Peccavi

"What are you buildin', I say?" he now inquired.

"A church."

"What's a church?"

Carlton came straight to his feet.

"Do you never go to one?" he asked; but his tone was nearly all remorse.

"No, I never."

"Then have you never heard of God?"

And now the tone was his most determined one.

"Yes," said Georgie, subdued but not frightened.

"You are sure that you have been told about God?"

"Yes, sure."

"Who has taught you?"

"My lady and granny – not grand-daddy."

"You say your prayers to Him?"

"Yes, I always."

"Sure?"

"Yes, sure."

Carlton stood with heaving chest. He was spared something at last; his cup was not to overflow after all. And, as he stood, the grass whispered, and the rain came down.

Again Georgie was caught up, to be set down next instant in the shed; but this time he was really offended.

"I don't want to come in," he whimpered. "I want to build wif your bwicks. They're much, much bigger'n mine!"

"But it's raining, don't you see? It would never do for Georgie to get wet."

"Oh, I wish I would play wif your bwicks!"

"Why, Georgie, you couldn't lift them; you're not strong enough."

"But I are, I tell you. I really are!"

"Here's one, then," said Carlton, who kept his misfits in the shed. "You try."

Georgie did try. He rolled the stone over, though it was no small one; lift it he could not.

"You see, it was heavier than you thought."

"'Cos never mind," coaxed Georgie, in another formula of his own; "you carry it for me!"

"But it's raining, and we should both be wet through."

"'Cos never mind!"

"But I do mind; and, what's more, everybody else would mind as well."

"Then what shall we do?" cried Georgie, from his depths.

Carlton had no idea. But the boy was weary, and must be amused; that was the first necessity; and he who had never laid himself out to conciliate men must strain every nerve to please this little child. His eyes flew round the shed. And there upon the shelf stood his gargoyles deep in dust.

"Oh, what a funny old man!" cried Georgie. "Oh, ho, ho!"

But Carlton, in his ignorance of children, had over-estimated a strong child's strength; the stone head slipped through the tiny hands, narrowly missing the tiny toes; and when Georgie stooped and rolled it over, it was seen that a terrible accident had really occurred.

"Oh, oh, oh!" cried an alarming little voice, "Oh, he's broken his nose, he's broken it to bits; oh, oh!"

Carlton made a dive for the other gargoyle; but this was a peculiarly sinister face; and Georgie's tears only ran the faster.

"Oh, I don't like that one. It's a ho'ble face. I don't like it."

Carlton cast the thing from him, and at the same moment became and looked inspired.

"Shall I make you a new face, Georgie? A better one than either of the others?"

"Yes, do, I say! A new face! A new face!"

And shouts of delight came from the tear-stained one: such was the sound that Gwynneth heard in the lane.

A very inspiration it proved. All unpractised in their earliest accomplishment, the hard-worked hands had never been so deft before; nor ever stone softer or chisel sharper than the first of each that could be found. They were trembling, those tanned and twisted fingers, but that only seemed to impart a nervous vigour to their touch. When the thing had taken rough shape, and a deep curve or two suggested a whole head of hair; when eyes and nose had come from the same sure delving, and the mouth almost at a touch; then the mouth of Georgie, long open in mere fascination, recovered its primary function, and yelled approval in surprising terms.

"Oh, my Jove, my Jove!" he roared. "What a lovely, lovely, lovely face! Oh, my Jove, I must show it to my lady!"

Carlton looked upon a baby face on fire with rapture; and for once no dissimilar light shone upon his own.

"Will you – give me a kiss for it, Georgie?"

Without a word the little arms flew round a weatherbeaten neck that bent to meet them, and the glowing cheeks buried themselves, voluntarily, in the beard that had only hurt before; and not one kiss, but countless kisses, were Georgie's thanks for the lump of sandstone that had grown into a face before his eyes. And such was the scene whereon Gwynneth Gleed arrived.

At first she drew back, hesitating in the rain, because neither of them saw her, and she could not, could not understand! But her hesitation was short-lived, or, rather, it had to be conquered and it was. So with flaming cheeks – because they would not see her – and dark hair limp from the rain – eyes sparkling, lips parted, teeth peeping – came Gwynneth to the shed at last.

And the child ran to her, while the man's eyes followed him hungrily, climbing no higher than Georgie's height.

"Oh, look what a lovely, lovely face the workman made me; do look, I say! Is it wery kind of him to make me such a lovely thing?"

Gwynneth had been dragged to where the new head stood mounted upon a misfit; and Carlton had been obliged to rise. But his eyes had not risen from the child.

"Is it kind of him, I tell you?" persisted Georgie.

"Very kind," said Gwynneth, "indeed."

And civility compelled Carlton to look up at last.

"It was only to pass the time," he said. "I was obliged to bring him in out of the rain."

"It was so good of you," murmured Gwynneth. "But it was not good of Georgie to run away as soon as my back was turned!"

Georgie paid no heed to this reproach; he was busy playing with the uncouth head.

"Oh, don't say that," said Carlton, quickly; "I don't get so many visitors! Are you the little chap's governess?" he added, yet more quickly, to undo the visible effects of his words.

"No, I'm – from the hall, you know."

He could not but start at this. But now he was guarding his tongue. And, as he reflected, there came back to him the vague memory of a face in church, followed by the sharper picture of a very young girl at the piano in a pleasant room – the last that he had ever been in.

Gwynneth had recalled the same scene, and could see him as he had been, while she gazed upon him as he was.

"I remember," he said, gravely. "So you take an interest in this little chap, Miss Gleed?"

"Rather more than that," replied Gwynneth, taken out of herself in an instant, and declaring her innocence by her sudden and unconscious enthusiasm. "I love him dearly," she said from her heart: and together their eyes returned to the round sailor hat, the brown pinafore and the browner legs which were all that was now to be seen of Georgie the engrossed.

"He is indeed a dear little fellow," said Carlton, smothering his sighs.

"And so affectionate!" added Gwynneth, thinking of the strange pair together as she had found them.

"Marvellously independent, too, for his age."

"He is not quite four. You would think him older."

"Indeed I would.. And so you are his 'lady'!"

"So he insists on calling me."

"You seem to be very much to him," said Robert Carlton, jealously enough at heart, as he looked for once into the fine, kind, enthusiastic eyes of Gwynneth; but they fell embarrassed, and his own were quick enough to wander back to the boy.

"I have been more or less alone since last autumn," said Gwynneth. "Georgie has been as much to me as I can possibly have been to him."

"But he lives at the Flint House, does he not? I – I gathered he was a grandchild of the Musks."

"So he is."

"Are they bringing him up?"

"Yes."

"Kindly?"

"Oh, yes – kindly. But – "

"Are they fond of him?"

"Touchingly so; but, of course, they are two old people."

"And so you stepped in to lighten and brighten a little child's life!"

Gwynneth blushed unseen; for all this time he was looking at Georgie and not at her.

"You mustn't put it like that," she said, "for it isn't the case. It was quite a selfish pleasure. I was all alone. And it began by his being dreadfully ill."

"What – Georgie?"

"Yes, and I was able to nurse him a little. And after that we couldn't do without each other. But now we shall have to try."

He had looked at her with the last quick question, and was looking still, a new anxiety in his eyes.

"Do you mean that you are going away?" he said; and his tone did not conceal his disappointment.

"I am sorry to say I am," replied Gwynneth, feeling all she said.

"Soon?"

"To-morrow."

"Far?"

"Abroad."

"But not for long!"

"A year."

Her eyes fell at last before the frank trouble in his; and he ended the pause with a sigh. "I am very sorry," he said. "I was hoping that you would often bring him here to see me." Nor was any compliment taken or intended in a speech which rang with the primitive sincerity of one who had spoken very little for a very long time.

Gwynneth took the short step that brought her to the opening of the shed. She had suddenly discovered that the rain had never ceased pattering on the corrugated roof, and was wondering when the shower would stop. She wished it was fair, for more reasons than one. It was high time she took Georgie away; and she did not know what Musk would say when he heard where they had been. She only knew his opinion of parsons generally, and of all that they professed, though she had once heard him allow that they were not all as bad as this one. Besides, even Gwynneth felt natural qualms in the society of an outcast whom no one else went near, quite apart from the popular conviction that he had burnt his own church to the ground. That she had never believed. And now, when she found him all but at his work; when she saw him at close quarters, aged and bent, with tattered clothes and battered hands, yet handsome as ever, and now picturesque; and when she looked upon the gigantic work that had aged him, the finished wall here, the deliberate preparations there; then that old calumny was blown to final shreds for Gwynneth. He might have done worse, as she had sometimes heard said, but he had not done that. And the woman went to work within her: was there nothing she could do for him? Was there no little luxury she could get and send him? His clothes were torn – if only she could mend them! Alas! that she was going abroad next day.

Another moment and she was glad: how could she do anything, a young girl, when all the rest of the world held aloof? Anything that she did, or tried to do, would inevitably, if not rightly and properly, be misconstrued. Yet, after this, it would be too painful to live so near and to go on doing nothing. She had felt that long ago; and the memory of their last encounter reoccupied her thoughts. No, she could do no more now than she had been able to do then. Therefore she was glad to be going away. And all this passed through her mind in the mere minute that elapsed before the rain stopped as suddenly as it had begun.

Yet in that minute Robert Carlton had got Georgie back upon his knee, and Gwynneth caught him trying to extract a promise from the child; in another he had risen, a duskier bronze than before, and was telling her honestly what the promise was to have been.

"I wanted him to come again to see me finish that head, but not to tell his grandparents where he was going, or they would not let him. You see, I am ashamed of it already! Make allowances for one who has not spoken to either woman or child for very nearly four years."

Gwynneth was deeply moved.

"Allowances," she could but repeat; "allowances!"

"Allow'nces, allow'nces!" chimed Georgie, to whom a new word was necessarily humorous.

Carlton picked him up, and kissed him lightly for the last time. To Gwynneth he only bowed. And she was longing to take his hand.

"Good-bye, Miss Gleed; a good journey and a happy time to you."

Gwynneth had to say something, since she could do nothing, to show her sympathy. "I think it's all wonderful – wonderful!" was all she did say, with a little wave towards the sandstone walls. And yet her small speech haunted her for weeks, seeming in turns so many things that she had never meant it to be.

Georgie also waved with energy. "Good-bye, good-bye, I'll see you in the mornin'!" was his irresponsible farewell.

And so they disappeared together, as the sun shone again through the trees with the emerald tips, now dripping diamonds too; but to Robert Carlton that little scene of his endless labours, the shed, the strewed stones, the barrow, the rising walls, the blossoming chestnuts, the jewelled elms, had never looked so drab and desolate before.

Yet, long after it was really dark, the lonely man still hovered about the spot, now standing where the child had stood with his brown pinafore and his browner legs; now sitting empty-kneed in the empty barrow; now handling the rough stone head that he had hewn in a few minutes for little Georgie.

XXIII

DESIGN AND ACCIDENT

Next morning he was early at his arch, and had soon finished the voussoir which he had been roughing out when this vital interruption occurred. But he was not satisfied with the stone, and wasted much time in turning it over and over and wondering whether it would do or not. Now this was a point upon which Carlton usually knew his mind in a twinkling. Indecision of any sort was, indeed, among the last of his failings; but that man is not himself who has not closed an eye all night; and Robert Carlton had only closed his in prayer.

Later in the morning his case was worse. He would think of the boy until the chisel went too deep and spoilt another stone. Or, just when he was beginning to get on, he would drop his tools and wheel round suddenly, half hoping to see a second little apparition in a sailor hat with the brim turned down. But these things do not happen twice, much less when looked and longed for, as Carlton knew very well. And yet his knowledge did not help him in the matter; on the other hand, it drove him again and again to his gate, to gaze wistfully up and down the road he never traversed; and this was the most disastrous habit of all.

Once more the work stood still; for the first time in three whole years, it stood practically still for days.

Meanwhile, at the Flint House, there had never been any secret as to what had happened between showers at the church. Gwynneth had told Mrs. Musk, and Mrs. Musk had deemed it better to tell Jasper himself than to let him gather the truth from Georgie's prattle. And in the event Musk took it better than his wife had dared to hope, merely vilifying quick and dead with renewed rancour, and grimly undertaking that the incident should not occur again.

So Georgie saw more of his grandfather than he had ever seen before, and rather more than he cared to see after his close association with Gwynneth, whose wonderful letter from Leipzig was small comfort to so small a soul, though Mrs. Musk had to read it to Georgie many times a day.

"Oh! I wish I would go and see workman," the boy would exclaim without fear. "I wish I would! I wish I would!"

"I daresay you do," Jasper would growl from his chair.

"Then can I; can I, I say, grand-daddy?"

"No, you can't."

"Oh! why can't I?"

"Because I tell you."

"But, you see, grand-daddy, he was making me such a lovely, lovely face. I must go back for it. Really I must. He did say he finish fen I go back. So of course I must go. See? See? See?"

Thus pestered, Jasper once thundered:

"Oh, yes, I see! I know him – I know him. I see hard enough! But if ever you do go I'll – I'll – I'll give ye what ye never had afore and'll never want again!"

"Oh, don't be angry wif me," Georgie whimpered. "Oh, I wish my lady would come back!"

"I daresay you do," said Jasper, calming. "And I don't."

But a child forgets; at all events Georgie did; and so surely as his ennui in the garden, within strict sight of the terrible old man in the chair, reached a certain pitch, so surely did the treasonable aspiration rise to his innocent lips.

"I wish I would go and see workman. I wish I would!"

But at last one day the old man rose, stick and all; and at this even Georgie trembled; for it was long since he had seen his grandfather on his feet. Over the grass he came hobbling, ungainly, abnormal, frowning down upon the buttercups. Georgie crept aside. But Musk passed him without a word. Three times he limped the length of the overgrown lawn, muttering, frowning; and the third time his lameness was palpably less.

"Why, Jasper," cried Mrs. Musk, running out, "you're getting better!"

"No, I ain't," he roared. "You mind your own business and get away indoors."

Mrs. Musk was meekly obeying, and Georgie escaping at her skirt, when a second roar recalled the child. Jasper was leaning with both hands on the stick before him, his frown gone, but in its place a surely devilish smile, since the child mistook it for the real thing.

"So you're still longun to go back and see the workman, as you call him, at the church?"

"Oh, yes, I are!"

And round eyes kindled at the thought.

"Very well. You may."

Georgie could scarcely believe his ears.

"Fen may I? Now? Now, I say?"

"When you like, so long as you don't bother me."

Georgie jumped and shouted in his joy.

"Goin' to see workman, goin' to see workman! Oh, my Jove, my Jove! Goin' to see workman makin' lovely, lovely faces all for me – every bit!"

"Hold your noise," said Jasper, roughly; "and go, if you're going."

Carlton had given up expecting him, divining at last that Musk knew of their one interview, and would never let them have another. So once more Georgie surprised him at his work; but this time he had to hail his friend; for now Carlton was making up for lost time, and at the moment, up on a scaffolding, was all absorbed in the exciting task of fitting the finished voussoirs over the wooden centre which supported the arch until the keystone should complete it. And the keystone was actually in one hand, a trowel full of mortar in the other, when the first sound of Georgie's voice drove all else from his mind.

"I say, I say, I say!" he ran up shouting. "Workman, workman!"

But now the workman was only collecting himself, and thanking God with quivering lips, before he could trust himself upon his ladder.

"So here you are at last," he said, swinging the child off his legs without endearment. Yet all his being yearned towards the merry independent little boy. The straight strong legs seemed browner and rounder already. It might have been the same holland pinafore; it was the same sailor hat.

"Yes, here I are," said Georgie, "and I wish you would make lovely, lovely faces out of bwick."

"Not run away again, I hope?"

"No, 'cos I came by my own self."

Carlton asked no more questions. Any minute the child might be missed and sent for; every moment was precious meanwhile. It was a heavenly day in early June, the elms in full leaf at last against the blue, the churchyard dappled with light and shade, the fresh sandstone yellow as gold where the sun caught it fairly. And in the sunlight stood its own incarnation – sturdy champion of the golden age – laughing child of June.

Carlton could see nothing else.

"Come on, I say," urged Georgie; "come an' make faces, quick, sharp!"

And he dragged the sculptor to his rude studio.

"There it is, there it is," shouted Georgie, spying the unfinished head high up on the shelf. "You did say you finish fen I come back. Finish – finish – quick, sharp!"

Carlton brought the thing outside, for the shed was close, and went to work at the foot of his ladder, with Georgie sitting on the lowest rung. And any merit which the rough attempt had possessed was speedily removed by an over-elaboration on which Georgie insisted, and which certainly served its purpose by earning his vociferous applause.

"Oh, his eyes! What funny eyes! Make them open and shut, I say – can you?"

A doll, which Gwynneth had unearthed, before she knew her Georgie very well, had retained this accomplishment even when the head was off its body.

"I'm afraid I can't do that," said Carlton.

"Try – try."

So Carlton gouged in the soft stone till the holes for the eyeballs had disappeared.

"Now open them again!"

And fresh holes were made: they were the most sunken eyes ever seen before Georgie was tired of the game. Next he must have ears, which were supposed to be concealed by the very heavy head of hair; and when the ears arrived, they were not worth having without ear-rings; but there the sculptor was nonplussed, and struck.

"All right," said Georgie, cheerfully; "then I'll carry it home without."

"What, run away directly it's done?"

The cold-blooded ingratitude of infancy was new to Carlton, as his hurt face was to Georgie, who eyed it with some compassion.

"All right," said he; "I'll stay a little bit if you like."

"And sit on my knee, Georgie."

"All right."

But there was no sentiment about Georgie to-day; it was mere magnanimity, and he showed it.

"Quite comfy, Georgie?"

"No," sighed the boy, screwing about on the one thin thigh; "I think it's only a little comfy."

"That better?"

And, the other leg being slipped under his small person, Georgie said it was.

"Are you sure, Georgie, that you want to take that head home at all?"

"Course I are," said Georgie, decidedly. "I must take it, you see; course I must."

Carlton was again tormented by the ignoble inclination which he had overcome by impulse rather than by will at the last interview. Was a child of four too young to keep a secret? If only this one could be induced to go and come back, and back, and back, without ever saying a word to anybody! The proposition had shamed him before; and did now; but the new love within him was stronger than his shame.

"You wouldn't show it," suggested Carlton, "to your grandfather, would you?"

"Course I'll show it to him," said Georgie, for whom the stipulation was too oblique.

"But he'll be angry!"

"Course he won't," said Georgie, more superior than ever, and with the air of one who does not care to argue any more.

"But you know he was before," said Carlton, drawing his bow.

"Oh, bovver!" exclaimed Georgie, losing patience. "Well, then, he won't be angry to-day, I know he won't."

"How do you know, Georgie?"

"'Cos he did tell me I could come."

"Not here?"

Georgie nodded solemnly.

"Yes, he did. I know he did."

What could it mean? The child was strangely dependable for his years; indeed, it was impossible to look in those great and candid eyes and to doubt the testimony of the equally candid little tongue. Then what could it mean? Had Musk relented? Was he relenting? Carlton's heart leapt at the thought, and with his heart his eyes; and in the same second he had his answer.

Close at hand in the sunlight, where Georgie had stood last, brimming over with delight, there now stood Jasper Musk himself, huge with hate, livid with rage, vindictive, remorseless – but not surprised. Carlton saw this at the first glance, in the triumphant lightning flashing from the fixed eyes, and playing over the heavy, grim, inexorable face. And that was his answer; furthermore it prepared him for all, and more than all, that was to come.

"Put the boy down," said Jasper Musk, with sinister self-control.

Instinctively the child slipped to the ground; but there his courage failed him, so that he turned his back upon the terrible old man, and hid his face in the lap that he had left.

"Come here, George!"

But Carlton held him firmly with both hands.

Musk bore down on them in a series of little shuffling steps, his great face wincing with the pain of each. His voice had already risen; now it was so terrible to hear, so hoarse and high with passion, that in an instant Carlton had his thumbs in the small boy's ears.

"Snivelling hypocrite! Whited sepulchre! Do you hand the child over to me, or I'll break this stick across your back. So I've caught ye, temptun him here to make up to him behind my back! But you don't – no, you don't – not while I'm alive to stop that. He's nothun to you and you're nothun to him, and do you meddle with him again at your peril. I've taken the trouble to learn the law of it, so I know. God damn ye! will you take your hands off him, or am I to break your blasted head?"