The Changeling

The Changeling
Walter Besant

The Changeling

CHAPTER I.

WAS IT SUBSTITUTION?

"Pray be seated, madam." The doctor offered his visitor a chair. Then he closed the door, with perhaps a more marked manner than one generally displays in this simple operation. "I am happy to inform you," he began, "that the arrangements – the arrangements," he repeated with meaning, "are now completed."

The lady was quite young – not more than twenty-two or so – a handsome woman, a woman of distinction. Her face was full of sadness; her eyes were full of trouble; her lips trembled; her fingers nervously clutched the arms of the chair. When the doctor mentioned the arrangements, her cheek flushed and then paled. In a word, she betrayed every external sign of terror, sorrow, and anxiety.

"And when can I leave this place?"

"This day: as soon as you please."

"The woman made no objections?"

"None. You can have the child."

"I have told you my reasons for wishing to adopt this child" – he had never asked her reasons, yet at every interview she repeated them: "my own boy is dead. He is dead." There was a world of trouble in the repetition of the word.

The doctor bowed coldly. "Your reasons, madam," he said, "are sufficient for yourself. I have followed your instructions without asking for your reasons. That is to say, I have found the kind of child you want: light hair and blue eyes, apparently sound and healthy; at all events, the child of a sound and healthy mother. As for your reasons, I do not inquire."

"I thought you might like – "

"They are nothing to do with me. My business has been to find a child, and to arrange for your adoption of it. I have therefore, as I told you, arranged with a poor woman who is willing to part with her child."

"On my conditions?"

"Absolutely. That is – she will never see the child again; she will not ask who takes the child, or where it is taken, or in what position of life it will be brought up. She accepts your assurance that the child will be cared for, and treated kindly. She fully consents."

"Poor creature!"

"You will give her fifty pounds, and that single payment will terminate the whole business."

"Terminate the whole business? Oh, it will begin the whole business!"

"There are many reasons for adoption," the doctor continued, returning to the point with which he had no concern. "I have read in books of substituting a child – introducing a child – for the sake of keeping a title, or an estate, or a family."

The lady answered as if she had not heard this remark. "The mother consents to sell her child! Poor creature!"

"She accepts your conditions. I have told you so. Go your way – she goes hers."

The lady reflected for a moment. "Tell me," she said, – "you are a man of science, – in such an adoption – "

"Or, perhaps, such a substitution," interrupted the doctor.

"Is there not danger of inherited vice, or disease?"

"Certainly there is. It is a danger which you must watch in educating the child. He may inherit a tendency to drink: guard against it by keeping him from alcohol of any kind. He may show physical weakness; watch him carefully. But nine-tenths of so-called hereditary disease or vice are due to example and conditions of life."

"If we do not know the character of the parents – they may be criminals. What if the child should inherit these instincts?"

The doctor, who had been standing, took a chair, and prepared himself to argue the point. He was a young man, with a strong jaw and a square forehead. He had a face and features of rude but vigorous handling; such a face as a noble life would make beautiful in age, and an ignoble life would make hideous. Every man has as many faces as there are years of his life, and we heed them not; yet each follows each in a long procession, ending with the pale and waxen face in the coffin – that solemn face which tells so much.

"There is," he said, "a good deal of loose talk about heredity. Some things external are hereditary – face, eyes, figure, stature, hands, certainly descend from father to son; some diseases, especially those of the nervous kind; some forms of taste and aptitude, especially those which are artistic. Things which are not natural, but acquired, are never hereditary – never. If the boy's father is the greatest criminal in the country, it won't hurt him a bit, because he is taken away too early to have observed or imitated. The sons are said to take after the mothers; that is, perhaps, because they have always got the models before them. In your case, you will naturally become the child's most important model. Later on, will come in the male influence. If there is, for instance, a putative father – "

"There will be, of course, my husband."

The doctor bowed again. Then there was a husband living. "He will become the boy's second model," he said. "In other words, madam, the vices of the boy's parents – if they have vices – will not affect him in the least. Gout, rheumatism, asthma, consumption, – all these things, and many more, a child may inherit; but acquired criminality, never. Be quite easy on that point."

"My desire is that the child may become as perfect a gentleman at all points as his – as my husband."

"Why should he not? He has no past to drag him down. You will train him and mould him as you please – exactly as you please."

"You have not told me anything about the mother, except that she is in want."

"Why should you learn her name, or she yours?"

"I have no desire to learn her name. I was thinking whether she is the kind of woman to feel the loss of her child."

The doctor, as yet inexperienced in the feminine nature, marvelled at this sympathy with the mother whose child the lady was buying.

"Well," he said, "she is a young woman – of respectable character, I believe; good looking; in her speech something of a cockney, if I understand that dialect."

"The more respectable she is, the more she will feel the loss of her child."

"Yes; but there is another consideration. This poor creature has a husband who has deserted her."

"Then her child should console her."

"Her husband is a comedian – actor – singing fellow, – a chap who asks for nothing but enjoyment. As for wife and children, they may look out for themselves. When I saw him, I read desertion in his face; in his wife's face, it was easy to read neglect."

"Poor creature!"

"Now he's gone – deserted her. Nothing will do but she must go in search of him. Partly for money to help her along, partly because the workhouse is her only refuge, she sells her baby."

The lady was silent for a while, then she sighed. "Poor creature! There are, then, people in the world as unhappy as I myself?"

"If that is any consolation, there are. Well, madam, you now know the whole history; and, as it doesn't concern you, nor the child, best forget it at once."

"Poor mother!"

She kept harping on the bereavement, as though Providence, and not she herself, was the cause.

"I have told her that the boy will be brought up in ease – affluence even" – the lady inclined her head – "and she is resigned."

"Thank you. And when – ?"