Chapter II--The Heart of a Child

by Bram Stoker

　　For some weeks after his wife's death Squire Norman was overwhelmedwith grief. He made a brave effort, however, to go through theroutine of his life; and succeeded so far that he preserved anexternal appearance of bearing his loss with resignation. Butwithin, all was desolation.Little Stephen had winning ways which sent deep roots into herfather's heart. The little bundle of nerves which the father tookinto his arms must have realised with all its senses that, in allthat it saw and heard and touched, there was nothing but love andhelp and protection. Gradually the trust was followed byexpectation. If by some chance the father was late in coming to thenursery the child would grow impatient and cast persistent, longingglances at the door. When he came all was joy.Time went quickly by, and Norman was only recalled to its passing bythe growth of his child. Seedtime and harvest, the many comings ofnature's growth were such commonplaces to him, and had been for somany years, that they made on him no impressions of comparison. Buthis baby was one and one only. Any change in it was not only initself a new experience, but brought into juxtaposition what is withwhat was. The changes that began to mark the divergence of sex werepositive shocks to him, for they were unexpected. In the very dawnof babyhood dress had no special import; to his masculine eyes sexwas lost in youth. But, little by little, came the tiny changeswhich convention has established. And with each change came toSquire Norman the growing realisation that his child was a woman. Atiny woman, it is true, and requiring more care and protection anddevotion than a bigger one; but still a woman. The pretty littleways, the eager caresses, the graspings and holdings of the childishhands, the little roguish smiles and pantings and flirtings were allbut repetitions in little of the dalliance of long ago. The father,after all, reads in the same book in which the lover found hisknowledge.At first there was through all his love for his child a certainresentment of her sex. His old hope of a son had been rooted toodeeply to give way easily. But when the conviction came, and with itthe habit of its acknowledgment, there came also a certainresignation, which is the halting-place for satisfaction. But henever, not then nor afterwards, quite lost the old belief thatStephen was indeed a son. Could there ever have been a doubt, theremembrance of his wife's eyes and of her faint voice, of her hopeand her faith, as she placed her baby in his arms would have refusedit a resting-place. This belief tinged all his after-life andmoulded his policy with regard to his girl's upbringing. If she wasto be indeed his son as well as his daughter, she must from the firstbe accustomed to boyish as well as to girlish ways. This, in thatshe was an only child, was not a difficult matter to accomplish. Hadshe had brothers and sisters, matters of her sex would soon havefound their own level.There was one person who objected strongly to any deviation from theconventional rule of a girl's education. This was Miss LaetitiaRowly, who took after a time, in so far as such a place could betaken, that of the child's mother. Laetitia Rowly was a young auntof Squire Rowly of Norwood; the younger sister of his father and somesixteen years his own senior. When the old Squire's second wife haddied, Laetitia, then a conceded spinster of thirty-six, had takenpossession of the young Margaret. When Margaret had married SquireNorman, Miss Rowly was well satisfied; for she had known StephenNorman all her life. Though she could have wished a youngerbridegroom for her darling, she knew it would be hard to get a betterman or one of more suitable station in life. Also she knew thatMargaret loved him, and the woman who had never found the happinessof mutual love in her own life found a pleasure in the romance oftrue love, even when the wooer was middle-aged. She had beentravelling in the Far East when the belated news of Margaret's deathcame to her. When she had arrived home she announced her intentionof taking care of Margaret's child, just as she had taken care ofMargaret. For several reasons this could not be done in the sameway. She was not old enough to go and live at Normanstand withoutexciting comment; and the Squire absolutely refused to allow that hisdaughter should live anywhere except in his own house. Educationalsupervision, exercised at such distance and so intermittently, couldneither be complete nor exact.Though Stephen was a sweet child she was a wilful one, and very earlyin life manifested a dominant nature. This was a secret pleasure toher father, who, never losing sight of his old idea that she was bothson and daughter, took pleasure as well as pride out of eachmanifestation of her imperial will. The keen instinct of childhood,which reasons in feminine fashion, and is therefore doubly effectivein a woman-child, early grasped the possibilities of her own will.She learned the measure of her nurse's foot and then of her father's;and so, knowing where lay the bounds of possibility of theachievement of her wishes, she at once avoided trouble and learnedhow to make the most of the space within the limit of her tether.It is not those who 'cry for the Moon' who go furthest or get most inthis limited world of ours. Stephen's pretty ways and unfailing goodtemper were a perpetual joy to her father; and when he found that asa rule her desires were reasonable, his wish to yield to them becamea habit.Miss Rowly seldom saw any individual thing to disapprove of. She itwas who selected the governesses and who interviewed them from timeto time as to the child's progress. Not often was there anycomplaint, for the little thing had such a pretty way of showingaffection, and such a manifest sense of justified trust in all whomshe encountered, that it would have been hard to name a specificfault.But though all went in tears of affectionate regret, and witheminently satisfactory emoluments and references, there came anirregularly timed succession of governesses.Stephen's affection for her 'Auntie' was never affected by any of thechanges. Others might come and go, but there no change came. Thechild's little hand would steal into one of the old lady's strongones, or would clasp a finger and hold it tight. And then the womanwho had never had a child of her own would feel, afresh each time, asthough the child's hand was gripping her heart.With her father she was sweetest of all. And as he seemed to bepleased when she did anything like a little boy, the habit of beinglike one insensibly grew on her.An only child has certain educational difficulties. The truelearning is not that which we are taught, but that which we take infor ourselves from experience and observation, and children'sexperiences and observation, especially of things other thanrepressive, are mainly of children. The little ones teach eachother. Brothers and sisters are more with each other than areordinary playmates, and in the familiarity of their constantintercourse some of the great lessons, so useful in after-life, arelearned. Little Stephen had no means of learning the wisdom of give-and-take. To her everything was given, given bountifully andgracefully. Graceful acceptance of good things came to hernaturally, as it does to one who is born to be a great lady. Thechildren of the farmers in the neighbourhood, with whom at times sheplayed, were in such habitual awe of the great house, that they wereseldom sufficiently at ease to play naturally. Children cannot be onequal terms on special occasions with a person to whom they have beentaught to bow or courtesy as a public habit. The children ofneighbouring landowners, who were few and far between, and of theprofessional people in Norcester, were at such times as Stephen metthem, generally so much on their good behaviour, that the spontaneityof play, through which it is that sharp corners of individuality areknocked off or worn down, did not exist.And so Stephen learned to read in the Book of Life; though only onone side of it. At the age of six she had, though surrounded withloving care and instructed by skilled teachers, learned only theaccepting side of life. Giving of course there was in plenty, forthe traditions of Normanstand were royally benevolent; many ablessing followed the little maid's footsteps as she accompanied sometimely aid to the sick and needy sent from the Squire's house.Moreover, her Aunt tried to inculcate certain maxims founded on thatnoble one that it is more blessed to give than to receive. But ofgiving in its true sense: the giving that which we want forourselves, the giving that is as a temple built on the rock of self-sacrifice, she knew nothing. Her sweet and spontaneous nature, whichgave its love and sympathy so readily, was almost a bar to education:it blinded the eyes that would have otherwise seen any defect thatwanted altering, any evil trait that needed repression, any laggingvirtue that required encouragement--or the spur.