Paul Kelver | Page 9

square information with reflection had resulted in my
assigning to him an entirely spiritual existence. I agreed with my
mother that such an one, however to be revered, was no substitute for
the flesh and blood father possessed by luckier folk--the big, strong,
masculine thing that would carry a fellow pig-a-back round the garden,
or take a chap to sail in boats.
"You don't understand me, nurse," I explained; "what I mean is a
husband you can get at."
"Well, and you'll 'get at him,' poor gentleman, one of these days,"
answered Mrs. Fursey. "When he's ready for you he'll send for you, and
then you'll go to him in London."
I felt that still Mrs. Fursey didn't understand. But I foresaw that further
explanation would only shock her, so contented myself with a simple,
matter-of-fact question.
"How do you get to London; do you have to die first?"
"I do think," said Mrs. Fursey, in the voice of resigned despair rather
than of surprise, "that, without exception, you are the silliest little boy I
ever came across. I've no patience with you."
"I am very sorry, nurse," I answered; "I thought--"

"Then," interrupted Mrs. Fursey, in the voice of many generations,
"you shouldn't think. London," continued the good dame, her
experience no doubt suggesting that the shortest road to peace would be
through my understanding of this matter, "is a big town, and you go
there in a train. Some time--soon now--your father will write to your
mother that everything is ready. Then you and your mother and your
aunt will leave this place and go to London, and I shall be rid of you."
"And shan't we come back here ever any more?"
"Never again."
"And I'll never play in the garden again, never go down to the
pebble-ridge to tea, or to Jacob's tower?"
"Never again." I think Mrs. Fursey took a pleasure in the phrase. It
sounded, as she said it, like something out of the prayer-book.
"And I'll never see Anna, or Tom Pinfold, or old Yeo, or Pincher, or
you, ever any more?" In this moment of the crumbling from under me
of all my footholds I would have clung even to that dry tuft, Mrs.
Fursey herself.
"Never any more. You'll go away and begin an entirely new life. And I
do hope, Master Paul," added Mrs. Fursey, piously, "it may be a better
one. That you will make up your mind to--"
But Mrs. Fursey's well-meant exhortations, whatever they may have
been, fell upon deaf ears. Here was I face to face with yet another
problem. This life into which I had fallen: it was understandable! One
went away, leaving the pleasant places that one knew, never to return to
them. One left one's labour and one's play to enter upon a new
existence in a strange land. One parted from the friends one had always
known, one saw them never again. Life was indeed a strange thing; and,
would a body comprehend it, then must a body sit staring into the fire,
thinking very hard, unheedful of all idle chatter.
That night, when my mother came to kiss me good-night, I turned my

face to the wall and pretended to be asleep, for children as well as
grown-ups have their foolish moods; but when I felt the soft curls brush
my cheek, my pride gave way, and clasping my arms about her neck,
and drawing her face still closer down to mine; I voiced the question
that all the evening had been knocking at my heart:
"I suppose you couldn't send me back now, could you? You see, you've
had me so long."
"Send you back?"
"Yes. I'd be too big for the stork to carry now, wouldn't I?"
My mother knelt down beside the bed so that her face and mine were
on a level, and looking into her eyes, the fear that had been haunting
me fell from me.
"Who has been talking foolishly to a foolish little boy?" asked my
mother, keeping my arms still clasped about her neck.
"Oh, nurse and I were discussing things, you know," I answered, "and
she said you could have done without me. Somehow, I did not mind
repeating the words now; clearly it could have been but Mrs. Fursey's
fun.
My mother drew me closer to her.
"And what made her think that?"
"Well, you see," I replied, "I came at a very awkward time, didn't I;
when you had a lot of other troubles."
My mother laughed, but the next moment looked grave again.
"I did not know you thought about such things," she said; "we must be
more together, you and I, Paul, and you shall tell me all you think,
because nurse does not quite understand you. It is true