Sweet Content
Chapter One.
An “Only” Baby
“Sweet Content.” That was my name when I was a very tiny child. It may sound rather conceited to tell this of myself, but when I have told all the story I am now beginning, I don’t think, at least I hope, you, whoever you are that read it, won’t say I am conceited. Indeed, if I thought any one I knew, or rather that knew me, would be likely to read it and to know that the “I” of it was me, I am not by any means sure that I would write it. But, of course, it is not at all certain that it ever will be printed or seen by any one (except, perhaps, by my children, if, when I am grown up, I am married and have any) who ever heard of me. The world seems to me a very big place; there are such lots and lots of people in it, old ones and children, and middling ones; and they are all busy and taken up about their own affairs.
Some other children might like to read my story, just as a story, for I do think some parts of it are rather extra interesting; but it is not probable that any of them would recognise me, or the other “characters” (I think that is the right word) in it. Except – except some of the other characters themselves! They don’t know I am writing it, perhaps they never will know about it; but if they did – yes, even if they read every word of it – I don’t think I’d mind. They are so truly – no, I mustn’t begin telling about them like that; you will understand, all in good time, why, least of any people in the world, perhaps, I should mind their reading the exactly how it was of everything I have to tell. This shows how perfectly I can trust them.
And in saying even that, though I really couldn’t help it, I’m afraid I have already got rather out of the proper orderly way of telling a story.
I will start clearly now. What I have written already is a sort of preface or introduction. And it has a much better chance of being read than if I had put it separately.
As I began about my baby name, and as I am going to use it for a title – for several reasons, as you will see – I will first explain about it.
I have been an only child ever since I can remember. But I was not always an only child. When I was a baby of a very few months old, a terrible trouble came to our house: scarlet fever broke out very badly in the little town or big village, whichever you like to call it, where we lived then, and where we still live. And among the first deaths from it were those of my brothers and sister, the doctor’s own children! Fancy —three dear little children all dying together – in two days at least, I think it was. No one was to blame for their catching the infection; the fever broke out so suddenly that there was no time to send them away, and though papa, as the doctor, had of course to be constantly attending the fever cases, his own children must have caught it before there could possibly have been time for him to bring it to them. Even if he could have done so, which was doubtful, as for the two or three days before they got ill he never came into the house at all, and did not even see mamma, but eat his meals and slept in a room over the stables. I have always been glad for papa to know it could not have come through him, for even though it would have been in the way of duty – and papa is a perfect hero about duty – he might have blamed himself for some carelessness or forgetfulness. And once – though they seldom speak of that awful time – mamma said something of the kind to me.
I was the baby, as I have told you. A tiny, rather delicate little thing. And, strange to say, I did not catch the fever. They did not send me away; it seemed no use after all the risks I had already run. I could almost think that poor mamma must have felt as if it would not so very much matter whether I got it or not; my dying then could not have made things much worse for her to bear! For, after all, a very little baby, even though it is nice and funny and even sweet in its way, can’t be anything like as interesting or as much a part of your life as talking, understanding, loving children. So it seems to me, though mamma doesn’t quite agree with me. She loves me so very much that I think she couldn’t bear to think there ever was a time when I was less to her. I fancy the truth is that she does not very clearly remember what she felt during those dreadful days; I hope she does not, for even to think of them makes me shiver. They were such dear children; so bright and healthy and happy. Mamma seemed like a person in a dream or a trance, our old Prudence has often told me, after the last, Kenneth, the eldest, it was, died. Fancy the empty nurseries, fancy all the toys and books, and, worst of all, the little hats, and jackets, and shoes lying about just as usual! For they were only ill four days – oh, I think it must have been awful. And yet so beautiful too.
And the little, stupid, crying baby lived, and throve, and grew well and strong. When papa, weeks after, ventured at last to look at me, he could not believe I was the same! I hope he felt it was a little tiny bit of a reward to him for his goodness to others. To think of him going about as usual, no, not as usual, for he worked like ten, I have been told, to save others, though his own poor heart was breaking. And he did save many – that, too, must have been a real reward.
He kissed me gravely – Prudence told me this, too – but just then I smiled, a slow-coming baby smile, I think it must have been; you know how a baby stares first before it makes up its mind to smile – and he stopped; he had been turning away, and took me in his arms.
“My poor little darling,” he said, “I feel almost afraid to love you. But no, that would be faithless.”
And he carried me downstairs to mamma in the drawing-room. I can fancy how she must have been sitting there alone, looking out on to the pretty old-fashioned garden behind the house, and watching the spring flowers blossoming out, for it was in spring that all this happened, and thinking of her spring flowers. I have so often fancied it, and seen her there in her deep black dress, in my mind, that it has come to be like a real picture to me. But of course I don’t know what actually happened, for Prudence wasn’t there to see. Only I think that from that day they took me into their hearts in a quite wonderful way, for, ever since I can remember, they have been, oh, so very good to me – too good, I am afraid. I fear they spoilt me. And I for long, long, was not a good and grateful little daughter to them.
It is difficult to blame them for spoiling me; is it not? And perhaps there is just a little excuse for me in its having been so. I don’t want to make excuses for myself, but looking back I do see that I didn’t know in the least how selfish, and self-seeking, and vain and proud and stuck-up, and everything horrid like that, I was. Jealous, too; but that, you see, I had no reason to find out for a long while. What a good thing it was for me that a day came when I was really tested!
I was a fat, healthy, perfectly happy baby, and I grew into a fat, healthy, perfectly happy little girl. Nothing seemed to come wrong to me. I never got ill, and by nature I think I must have had a very even, comfortable temper. I was always smiling and satisfied. Now you see how I came by my name of “Sweet Content.” Mamma kept it for a sort of private pet name, but it did very well with my real name, which is Constantia. And this was naturally shortened into “Connie.” I remember papa and mamma laughing very much one day at a new servant, who must, I suppose, have overheard my private name, and wishing to be very respectful, spoke of me as “Miss Content.”
“Never let it get into ‘Discontent,’ Connie,” said papa.
“That she never will,” said mamma fondly. “I am sure all the good fairies, and none of the spiteful ones, were at my Sweet Content’s christening.”
I was quite used to hearing pretty things like that said to me or of me, and I took them as a matter of course, never doubting that I deserved them. And as no one contradicted me, and I had everything I wanted, and as I was not naturally a cross-grained or ill-tempered child, the spoiling did not show as quickly, or quite in the same ways, that it usually does, though I cannot help thinking that some people must have noticed it and thought me a selfish little goose. If they did, however, they were too kind to mamma, remembering her sad story, ever to say so. Besides, mamma was gentle and sweet to everybody, and she had too much good taste and feeling to go on fussing about me before people, in the way some very foolish parents do.
So altogether, up to the time I was ten or eleven years old, my fool’s paradise was a very perfect one. I was quite satisfied that I was a model of every virtue, as well as exceedingly clever, and I am afraid papa and mamma