she wrapped a shawl around him. It seemed to him there was something unmanly about appearing on the streets in a woman’s shawl, but his protests elicited nothing but angry demands that he behave himself. There was a long ride on a train which he found exciting. When they reached the wharves she took him by the hand and marched him quickly through offices and turnstiles and past lines of people and finally up an elevated walk with sides so high that he could not see the water, although he was sure it must be right beneath them. He tried to hold back and to see something of what was going on around him, the pushing, noisy passengers with bags slung over their shoulders, the activities of men in uniform who must be sailors, the great structure of the ship looming up above them, and the puffing and snorting of tugs; but the stern pressure of her fingers led him on inexorably. Finally they reached a long room which was filled with struggling and indignant passengers, and here they stopped.

“This is the purser’s office, and I’m leaving you here,” said Aunt Callie. “You go right up to the desk and tell them your name, and they’ll see that you go where you belong.”

“But, Aunt Callie,” he protested, frightened at the prospect ahead of him, “why don’t you take me?”

“I have my reasons,” she said, drawing in her lips. She was looking more prim and stern than usual under a gray hat which perched precariously on the top of her graying hair and seemed certain to be swept away by the first breeze. “I couldn’t afford to buy you a Bible or a prayer book, but you must go to the services on the ship and you must listen and take things to heart. You must always be a good boy and not let any of the wickedness in you come out. You must remember what the gentleman told you about your name——”

“Yes, Aunt Callie.”

“And you mustn’t talk. If you do, you’ll say something you shouldn’t. Never ask any questions.”

Then she suddenly whisked the shawl from around his shoulders and turned toward the door. He was surprised to see that she had started to run and was wrapping the shawl into a bundle as she went.

He became aware with a sinking heart that he was being left in a strange new world, a world of grownups, all of whom looked hurried and angry and unsympathetic. Panic swept over him. He shrieked, “Aunt Callie! Wait for me! Wait for me!” and started to dodge in and around the milling passengers in a frantic effort to overtake the scurrying figure wearing the absurd gray hat. As a result he charged head-on into the round and soft stomach of a large man with bags in both hands. The man had been wheezing with his exertions, and it was some seconds before he could gather enough breath to speak.

“Gor blast it!” he exclaimed. “Here’s a nipper gone stark mad!”

An officer in a braided uniform caught Ludar as he ran by him and, in doing so, obtained a full view of the back of the boy’s coat. “Well, dance me the tickle-toe!” said the officer, holding him with both hands. “Here’s a stumper! This is a new one, this is.”