Scissors — Story, Setting & Ideas

She had the choice of remaining in England, but she swept it aside unhesitatingly. Devoid of fear and devoted to her husband, she went with him from land to land. With them also went their young son, John Narcissus Dean. Narcissus! exclaimed everybody, hearing the name. "Yes, Narcissus," answered handsome Charles Dean solemnly, while the light of humour danced in his grey eyes; and then followed the story of that honeymoon in Naples, when Mary, after seeing the famous statue of "Narcissus listening to Echo," had pleaded with her young husband, assisted by a Jew curio shopkeeper, for a copy she coveted. "But I want a real Narcissus," whispered the young man, pressing her hand quietly, while the Jew dusted the expensive bronzes on his counter.

"You shall have one--if I can have this," she answered roguishly. He nearly kissed her in boyish ecstasy. "Done!" he cried--"and we'll call him 'Narcissus.'"

Charles Dean was not only a man who kept to his word, but also to his joke. The announcement of the birth of John Narcissus at the historic manor of "Fourways" filled old Sir Neville, the grandfather, with delight and protest; a boy--excellent, Narcissus--preposterous! But Charles was obstinate, Mary amused, and Sir Neville protested anew. It was like Charles--independent, obstinate Charles, who had always been so irrational. It might have been expected of a man who had thrown up a diplomatic career to breed horses, which he could not afford to breed, who had married penniless Mary Loughton, his land-agent's pretty daughter. Charles had always been the fool in contrast with Henry, his level-headed elder brother. Sir Neville did not protest long,--he died one month after the coming of the grandchild with the freak name; and although all babies seem to look alike, many ladies, calling on the young mother, vowed the child was a veritable Narcissus--so handsome, so bonnie, so--

The new baronet made one formal protest, but Henry knew well he could do nothing with his odd-minded brother; still, as uncle, head of the family, and sixth baronet, he felt he had some right to protest against "Narcissus," if not for himself, then for his own boys, who were cousins to this piece of Greek mythology. The young parents only laughed, and John Narcissus, as if seeing the joke, gurgled whenever he was shown the statue and told to grow up like it--not altogether of course, for the statue proved to be cracked over the left breast, where the dealer had carefully kept his thumb.

Sir Henry, annoyed, kept aloof. When he heard that Charles had ruined himself and lost "Fourways" in a mad scheme to sink a shaft, over-persuaded by a gang of company promoters, he declared he was in no way surprised, shrugged his shoulders, and waited to see what would happen now. The sale of "Fourways," its contents and its horses, must have been a hard blow for Charles, but he certainly gave no sign when he called to say "Goodbye," before taking a position as continental agent offered him by an old friend.

"And--the boy?" asked Sir Henry, unable to make himself pronounce the ridiculous name.

"He is going with us."

"What--all over the Continent!" cried the astounded baronet. "You can't take a boy there--why not send him to school?"

"He's too young--we want him--and I don't believe in preparatory schools."

"Crank!" exclaimed Sir Henry to her ladyship when his brother had gone.

Thus came John Narcissus Dean to be swinging his sturdy legs on a box aboard an Austrian-Lloyd steamer bound for Samsoon. He was a fine boy, well matured for his seven years, and already he had a manner of command which made a slave of his devoted nurse Anna, a big fresh-coloured country girl, one of the small group that had gathered, seven years before, at the foot of the staircase at "Fourways." Anna had never intended going to Asia Minor, which she looked upon with the same horror as she did the South Sea Islands. Her first excursion, to Amsterdam, had been taken with great daring. Only love of the child she nursed and the mistress she served, could have prevailed upon her to leave England, for as all the peasant class, she had a loathing of foreigners. But from Amsterdam to Berlin had not seemed so far, and then the change to Bordeaux was like coming half-way home, so she remained with the family, and, as the years went by, became more tightly bound by affection to her young charge. For, however much she admired her mistress, she never doubted for one moment that, without her, young John Narcissus could not live. She had nursed him from a baby, was familiar with all his complaints, and also his moods, which were peculiar and trying.