Archibald Malmaison, Page 3

  II.

  Archibald awoke at length, and sat up in bed. He opened his mouth,apparently for the purpose of saying something, but his tongue refused toarticulate any recognizable words. An irregular, disjointed sound madeitself heard, like the vague outcry of an infant; and then, as if angry athis own failure, he set up a loud and indignant wail, muffled from time totime by the cramming of his fingers into his mouth.

  Whatever else was the matter with the child, it was evident that he washungry--as, indeed, he well might be. Some bread and milk was brought tohim, that being his favorite food; but to the general astonishment anddismay, he did not seem to know what it was, although he continued toexhibit every symptom of a ravenous and constantly augmenting appetite.They tried him with every imaginable viand, but in vain; they even putmorsels into his mouth, but he had lost the power of mastication, andcould not retain them. The more they labored, the greater became hisexasperation, until at last there was such a hubbub and confusion on thescore of Master Archibald as that hitherto rather insignificant littlepersonage should have felt proud to occasion.

  Among the anxious and bewildered people who thronged the nursery at thisjuncture was a young woman who acted as wet-nurse to the latest born ofthe Malmaisons, a baby-girl three months old.

  She was a healthy and full-bodied peasant, and as she pressed forward tohave her look at the now frantic Archibald, she held the nursinginfant--the only serene and complacent member of the assemblage--to heropen breast. Archibald caught sight of her, and immediately reached towardher, arms, mouth and all, accompanying the action by an outcry so eager,impatient, and gluttonous that it was capable of only one interpretation.An incredible interpretation, certainly, but that made no difference;there was nothing else to be done. Honest Maggie, giggling and rubicund,put aside her complacent nursling (who thereupon became anything butcomplacent) and took to her kind bosom this strapping and unreasonableyoung gentleman, who had already got many of his second teeth. That didnot prevent him from making an unconscionably good supper, and thenceforththe only person likely to be disturbed by his new departure ingormandizing was Maggie herself. Everything being thus happily arranged,the household dispersed about its business, the Baronet declaring, with agreat laugh, that he had always said Archie was but a babe in arms, andthis proved it!

  Dr. Rollinson, however (the elder doctor, that is--father of the present[2] distinguished bearer of the name), had witnessed this scene withsomething more than ordinary wonder or amusement; it had puzzled, but alsointerested him extremely. He was less of a conservative than many of hisprofession; he kept his mind open, and was not disinclined to examine intoodd theories, and even, perhaps, to originate a few such himself uponoccasion. The question that now confronted him and challenged hisingenuity was, What was the matter with Archibald? Why had the boysuddenly gone back to the primitive source of nourishment, not from merechildish whim, but from actual ignorance--as it seemed--that nourishmentwas obtainable in any other way? An obvious reply would be that the boyhad become wholly, idiotic; but the more Dr. Rollinson revolved this roughand ready explanation, the less satisfactory did he find it. He wiselydecided to study the symptoms and weigh the evidence before committinghimself one way or the other.

  The first result of his observations was to confirm his impression thatArchibald was not idiotic. There was a certain sort of vacancy in thechild's expression, but it was the vacancy of ignorance rather than offoolishness. And ignorant to a surprising degree he was. He had at no timebeen regarded as a boy of large attainments; but what he knew before hisstrange seizure was, to what he knew after it, as Bacon to a ploughman.Had he been newly born into the world, he could not have shown lessacquaintance with it, so far as intellectual comprehension went; hisfather, mother, sister--all were alike strangers to him; he gazed at themwith intent but unrecognizing eyes; he never looked up when his name wasspoken, nor did he betray any sign of understanding the talk that went onaround him. His own thoughts and wants were expressed by inarticulatesounds and by gestures; but the mystery of speech evidently interestedhim, and he studied the movements of the lips of those who spoke to himwith a keen, grave scrutiny to them highly amusing--except in the case ofhis poor old Aunt Jane, who turned quite pale under his inquisition, anddeclared that he must be bewitched, for although he seemed to knownothing, yet he had the knowingest look of any child she ever saw. HereinAunt Jane gave utterance to a fact that was beginning to be generallyacknowledged. Whatever Archibald had lost, it was beyond dispute that hehad somehow come into possession of a fund of native intelligence (theterm "mother wit" seems inappropriate under the circumstances) to which hehad heretofore been a stranger. He might have forgotten his own name, andthe mother that bore him; but he had learned how to learn, and was for thefirst time in his life wide awake. This was very much like saying that hewas a new boy in the old skin; and this, again, was little better than aeuphemism for changeling. Was he a changeling after all? The sage oldwoman whom we have already quoted asserted confidently that he was, andthat, however much he pretended to ignorance, he really knew vastly morethan any plain human child did or ought to know. And as a warrant for thisopinion they brought forward evidence that Master Archibald, having beenleft alone one day in the nursery, had been overheard humming to himselfthe words of a certain song--a thing, it was argued, which he could nothave done had he known no words at all; and therefore he was a changeling.

  Dr. Rollinson happened to hear this argument, and thought it worth while toinquire further into the matter. Such testimony as he could collect wentto confirm the truth of the story. Not only so, but the song itself, ifthe witnesses were to be believed, so far from being an ordinary childishditty, was some matter of pretty maids and foaming wine-cups that TomMoore might have written, and that gentlemen sometimes trolled out, anhour or two after dinner. Now this looked very black for Archibald.Further investigation, however, put a somewhat different face upon theaffair. It transpired that the song had been often sung in Archibald'shearing, and before his fit, by the Honorable Richard, for whom, as hasbeen said, the boy had taken a queer fancy.

  And, perhaps because affection is a good teacher, the boy had acquired thepower of repeating some of the verses to himself, of course withoutunderstanding a syllable of them, and very likely without himself beingconscious of what he was doing, he hummed them over, in short, exactly asa preoccupied parrot might do; and always at a certain time, namely, afterhe had been put to bed, and was staring up at the darkening ceilingprevious to falling asleep. This, by itself, was nothing very remarkable;the puzzle was, how could he do it now? Out of all the wreck of his smallmemory, why was this song, the meaning of which he had never understood,the sole survivor? Was it that his affection for Mr. Pennroyal had kept italive? So might a sentimentalist have concluded; but the Doctor was a manof sense. Was it that the boy was shamming? Impossible on all accounts.But then, what was it?

  The Doctor had by this time worked himself up to believe that the solutionof this problem would help largely toward the clearing up of the wholemystery. So he took notes, and continued to observe and to consider.

  He found, in the first place, that the song-singing took place underexactly the same circumstances as before the fit, and at no other time orplace.

  Hereupon, he devised experiments to discover whether Archibald wasconscious that he was singing, or whether it was an act performedmechanically, while the mind was otherwise engaged. After the child was inbed, he quietly arranged a lamp so as to cast a circular space of lightupon the ceiling above the bed, the rest of the room being left in shadow.Not a word of any song was heard that night; and the test was tried twicemore during the week, with a like result. At another time he got theHonorable Richard to come into a room adjoining the nursery, and sing thesong so that Archibald might hear it. Archibald heard it, but gave no signof being affected thereby. He was then brought into Mr. Richard'spresence; it was the first time they had met since the change. Now, ifever, was an opportunity for the imperishable quality of the
affections tobe vindicated. But no such vindication occurred. On the contrary, afterhaving stared his uncle almost out of countenance for some minutes, heturned from him with a marked expression of disapproval, and could neverafterward be induced voluntarily to go near him. The affection had becomean antipathy.

  "No, madam; set your mind at rest," said the bluff Doctor to Lady Malmaisonover a cup of tea that evening. "The child's no changeling; but he'schanged, and changed for the better, too, by Gad! He can tell a bad eggfrom a good one now," continued the Doctor, with a significant chuckle,the significance of which, however, Lady Malmaison perhaps failed toperceive. But the fact was, the Honorable Richard Pennroyal had never beenan especial favorite with Dr. Rollinson.

  The next day was a new excitement. Archibald had walked, and that, too, aswell as the best-grown boy of seven that you would want to see.

  "Ay, and where did he walk to?" demanded the Doctor.

  It was explained that it was at the time for nursing him, and he wassitting in his little chair at one end of the nursery, when Maggie hadentered at the other. As soon as he clapped eyes on her, he had set up hisusual impatient outcries; but Maggie, instead of going directly to him,had stopped to exchange a few words with the head-nurse, unfastening thefront of her dress the while, however, so that Master Archibald'simpatience was carried to the point of intolerance by the glimpse thusafforded of the good things in store for him. And then, before you hadtime to think, he had got up from his chair, and trotted across the floor,bellowing all the time, and had tugged at Maggie's dress.

  "Bellowing all the time, eh?" said the Doctor.

  "And walking all the same like he was ten year old, sir: and it did give usall a turn; and if you please, sir, what do you say to _that_?"

  "What do I say to that?--why, that it's just what I should haveexpected--that's what I say!" replied Dr. Rollinson, who had apparentlybegun to divine some clew to the grand mystery. But he vouchsafed noexplanations as yet.

  Archibald did not repeat the walking miracle, although, within the space ofa few weeks only, he passed through the regular gradations of crawling,tottering, and toddling, to normal pedestrianism of the most active kind.His progress in other accomplishments was almost parallel with this. Frominarticulate gabble he trained his tongue to definite speech; hisvocabulary expanded with astonishing rapidity, and, contrary to hisprevious habit, he made incessant use of it. He was now as remarkable forloquacity as formerly for the opposite characteristic; and his keenness ofobservation and retentive memory were a theme of general admiration. In aword, he used his five senses to ten times better effect than had everbeen expected of him in the old days; and no one who had not seen him fora year from the time of his fit would have recognized him as the samechild. He was not only making up for lost time--he was incomparablyoutstripping his earlier self; he seemed to have emerged from a mental andphysical cocoon--to have cast aside an incrustation of deterrentclumsiness, and to be hastening onward with the airy case and accuracy ofperfect self-possession. At the end of a year he was to all intents andpurposes ten years old; and what was most remarkable about this swiftadvance lay in the fact that a year had seen the whole of it. Though hehad been eight years in the world, the first seven had furnished none ofthe mental or moral material for the last: it stood alone anddisconnectedly. Of those seven years it is certain that he retained notthe smallest recollection; they were to him as if they had never been. Theonly thing they did provide him with was a well-fed and sound body; inother respects Archibald was positively new. He had to make theacquaintance of his family and friends over again; but it was done withmodifications. In other cases besides that of his uncle, it was observedthat he felt antipathies where formerly he loved, and _vice versa_.

  A minor instance, but interesting as must be all evidence in a case sostrange as this, is that of the brindled cat that was buried in thegarden. Archibald was brought to the grave, which he had so patheticallyhaunted before his metamorphosis, not many weeks after the metamorphosisoccurred; and every means was used to revive in him some recollection ofthe bereavement; they even went so far as to uncover poor pussy'sremains.... Archibald was first unconscious and indifferent, then curious,finally disgusted. His feelings were not otherwise touched. Allassociations connected with this whilom pet of his, grief for whose losswas supposed to have been the impelling cause of the fit itself, were asutterly expunged from his mind as if they had never existed there.Moreover, aversion from all cats was from this time forth so marked in himas almost to amount to horror; while dogs, whose presence had been wont tofill him with dismay, were now his favorite companions. It was the same inother things; the boy formed independent opinions and prejudices in allthe relations of life--independent, that is, of his past. His temper, too,was changed; no longer timid, appealing and docile, it was now determined,enterprising, and bold. It was manifest even thus early that here was acharacter fitted to make its way in the world.

  "No, I protest, Doctor, I can never believe it's the same child," said LadyMalmaison, with a sigh. "That noisy, self-willed boy is never my quiet,affectionate little Archie. And yesterday he beat his brother Edward, thatis two years older than he. Heigho! Pray, dear Doctor, what is youropinion?"

  "My opinion, Lady Malmaison, is that women will never be content," answeredthe bluff old physician. "I can remember the time when you thought yourquiet little Archie was a nincompoop--and quite right too. And now becausea monstrous piece of good luck has made a Crichton of him, you begin toregret the nincompoop! It ain't logical;" and the Doctor took snuff.

  "But who ever heard of a child changing his whole nature all in a moment?"persisted Lady Malmaison.

  "Why, isn't all in a moment better than inch by inch? The thing is no suchmighty matter as some folks try to make it out. The boy went to sleep assoon as he was born, and has but just waked up--that's my notion about it.So now, instead of starting, the way most of us do, at the point ofhelplessness, he begins life with a body full of seven years' pith, andfaculties sharp set as a new watch. Till now he has but dreamed; now he'sgoing to exist, with so much the more extra impetus. He don't recollectwhat he's been dreaming--why should he?"

  "But he did recollect some things, Doctor; that song.... And then, hiswalking across the room."

  "Purely physical--purely automatic," replied the Doctor, tapping hissnuff-box, and pleased with Lady Malmaison's awe at the strange word. "Ifhe had stopped to think what he was doing he couldn't have done it. Thebody, I tell you, grows under all circumstances--as much when you'reasleep as when you're awake; and the body has a memory of its own,distinct from the mental memory. Have you never hummed a song when youwere doing your embroidery, and thinking about--about Lady Snaffle'selopement with the captain?"

  "Oh, Doctor!"

  "Yes; and if I'd come in at the moment and asked you what you were singing,could you have told me? Of course you couldn't! You could have told meall about the elopement. Well, then, that's clear now, ain't it?"

  "Yes," said Lady Malmaison, meaning, it must be supposed, "as clear asmud." Dr. Rollinson chuckled to himself, and they continued their game ofpiquet.