Friends I Have Made

“And she will not believe it,” I said smiling.

“Humph! No: I suppose she won’t. But, I say; little Cobweb got her tiny arms round my neck the other morning, and her soft little cheek rested up against my rough old phiz, and she says, in her little silvery voice – ‘Oh! granpa, dear, I do yove oo so!’ and then little Frank kicked and screamed to get to me to tell me he loved me too, ever so much. They pretty nearly tear me to pieces.”

“Poor man!” I said, as I looked at his softened face and kind nature breaking through the hard City crust.

“That’s right,” he said, “laugh at me. Regular old gander ain’t I. Never mind: you come down and see if the two young tyrants don’t soon take you about in chains.”

“Daisy chains?” I said, laughing.

“Yes, if you like,” he said; “but they are chains you can’t break. Ah!” he continued, as he thoughtfully stirred the cup of tea I had had made for him, “it only seems but yesterday that I went home and said to Cobweb, ‘I’ve found the place, my dear.’

“‘You have papa?’ she said.

“‘I have.’

“‘Not a dreadful detached villa or cottage ornée, papa?’

“‘Oh, no.’

“‘With admirably planned kitchen and flower gardens?’

“‘No,’ said I, laughing.

“‘With an extensive view of the Surrey Hills?’

“‘Why, any one would think you were a house agent, Cobweb,’ I said, smiling.

“‘No wonder, papa, when I’ve been reading so many advertisements. But do tell me; have you really found the place at last?’

“‘I have really, my dear – at least, I think so.’

“‘Is it a real, old-fashioned country house?’

“‘Yes.’

“‘Smothered in clematis and roses and honeysuckle?’

“‘Yes, and swarming with birds’ nests and insects.’

“‘And with a regular great wilderness of a garden?’

“‘Yes.’

“‘In which you can lose yourself?’

“‘Yes, and in the wood too.’

“‘What! is there a wood?’

“‘Acres of it.’

“‘And plenty of fruit and flowers?’

“‘Plenty to make you ill and to litter the house.’

“‘And purply plums, and ruddy apples, and soft downy peaches, and great rich Morello cherries?’

“‘Yes, yes, yes, and cabbages, and turnips, and ’tatoes, and beans, and brockylo enough to supply a greengrocer’s shop,’ I cried testily.

“‘And it doesn’t look new, and stiff, and bricky; and isn’t overlooked by the neighbours, who hang out washing; and there are no organs, nor cabs, nor street-singers?’

“‘No, no, no, no, child. It’s just what you asked me to get – old, and rugged, and picturesque, and inconvenient, and damp, and littered with leaves, and four miles from any railway-station; and now I hope you’re happy.’

“‘Oh, I am, dear, dear, dear father!’ she cried, seating herself on my knee, and nestling her head on my shoulder.

“‘There, hold up your head,’ I said, ‘and look at me. Now tell me frankly, did you ever see such a weak, stupid old man in your life?’

“‘I like weak, stupid old men,’ she said archly; and her eyes twinkled with merriment, and then softened with the tears that stole into them.

“‘Yes,’ I said, ‘because you can tyrannise over them, and do what you please with them, and make them your slaves like you do me. A pretty rig I’ve been running this last two months to find a place you like – just as if Bryanston Square wouldn’t do. I tell you what, my lady, you’ll have to take pains to make me comfortable down there, for I shall be as dull and as heavy as lead.’

“‘No, you will not, pa dear,’ she said, laughing, and then laying her cheek to mine. ‘I am so glad. You’ve made me so happy, for I was very tired of London.’

“I did not answer, but sat looking down on the smooth peachy cheek that one of my hands would keep stroking, and at the long yellow hair that hung down over the shoulders in waves, and, in spite of myself, a sigh escaped my lips.

“Ruth – Cobweb, as I always called her, because she was so soft and downy – started up, gazing earnestly in my face, and then kissed me very, very fondly.

“‘Don’t think about the past, dear father,’ she said softly – she always called me father when she was serious.

“‘Can’t help it, child,’ I said mournfully; and then, seeing the tears gather in her eyes, I tried to be cheerful, and smiled as I added, ‘I have the future as well as the past to make me sad, my dear.’

“She looked at me wonderingly, but did not speak, and I sat there holding her little hand to my heart as I thought of the past, and how ten years before, just as business was beginning to prosper with me, I was left alone with a little fair-haired girl of eight, who found it so hard to believe that her mother had been taken away never to return, only to live in our memories. And I thought, too, of how the years had fled away, and I had become a wealthy man, whose sole thought had been of the child I had seen grow up to maidenhood, making a very idol of her, yielding to her every whim, and doing the most I could to spoil one who never would be spoiled. For, with all the accomplishments I had lavished upon her, Ruth had grown up to be a notable little housewife, who disgusted our cooks by insisting upon going down into the kitchen and making my favourite puddings and tarts with her own hands, and generally behaving in what the servants called an unladylike way.

“And then I thought of my other sorrow – the future – and pictured, with an agony I cannot describe, the day when I should have to resign my claims to another, and be left alone, a desolate, broken old man.

“I am naturally a very common, hard, and businesslike fellow, and terribly selfish. Cobweb had woven herself so round my heart, that in my peevish, irritable way, I was never happy when home from the City without she was waiting on me – filling my pipe, mixing my one nightly glass of grog, upon which the butler frowned – in fact, he had once suggested to me that his late master of an evening always took port.

“Cobweb was very quiet as she glided down from my knee to her hassock at my feet, and was evidently thinking as much as I; and at last I brightened up, for a thought had come to me with a selfish kind of comfort.

“‘She’ll be quite away from all temptations to leave me, there, anyhow,’ I said to myself, as I thought of the ‘at-homes’ and halls to which she was so often receiving invitations.

“This set me talking – fishing, as I called it in my great cunning – to see if there were one of the rocks ahead of which I was in dread.

“‘How shall you be able to leave all your fine friends – parties – and set-outs?’ I said.

“‘Oh, I’m tired of them all!’ she said clapping her hands.

“‘And gay cavaliers, with dandy airs and moustaches, and programmes.’