CHAPTER II—THE FAERY-GODMOTHER

There was nothing Mrs. Sheerug enjoyed better than an invalid. Illness in a stranger’s house was her opportunity; in her own house it was her glory. She loved to exaggerate the patient’s symptoms; the graver they were, the more a recovery would redound to her credit. When she had pushed her feet into old carpet-slippers, removed her bodice, put on her plum-colored dressing-gown, and fastened her scant gray hair with one pin into a tight little knob at the back of her head, she felt that she had gone through a ritual which made her superior to all doctors. She had remedies of her own invention which were calculated to grapple with any crisis of ill-health. But she did not allow her ingenuity to be fettered by past successes; each new case which fell into her hands was a heaven-sent chance for experimenting. Whatever came into her head first, went down her patient’s throat.

When she turned her house into a hospital this little gray balloon-shaped woman, with her rosy cheeks, her faded eyes and her constant touch of absurdity, managed to garb herself in a solemn awfulness. When “Mother went ’vetting,’” as Hal expressed it, even her children viewed her with, temporary respect. They weren’t quite sure that there wasn’t something in her witchcraft. So nobody complained if meals were delayed while she stood over the fire stirring, tasting, smelling and decocting. Contrary to what was usual in that unruly house, she had only to open the door of the sickroom and whisper, “Hush,” to obtain instant quiet. At such times she seemed a ridiculous angel into whose hands God had thrust the tragic scales of life and death.

If Teddy hadn’t fainted, he might have gone out of Orchid Lodge as casually as he had entered—in which case his entire career would have been different. By fainting he had put himself into the category of the weak ones of the earth, and therefore was to be reckoned among Mrs. Sheenes friends. A masterly stroke of luck! She at once decreed that he must be put to bed. His pleadings that he was quite well didn’t cause her to waver for a second. She knew boys. Boys didn’t faint when there was nothing the matter with them. What he required, in her opinion, was building up. A fire was lit in the spare-room. Hot-water bottles were placed in the bed and Teddy beside them, arrayed in a kind of christening-robe, the borrowed nightgown being much too long for him.

He hadn’t intended to be happy, but—— He raised his head stealthily from the pillow, so that his eyes and nose came just above the sheet. He had been given a hot drink with strict instructions to keep covered. No one was there; he sat up. What a secret room! Exactly the kind in which a faery-godmother might be expected to work her spells! Two steps led down into it. Across the door, to keep the draughts out, was hung a needlework tapestry, depicting Absalom’s misfortune. A young gentleman, of exceedingly Jewish countenance, was caught in a tree by his mustard colored hair; a horse, which looked strangely like a sheep, was shabbily walking away from under him. It would have served excellently as a barber’s coat-of-arms. All it lacked was a suitable legend, “The Risks of Not Getting Your Hair Cut.”

Against an easel rested an uncompleted masterpiece in the same medium. The right-hand half, which was done, revealed a negress heaving herself out of a marble slab with her arms stretched longingly towards the half which was only commenced. The subject was evidently that of Potiphar’s wife and Joseph. Outlined on the canvas of the unfinished half was a shrinking youth, bearing a faint resemblance to Mr. Hughes as he would have dressed had he been born in a warmer climate.

Encircling the backs of chairs were skeins of wool of various colors; the balls, which had been wound from them, had rolled across the floor and come to rest in a tangle against the fender. In the window, lending a touch of romance, stood a gilded harp, through whose strings shone the cold pale light of the December afternoon. In the grate a scarlet fire crackled; perched upon it, like a long-necked bird, was a kettle with a prodigiously long spout. It sang cheerfully and blew out white clouds of steam which filled the room with the pungent fragrance of eucalyptus.

In days gone by, after listening to his father’s stories, he had often climbed to the top of their house that he might spy into the garden of Orchid Lodge. He had little thought in those days that he would ever be Mrs. Sheerug’s prisoner. From the street a passer-by could learn nothing. Orchid Lodge rose up flush with the pavement; the windows, which looked out on Eden Row and the river, commenced on the second story, so that the curiosity of the outside world was eternally thwarted. He had fancied himself as ringing the bell and waiting just long enough to glance in through the opening door before he took to his heels and ran.

Footsteps in the passage! Absalom swayed among the branches, making a futile effort to free himself. The door behind the tapestry was being opened. Teddy sank his head deep into the pillows, hoping that his disobedience to orders would pass unobserved.

She came down the steps on tiptoe. Her entire bearing was hushed and concerned, as though the least noise or error on her part might produce a catastrophe. She carried a brown stone coffee-pot in her hand and a glass. From the coffee-pot came a disagreeable acrid odor, similar to that of the home-made plasters which his mother applied to his face in case of toothache.

Mrs. Sheerug went over to the fireplace. Before setting the jug in the hearth to keep warm she poured out a quantity of muddy looking fluid. Suspecting that she had no intention of drinking it herself, Teddy shut his eyes and tried to breathe heavily, as though he slept. She came and stood beside him; bent over him and listened.

“Little boy, you’re awake and pretending; what’s worse, you’ve been out of bed.”

The injustice of the last accusation took him off his guard. “If you please, I haven’t. I sat up like this because I wanted to look at that.” He pointed at the Jewish gentleman taking farewell of his horse.

“At that! What made you look at that?”

“I like it.”

To his surprise she kissed him. “That’s what comes of being the son of an artist. There aren’t many people who like it; you’re very nearly the first. I’m doing all the big scenes from the Bible in woolwork; one day they’ll be as famous as the Bayeux tapestries. But what am I talking about? Of course you’re too young to have heard of them. Come, drink this up before it gets cold; it’ll make you well.”

“But I’m quite well, thank you.”

“Come now, little boys mustn’t tell stories. You know you’re not. Smell it. Isn’t it nice?”

Teddy smelt it. It certainly was not nice. He shook his head.

“Ah,” she coaxed, “but it tastes ever so much better than it smells. It’ll make you perspire.”

He did not doubt that it would make him perspire, but still he eyed it with distrust. “What’s in it?” he questioned.

“Something I made especially for you; I’ve never given it to anybody else.”

“But what’s in it?” he insisted with a touch of childish petulance at her evasion.

She patted his hand. “Butter, and brown sugar, and vinegar, and bay leaves. There! It’ll make you sweat, Teddy—make you feel ever so much better.”

“But I’m quite——”

He got no further. As he opened his mouth to assert his perfect health, the glass was pressed against his lips and tilted. He had to swallow or be deluged.

“That’s a fine little fellow.” Mrs. Sheerug was generous in her hour of conquest; she tried to give him credit for having taken it voluntarily. “You feel better already, don’t you?”

“I don’t think,” he commenced; then he capitulated, for he saw her eye working round in the direction of the jug. “I expect I shall presently.”

She tucked him up, leaving only his head, not even a bit of his neck, showing. “If you don’t perspire soon, tell me,” she said, “and I’ll give you some more.”

It was a very big bed and unusually high. At each corner was a post, supporting the canopy. From where he lay he could watch Mrs. Sheerug. Having disentangled several balls of wool and balanced on the point of her nose a pair of silver spectacles, she had seated herself before the easel and was stitching a yellow chemise on to the timid figure of Joseph. The yellow chemise ended above Joseph’s knees; Teddy wondered whether she would give him a pair of stockings.

“I’m getting wet.”

The good little hump of a woman turned. She gazed at him searchingly above her spectacles. “Really?”

“Not quite really,” he owned; “but almost really. At least my toes are.”

“That’s the hot water bottles,” she said. “If you don’t perspire soon you must have some more medicine.”

He did his best to perspire. He felt that she had left the choice between perspiring and drinking more of the brown stuff in his hands. Trying accomplished nothing, so he turned his thoughts to strategy.

“Will they really be famous?”

Again she twisted round, watching him curiously. “Why d’you ask?”

“Because——” He wondered whether he dared tell her.

Usually people laughed at him when he said it. “Because my father wants his pictures to be famous and he’s afraid they never will be. And when I’m a man, I want to be famous; and I’m sure I shall.”

In the piping eagerness of his confession he had thrown back the clothes and was sitting up in bed. She didn’t notice it What she noticed was the brave poise of the head, the spun gold crushed against the young white forehead, and the blue eyes, untired with effort, which looked out with challenge on a wonder-freighted world.

The fire crackled. The kettle hummed, “Pooh, famous! Be contented. Pooh, famous! Be content.”

At last she spoke. “It’s difficult to be famous, Teddy. So many of us have been trying—wasting our time when we might have been doing kindness. What makes a little boy like you so certain——?”

“I just know,” he interrupted doggedly.

Then she realized that he was sitting up in bed and pounced on him. Some more of the brown stuff was forced down his throat and the clothes were once more gathered tightly round his neck.

His eyes were becoming heavy. He opened them with an effort By the easel a shaded lamp had been kindled; the faery-godmother bent above her work.