‘And what do you want me to do?—to go and tell papa all about it? I mean to do that, of course; it is the only way to get comforted.’
‘Of course it is; but—’
‘You horrid creature, Ethel! I’ll never say you aren’t a bother again. You really do want me to go and tell Charles Cheviot that he was quite right, and Mary that I’m ready to be trampled on by all my brothers-in-law in a row! Well, there won’t be any more. You’ll never give me one—that’s one comfort!’ said Gertrude, wriggling herself up, and flinging an arm round Ethel’s neck. ‘As long as you don’t do that, I’ll do anything for you.’
‘Not for me.’
‘Well, you know that, you old thing! only you might take it as a personal compliment. I really will do it; for, of course, one could not keep one’s Christmas otherwise!’ It was rather too business-like; but elders are often surprised to find what was a hard achievement in their time a matter of course to their pupils—almost lightly passed over.
Dickie slept till morning, when he was found very pale, but lively and good-humoured as ever. Mr. Wright, coming up to see him, found the hurt going on well, and told Ethel, that if she could keep him in bed and undisturbed for the day, it would be better and safer; but that if he became restless and fretful, there would be no great risk in taking him to a sofa. Restless and fretful! Mr. Wright little knew the discretion, or the happy power of accommodation to circumstances, that had descended to Meta’s firstborn.
He was quite resigned as soon as the explanation had been made—perhaps, indeed, there was an instinctive sense, that to be dressed and moved would be fatiguing; but he had plenty of smiles and animation for his visitors, and, when propped up in bed, was full of devices for occupation. Moreover he acquired a slave; he made a regular appropriation of Leonard, whom he quickly perceived to be the most likely person to assist in his great design of constructing a model of the clock in the Minster tower, for the edification of his little brother Harry. Leonard worked away at the table by the bedside with interest nearly equal to the child’s; and when wire and cardboard were wanting, he put aside all his dislike to facing the Stoneborough streets and tradesmen in open day, and, at Dickie’s request, sallied forth in quest of the materials. And when the bookseller made inquiries after the boy, Leonard, in the fulness of his heart, replied freely and in detail—nay, he was so happy in the little man’s well-doing, that he was by no means disconcerted even by a full encounter of Mrs. Harvey Anderson in the street, but answered all her inquiries, in entire oblivion of all but the general rejoicing in little Dickie’s wonderful escape.
‘Well,’ said Aubrey to his sisters, after a visit to his nephew’s room, ‘Dickie has the best right to him, certainly, to-day. It is an absolute appropriation! They were talking away with all their might when I came up, but came to a stop when I went in, and Master Dick sent me to the right-about.’
The truth was, that Dickie, who, with eyes and ears all alive, had gathered up some fragments of Leonard’s history, had taken this opportunity of catechizing him upon it in a manner that it was impossible to elude, and which the child’s pretty tact carried off, as it did many things which would not have been tolerated if done rudely and abruptly. Step by step, in the way of question and remark, he led Leonard to tell him all that had happened; and when once fairly embarked in the reminiscence, there was in it a kind of peace and pleasure. The fresh, loving, wondering sympathy of the little boy was unspeakably comforting; and besides, the bringing the facts in their simple form to the grasp of the childish mind, restored their proportion, which their terrible consequences had a good deal disturbed. They seemed to pass from the present to the historical, and to assume the balance that they took in the child’s mind, coming newly upon them. It was like bathing in a clear limpid stream, that washed away the remains of morbid oppression.
‘I wish mamma was here,’ said the little friend, at last.
‘Do you want her? Are you missing her, my dear?’
‘I miss her always,’ said Dickie. ‘But it was not that—only mamma always makes everybody so happy; and she would be so fond of you, because you have had so much trouble.’
‘But, Dickie, don’t you think I am happy to be with your grandfather and aunt, and hoping to see my own sisters very soon—your aunt, who taught me what bore me through it all?’
‘Aunt Ethel?’ cried Dickie, considering. ‘I like Aunt Ethel very much; but then she is not like mamma!’
There could be no doubt that Leonard was much better and happier after this adventure. Reluctantly, Dickie let him go back to Cocksmoor, where his services in church-decking and in singing had been too much depended on to be dispensed with; but he was to come back with Richard for the family assembly on Christmas evening.
Moreover, Gertrude, who was quite herself again, having made her peace with the Cheviots, and endured the reception of her apologies, seized on him to lay plots for a Christmas-tree, for the delectation of Dickie on his sofa, and likewise of Margaret Rivers, and of the elite of the Cocksmoor schools. He gave in to it heartily, and on the appointed day worked with great spirit at the arrangements in the dining-room, where Gertrude, favoured by the captive state of the little boy, conducted her preparations, relegating the family meals to the schoolroom.
This tree was made the occasion for furnishing Leonard with all the little appliances of personal property that had been swept away from him; and, after all, he was the most delighted of the party. The small Charlie Cheviot had to be carried off shrieking; Margaret Rivers was critical; even Cocksmoor was experienced in Christmas-trees; and Dickie, when placed in the best situation, and asked if such trees grew in New Zealand, made answer that he helped mamma to make one every year for the Maori children. It was very kind in Aunt Daisy, he added, with unfailing courtesy; but he was too zealous for his colony to be dazzled—too utilitarian to be much gratified by any of his gifts, excepting a knife of perilous excellence, which Aubrey, in contempt of Stoneborough productions, had sacrificed from his own pocket at the last moment.
Leonard and Dickie together were in a state of great delight at the little packets handed to the former; studs, purse, pencil-case, writing materials; from Hector Ernescliffe, a watch, with the entreaty that his gifts might not be regarded as unlucky; from Ethel, a photographic book, with the cartes of his own family, whose old negatives had been hunted up for the purpose; also a recent one of Dr. May with his grandson on his knee, the duplicate of which was gone to New Zealand, with the Doctor’s inscription, ‘The modern Cyropaedia, Astyages confounded.’ There was Richard, very good, young and pretty; there was Ethel, exactly like the Doctor, ‘only more so;’ there was Gertrude, like nobody, not even herself, and her brothers much in the same predicament, there was the latest of Mr. Rivers’s many likenesses, with the cockatoo on his wrist, and there was the least truculent and witchlike of the numerous attempts on Flora; there was Mrs. Cheviot, broad-faced and smiling over her son, and Mr. and Mrs. Ernescliffe, pinioning the limbs of their offspring, as in preparation for a family holocaust; there was Dickie’s mamma, unspoilable in her loveliness even by photography, and his papa grown very bald and archidiaconal; there was Ethel’s great achievement of influence, Dr. Spencer, beautiful in his white hair; there were the vicar and the late and present headmasters. The pleasure excited by all these gifts far exceeded the anticipations of their donors, it seemed as if they had fallen on the very moment when they would convey a sense of home, welcome, and restoration. He did not say much, but looked up with liquid lustrous eyes, and earnest ‘thank you’s,’ and caressingly handled and examined the treasures over and over again, as they lay round him on Dickie’s couch. ‘I suppose,’ said the child to him, ‘it is like Job, when all his friends came to see him, and every one gave him a piece of money.’