Charles' Birthday Gift

It was January 18, 1802, but Charles did not know that when he woke up. What he did know was that today was his birthday, and he was 4. Four seemed very old to him, but he found he did not feel any older than yesterday. Perhaps, he thought, he would begin to feel more grown-up as the day went by.

He hopped out of bed and wondered if he could sneak into the nursery next door and have his breakfast before Nurse Thale came in and made him get dressed, but before he could think about this properly she had come in. She always seemed to know when he woke up.
"All right, Charlie, love. Clothes off."

"But it's cold! Besides, it's my birthday!"

"I know, love. But the faster you get out of your nightshirt the faster you can get into your clothes and the faster you can eat your breakfast and the faster you can go see your father."
"My father?"

Nurse Thale smiled. "He wants to see you, goose. It's your birthday, after all."

Charlie loved to see his father. He lifted his arms hurredly so Nurse Thale could dress him.
Finally Nurse Thale decided that his hair was brushed enough told him he might go look for his father if he was careful not to disturb him. Charlie bounded out of the room.

Charles had lived at Hartfestol his entire life, and he had, in fact, not been off its grounds except to go to church sometimes. Still, the great house enchanted him, starting with the great hall, whose banisters he longed to be big enough to slide down. Today he found himself stopping for a moment just to look up. Then he hurried off to the breakfast room.

He found his father reading a newspaper. Charlie loved the way his father did whatever he liked, which was, in this case, wearing his robe to the breakfast table. No matter how many times he tried to convince Nurse Thale to let him do that, she never did.
His father put the newspaper down when he came in.

"Hallo, Charlie. How does it feel to be four?"

"I'm not quite sure yet."
"Well, you look much older already," declared his father. "Before I know it you'll be ready to go off to school. Good god! Imagine that!"
Charlie could not. But it didn't seem to matter, because his father just kept smiling.

"Try the crumpets this morning, Nurse Thale. Have you had anything yet?"

"No, your lordship. But I couldn't..."

"I have to go out anyway in a moment. Go ahead," his father said. Then, after a moment, he told Charles, "If you go look in the drawing room I just might have left a present for you there."

Charlie turned eagerly towards the drawing room, and found, much to his surprise, that he was not at all sure what his gift was.

"What is it, Father?"

"It's a boat."
"Like the one at Keenan Pond?" Sometimes Nurse Thale would take him for a walk to Keenan pond, which lay on the estate. There was an old rowboat there, which had not been used in 2 or 3 years and which Nurse Thale would never let him play on, much to his annoyance.
"Exactly like the one at Keenan Pond, my boy. Just smaller, for little boys to play with."

I thought I was a big boy now, thought Charlie. "But what are those--things?"
"The sails? They catch the wind so the boat will go. That's how ships work," his father explained. Charlie was still quite confused, but he went and sat down by his toy to better examine it.

His father was still talking, but in a different way now.
"They have ships like that in France," began his father. "Little ones. And do you know what they do with them? The little boys' Nurses take them to the park and they put their boats in the fountains and let them sail around."

This sounded like a great deal of fun to Charlie, but he wondered if Nurse Thale would allow him to do it.
"Your mother and I used to walk around the park when we first met, Charlie. The Luxembourg Gardens. And she and I would walk around there, and she would joke that she wished she were a little boy so she could play with boats in the fountains. She used to say that when she had a son she would take him herself so she could play with him and his boats."

When Charles grew older, he would think back on what his father had said and wish he could remeber it better, for when he grew older he realized that his father's real gift to him on that day was a piece of his mother, and his father guarded those pieces very closely. But at that moment he was only a little boy, and so he said, "Father, do you think I could go to the Lux-em-burg...--the park, I mean--and play with my boat?"

But his father laughed. "I don't think so, Charlie. You see, France is somewhat far away from Hartfestol--from Cennanceaster, in fact. You'd have to take a big boat just to get there. And besides, right now the French are our enemies, and so no one goes to France. But maybe one day you and I can go, when the war is over."