The Gold Coast! Once he had thought his father was King there—had conquered it, perhaps, and stayed to rule. But that early fancy had faded, for his father had not returned. Nor had he died, for his mother had not worn black nor talked of him as Aunt Marian had talked and wept when Uncle had died. His father couldn't be dead, yet could he still be on the Gold Coast? Surely letters at least would come, and gifts, and they would be rich. He couldn't say how long it was since his father had kissed him good-bye and promised him—"all sorts of things, Richard."
"A gun, father?"
"All sorts of things at any rate, Richard." But his mother interrupting said quietly, "Don't promise the boy."
Richard wondered why his father was not to promise, and why his father, hearing the interdict, merely looked at him with smiling eyes that still promised, and said no more, but turned towards the trunks, tied the straps, sprang into the seat, and with a splendid flourish of the whip drove off—to a ship, to the Gold Coast. How long ago was that? Three Christmases had gone—no, four, and no gun had come, no arrows, no African marvels, no letter even, no promise even. . . . Nothing! His mother had simply silenced him when he asked questions—silenced him with a look, a quiet, "I don't know, Richard," or "You must wait, Richard"—words said in that familiar way of hers which always expressed, Don't ask questions. But questions persisted though unasked, and he questioned himself; indeed of late he had questioned constantly the absence and the silence of his father. No letter had come, nor had he ever surprised his mother writing. How could she live so quietly without a word, when he himself, a child, hungered for a word? Why was his mother so quiet as to make him afraid to disturb her with his play? Why was he still a day-scholar, when he had so long been promised a boarding school? The Gold Coast—that was where his father had gone, and although he was no longer so stupid as to think of him as King of the Gold Coast, he couldn't understand why, since his father was there, they should be growing poorer at home. Everything had grown quieter; people no longer called at the house as they used to do when he was a small boy and his father was commonly at home; and his mother seldom met people outside now. Nobody spoke to him of his father, and although he was glad, yet he still wondered why nobody spoke. There was a
