Short Stories 1895-1926 Read Free Page B

my father in doubt but could lift my eyes no higher than his knees.
    â€˜â€œYou little fool!” he said to my mother with a laugh, “what a sharpshooter! Never mind, Sir Nick; there, run off to bed, my man.”
    â€˜My mother caught me roughly by the sleeve as I was passing her chair. “Aren’t you going to kiss me good night, then,” she said furiously, her narrow under-lip quivering, “you too!” I kissed her cheek. “That’s right, my dear,” she said scornfully, “that’s how little fishes kiss.” She rose and drew back her skirts. “I refuse to stay in the room,” she said haughtily, and with a sob she hurried out.
    â€˜My father continued to smile, but only a smile it seemed gravity had forgotten to smooth away. He stood very still, so still that I grew afraid he must certainly hear me thinking. Then with a kind of sigh he sat down at my mother’s writing table, and scribbled a few words with his pencil on a slip of paper.
    â€˜â€œThere, Nicholas, just tap at your mother’s door with that. Good night, old fellow,” he took my hand and smiled down into my eyes with a kind of generous dark appeal that called me straight to his side. I hastened conceitedly upstairs, and delivered my message. My mother was crying when she opened the door.
    â€˜â€œWell?” she said in a low, trembling voice.
    â€˜But presently afterwards, while I was still lingering in the dark corridor, I heard her run down quickly, and in a while my father and mother came upstairs together, arm in arm, and by her light talk and laughter you might suppose she had no knowledge of care or trouble at all.
    â€˜Never afterwards did I see so much gaiety and youthfulness in my mother’s face as when she sat next morning with us at breakfast. The honeycomb, the small bronze chrysanthemums, her yellow gown seemed dainty as a miniature. With every word her eyes would glance covertly at my father; her smile, as it were, hesitating between her lashes. She was so light and girlish and so versatile I should scarcely have recognized the weary and sallow face of the night before. My father seemed to find as much pleasure, or relief, in her good spirits as I did; and to delight in exercising his ingenuity to quicken her humour.
    â€˜It was but a transient morning of sunshine, however, and as the brief and sombre day waned, its gloom pervaded the house. In the evening my father left us to our solitude as usual. And that night was very misty over the heath, with a small, warm rain failing.
    â€˜So it happened that I began to be left more and more to my own devices, and grew so inured at last to my own narrow company and small thoughts and cares, that I began to look on my mother’s unhappiness almost with indifference, and learned to criticize almost before I had learned to pity. And so I do not think I enjoyed Christmas very much the less, although my father was away from home and all our little festivities were dispirited. I had plenty of good things to eat, and presents, and a picture-book from Martha. I had a new rocking-horse – how changeless and impassive its mottled battered face looks out at me across the years! It was brisk, clear weather, and on St Stephen’s Day I went to see if there was any ice yet on the Miller’s Pool.
    â€˜I was stooping down at the extreme edge of the pool, snapping the brittle splinters of the ice with my finger, when I heard a voice calling me in the still air. It was Jane Grey, walking on the heath with my father, who had called me having seen me from a distance stooping beside the water.
    â€˜â€œSo you see I have kept my promise,” she said, taking my hand.
    â€˜â€œBut you promised to come by yourself,” I said.
    â€˜â€œWell, so I will then,” she answered, nodding her head. “Good-bye,” she added, turning to my father. “It’s three’s none, you see. Nicholas shall