But the attempt to keep up appearance was a failure.
The Methuselah of visitors, a gaping girl of nearly eight years, walked across the room to where Constance was standing, and said in a loud, confidential, fatuous voice:
“Cyril has been a rude boy, hasn’t he, Mrs. Povey?”
The clumsiness of children is sometimes tragic.
Later, there was a trickling stream of fluffy bundles down the crooked stairs and through the parlour and so out into King Street. And Constance received many compliments and sundry appeals that darling Cyril should be forgiven.
“I thought you said that boy was in his bedroom,” said Samuel to Constance, coming into the parlour when the last guest had gone. Each avoided the other’s eyes.
“Yes, isn’t he?”
“No.”
“The little jockey!” (“Jockey,” an essay in the playful, towards making light of the jockey’s sin!) “I expect he’s been in search of Amy.”
She went to the top of the kitchen stairs and called out: “Amy, is Master Cyril down there?”
“Master Cyril? No, mum. But he was in the parlour a bit ago, after the first and second lot had gone. I told him to go upstairs and be a good boy.”
Not for a few moments did the suspicion enter the minds of Samuel and Constance that Cyril might be missing, that the house might not contain Cyril. But having once entered, the suspicion became a certainty. Amy, cross-examined, burst into sudden tears, admitting that the side-door might have been open when, having sped “the second lot,” she criminally left Cyril alone in the parlour in order to descend for an instant to her kitchen. Dusk was gathering. Amy saw the defenceless innocent wandering about all night in the deserted streets of a great city. A similar vision with precise details of canals, tramcar-wheels, and cellar-flaps, disturbed Constance. Samuel said that anyhow he could not have got far, that someone was bound to remark and recognize him, and restore him. “Yes, of course,” thought sensible Constance. “But supposing—”
They all three searched the entire house again. Then, in the drawing room (which was in a sad condition of anticlimax) Amy exclaimed:
“Eh, master! There’s town-crier crossing the Square. Hadn’t ye better have him cried?”
“Run out and stop him,” Constance commanded.
And Amy flew.
Samuel and the aged town-crier parleyed at the side door, the women in the background.
“I canna’ cry him without my bell,” drawled the crier, stroking his shabby uniform. “My bell’s at wum (home). I mun go and fetch my bell. Yo’ write it down on a bit o’ paper for me so as I can read it, and I’ll foot off for my bell. Folk wouldna’ listen to me if I hadna’ gotten my bell.”
Thus was Cyril cried.
“Amy,” said Constance, when she and the girl were alone, “there’s no use in you standing blubbering there. Get to work and clear up that drawing room, do! The child is sure to be found soon. Your master’s gone out, too.”
Brave words! Constance aided in the drawing room and kitchen. Theirs was the woman’s lot in a great crisis. Plates have always to be washed.
Very shortly afterwards, Samuel Povey came into the kitchen by the underground passage which led past the two cellars to the yard and to Brougham Street. He was carrying in his arms an obscene black mass. This mass was Cyril, once white.
Constance screamed. She was at liberty to give way to her feelings, because Amy happened to be upstairs.
“Stand away!” cried Mr. Povey. “He isn’t fit to touch.”
And Mr. Povey made as if to pass directly onward, ignoring the mother.
“Wherever did you find him?”
“I found him in the far cellar,” said Mr. Povey, compelled to stop, after all. “He was down there with me yesterday, and it just occurred to me that he might have gone there again.”
“What! All in the dark?”
“He’d lighted a candle, if you please! I’d left a candlestick and a box of matches handy because I hadn’t finished that shelving.”
“Well!” Constance murmured. “I can’t think how ever he dared go there all alone!”
“Can’t you?” said Mr. Povey, cynically. “I can. He simply did it to frighten us.”
“Oh, Cyril!” Constance admonished the child. “Cyril!”
The child showed no emotion. His face was an enigma. It might have hidden sullenness or mere callous indifference, or a perfect unconsciousness of sin.
“Give him to me,” said Constance.
“I’ll look after him this evening,” said Samuel, grimly.
“But you can’t wash him,” said Constance, her relief yielding to apprehension.
“Why not?” demanded Mr. Povey. And he moved off.
“But Sam—”
“I’ll look after him, I tell you!” Mr. Povey repeated, threateningly.
“But what are you going to do?” Constance asked with fear.
“Well,” said Mr. Povey, “has this sort of thing got to be dealt with, or hasn’t it?” He departed upstairs.
Constance overtook him at the door of Cyril’s bedroom.
Mr. Povey did not wait for her to speak. His eyes were blazing.
“See here!” he admonished her cruelly. “You get away downstairs, mother!”
And he disappeared into the bedroom with his vile and helpless victim.
A moment later he popped his head out of the door. Constance was disobeying him. He stepped into the passage and shut the door so that Cyril should not hear.
“Now please do as I tell you,” he hissed at his wife. “Don’t let’s have a scene, please.”
She descended, slowly, weeping. And Mr. Povey retired again to the place of execution.
Amy
