A Knight on Wheels. Ian Hay
Joseph?" The little girl nodded her head with an air of great wisdom. "I have been talking to Mother about him."
"What did you tell her?"
"I told her what you told me, about his not liking women; and I asked her why she thought it was."
"What did she say?" enquired Philip, much interested. Of late he had been giving this point a good deal of consideration himself.
"She said," replied Peggy, evidently quoting verbatim and with great care, "that there was probably only one woman in the world who could give an answer to that question—and she never would!"
"What does that mean?" enquired the obtuse Philip.
"It means," explained Peggy, adopting the superior attitude inevitable in the female, however youthful, who sets out to unfold the mysteries of the heart to a member of the unintelligent sex, "that Uncle Joseph was once fond of a lady, and she threw him over."
"But I don't think that can be true," said Philip deferentially. "Uncle Joseph isn't fond of any ladies at all. You have only to hear him talk about them to know that. He thinks they are an incu—incu—something. Anyhow, it means a heavy burden. They are Parry-sites, too. He says the only way to do one's work in life is to keep away from women. How could he be fond of one?"
"I expect he didn't always think all those things about them," replied Peggy shrewdly. "Men change with disappointment," she added, with an air of profound wisdom.
"How do you know that?" enquired Philip respectfully. Such matters were too high for him.
"I have often heard Mother say so," explained Peggy, "after Father has been in one of his tempers."
Philip pondered. Here was a fresh puzzle.
"How can your father have been disappointed?" he asked. "He is married."
"It wasn't about being married that he was disappointed," said Peggy. "You can be disappointed about other things, you know," she explained indulgently.
"Oh," said Philip.
"Yes. Haven't you ever been disappointed yourself? Wanting to go to a party, and not being allowed to at the last minute, and all that?"
"Oh, yes," agreed Philip. "Not parties, but other things. But I didn't know grown-up people could be disappointed about anything. I thought they could do anything they liked."
Hitherto Philip, simple soul, had regarded disappointment and hope deferred as part of the necessary hardships of youth, bound to melt away in due course, in company with toothache, measles, tears, treats, early bedtimes, and compulsory education, beneath the splendid summer sun of incipient manhood. Most of us cherish the same illusion; and the day upon which we first realise that quarrels and reconciliations, wild romps and reactionary dumps, big generous impulses and little acts of petty selfishness, secret ambitions and passionate longings, are not mere characteristics of childhood, to be abandoned at some still distant milestone, but will go on with us right through life, is the day upon which we become grown up.
To some of us that day comes early, and whenever it comes it throws us out of our stride—sometimes quite seriously. But in time, if we are of the right metal, we accept the facts of the situation, shake ourselves together, and hobble on cheerfully enough. In time this cheerfulness is increased by the acquisition of two priceless pieces of knowledge; one, that things are just as difficult for our neighbour as ourself; the other, that by far the greatest troubles in life are those which never arrive, but expect to be met halfway.
It is the people who grow up early who do most good in the world, for they find their feet soonest. To others the day comes late—usually in company with some great grief or loss—and these are most to be pitied, for we all know that the older we get the harder it becomes to adapt ourselves to new conditions. Many a woman, for instance, passes from twenty years of happy childhood straight into twenty years of happy womanhood and motherhood without speculating very deeply as to whether she is happy or not. Then, perhaps, the Reaper comes, and takes her husband, or a child, and she realises that she is grown up. Her life will be a hard fight now. But, aided by the sweetness and strength of Memory, accumulated throughout the sunny years that lie behind, she too will win through.
There are others, again, to whom the day of growing-up never comes at all. They are the feeble folk, perpetually asking Why, and never finding out. Still, they always have to-morrow to look forward to, in which they are more fortunate than some.
Meanwhile Miss Marguerite Falconer was explaining to the untutored Philip that it is possible for grown-up people to suffer disappointment in two departments of life—the only two, she might have added, that really matter at all—Love and Work.
"How was your father disappointed, exactly?" asked Philip.
"He painted a big picture," said Peggy. "He was at it for years and years, though he was doing a lot of other ones at the same time. He called the other ones 'wolf-scarers,' because he said there was a wolf outside on the Heath that wanted to get in and eat us, and these pictures would frighten any wolf away. I used to be afraid of meeting the wolf on the Heath myself—"
"You were quite small, then, of course," put in Philip quickly.
Miss Falconer nodded, in acknowledgment of his tact, and continued:—
"—but Nurse and Mother said there wasn't any wolf really. It was a joke of Father's. He often makes jokes I don't understand. He is a funny man. And he didn't use the pictures to frighten the wolves with really: he sold them. But he never sold the big picture. He went on working at it and working at it for years and years. He began before I was born, and he only finished it a few years ago, so that just shows you how long he was. Whenever he had sold a wolf-scarer he used to get back to the big picture."
"What sort of picture was it?" enquired Philip, deeply interested.
"It was a very big picture," replied Peggy.
"How big?"
Peggy considered.
"Bigger than this gate we are sitting on," she said at last. "It was called 'The Many-Headed.' Father sometimes called it 'Deemouse,' too—or something like that."
"What was it like?"
Peggy's eyes grew quite round with impressiveness.
"It was the strangest thing," she said. "It was a great enormous giant, with heads, and heads, and heads! You never saw such a lot of heads."
"I expect that was why it was called 'The Many-Headed,'" observed Philip sapiently. "What sort of heads were they?"
"They were most of them very ugly," continued Peggy. "They were twisting about everywhere, and each one had its mouth wide open, shouting. Dad kept on putting new ones in. There always seemed to be room for one more. Like sticking roses in a bowl, you know, only these heads weren't like roses. After a Bank Holiday he nearly always had two or three fresh ones."
"Why?"
"He used to go out then on the Heath—to study the Canal, he said, and get fresh sketches."
Philip, who was inclined to be a little superior on the subject of London geography, announced firmly that there was no canal on Hampstead Heath.
"Only in Regent's Park," he said. "Besides, why should he sketch a canal?"
It was Peggy's turn to be superior.
"Canal," she explained, "is a French word, and means people—people with concertinas and bananas, who sing and wear each other's hats, and leave paper about. Dad would sketch them when they weren't looking, and then put them into the picture. Oh, I forgot to tell you that the giant had great huge hands, and he was clutching everything he could lay his hands on—castles, and mountains, and live people. He had a real king, with a crown on, between his finger and thumb."
"What about the disappointment?" asked Philip.
"The disappointment? Oh, yes; I forgot. Well,