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Preface vii
• New pedagogy. Each chapter begins with learning objectives and ends with summa-
ries based on the objectives. Each chapter also includes suggested activities that are
designed to enhance the reader’s understanding of the content presented.
current review of effective methods for teaching self-care skills while also showing
how these methods apply to specific students.
One of the most important elements that schools can offer students is social rela-
tionships with peers. In Chapter 12, Matthew Brock, Erik Carter, and Elizabeth Biggs
illustrate strategies that teams can use to promote membership and a sense of belong-
ing and to build a variety of personal relationships among students in classrooms and
schools.
In Chapter 13, Susan Johnston and Cheri Blue address functional communication
and the importance of socially responsive environments. These authors highlight the
pervasive influence of communication in all aspects of life, including education,
friendships, well-being, and self-determination.
Basic skills in reading, writing, mathematics, and science are increasingly impor-
tant as states respond to federal laws and policies. In Chapter 14, Susan Copeland and
John McDonnell present methods for identifying what academic skills to teach and
evidence-based strategies for teaching those skills in inclusive settings.
Chapter 15 guides teachers on the instruction of skills to increase active participa-
tion in home and community life. Linda Bambara, Raquel Burns, Amanda Thomas,
and Dolly Singley begin with a series of guiding values and principles that character-
ize the outcomes of skill instruction referenced to students’ homes and communities.
These themes are coupled with instructional methods that have been found to be ef-
fective with students who have severe disabilities.
Our special education laws require a clear focus on and preparation for the transi-
tion to adulthood. Preparing students for real work in the community is a longitudinal
process requiring extensive team effort over the teenage years. In the closing chapter
of this book, Chapter 16, Valerie Mazzotti and David Test set forth the essential ele-
ments of secondary vocational programs that will allow students and their teams to
plan the transition from school to adulthood and then to make the transition.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Many people have assisted in the task of developing this ninth edition. First, we are
indebted to the children, adolescents, young adults, and mature adults, who add real-
ity to each chapter and whose abilities and disabilities have challenged and shaped
our own skills and those of our contributors. Their families and their educators
deserve equal gratitude for providing a vast array of teaching ideas, for granting per-
mission to use their photographs, and for giving us extensive examples and
information.
Finally, we are grateful for the helpful comments of our reviewers at various stages
in the revision process—James Thompson, University of Kansas; Yun-Ching Chung,
Illinois State University; Patricia Kopetz, University of Missouri-St. Louis; Dawn Rowe,
University of Oregon; and Gabriela Walker, University of South Dakota.
Fredda Brown, John McDonnell, and Martha E. Snell
BRIEF CONTENTS
Chapter 1
Educating Students with Severe Disabilities:
Foundational Concepts and Practices 1
Chapter 2
Fostering Family–Professional Partnerships 28
Chapter 3
Assessment and Planning 60
Chapter 4
Measuring Student Behavior and Learning 100
Chapter 5
Arranging the Teaching Environment 137
Chapter 6
Individualized Instructional Strategies 156
Chapter 7
Creating and Implementing Inclusive Education 207
Chapter 8
Designing and Implementing Individualized Positive Behavior
Support 232
Chapter 9
Understanding and Meeting the Health Care Needs of Students with
Severe Disabilities 275
Chapter 10
Key Concepts in Understanding Motor Disabilities 304
Chapter 11
Teaching Self-Care Skills 340
Chapter 12
Supporting Peer Interactions, Relationships, and Belonging 384
Chapter 13
Teaching Communication Skills 418
Chapter 14
Teaching Academic Skills 452
ix
x Brief Contents
Chapter 15
Building Skills for Home and Community 490
Chapter 16
Transitioning from School to Employment and Postsecondary Education 525
References 575
Name Index 615
Subject Index 623
CONTENTS
xi
xii Contents
Learning, 325 A Ecological Inventory, 327 A Playground and Recreation, 327 A Transition
to Employment or Other Postsecondary Settings, 327 A Use of Equipment to Enhance
Participation, 329 A Use of Other Technologies and Equipment in the Classroom, 335
Transportation, 336
LEARNING OUTCOME SUMMARIES 338
SUGGESTED ACTIVITIES 339
REFERENCES575
NAME INDEX 615
SUBJECT INDEX 623
Introduction
From a Mom: Read First!
Niki Mirabella
Mia, Dad, Ralphie, Gina, Toni, Gina and her cousins on family
February 2018 Rocky, and Mom, May 2017 vacation July 2016
In the next few pages you will read a true story about a young lady, Gina Mirabella, who has a
diagnosis of Smith-Lemli-Optiz syndrome. This story is narrated by me, her mother. After reading
Gina’s story, I hope that when you engage with a person who has a severe intellectual disability you
will look and talk to him or her just the same as you would anyone else. It is my intention to help
you find the strengths in people rather than their weaknesses, to help you find the courage to advo-
cate for people rather than accept preconceived ideas about outcomes, and most importantly, to
help you understand that the person is a real person, with feelings, desires, and a whole lot of love.
xviii
Introduction xix
OBGYN’s office for a pregnancy stress test, as Gina was 3 days past her due date. It
was then that we learned Gina was breech. A baby is considered breech when she is
positioned upside down with her head not facing correctly in order to travel through
the birth canal safely.
As we arrived at the hospital, the doctor came to me and explained that Gina
would need to be delivered via cesarean section (C-section) and that I “would be
making my first maternal sacrifice.” My world began spinning. What did all this mean?
What did the doctor mean by “sacrifice”? My experience so far with the pregnancy
had been perfect. We went to Lamaze classes, we planned financially, we had a plan
as to child care for when I returned to work, and we attended to all the big and small
details. So, why was this happening? I did not understand why something I was so
excited about, prepared well for, and had been waiting 9 months for, was slowly
turning into an experience I was feeling unprepared for.
The room became still and quiet on January 3, 2000, at 2:57 p.m. as the doctor de-
livered Gina. She was not breathing and needed to be rushed to the neonatal inten-
sive care unit (NICU). The nurse began to run out of the room with Gina, not even
waiting for the incubator to arrive. She suddenly stopped, backed up, and put Gina in
my arms, saying, “Mom needs to hold her first.” I held Gina for about 3 seconds and
in that short time, holding her tiny head in my hand, my heart immediately filled with
love. Looking back on it now, I understand that it was not just love, but strength that
filled my heart. And the world continued spinning.
Gina was admitted into the NICU, and a neonatologist came into the delivery room
within 10 minutes. He stood by the door and explained, “You have a very sick child;
she has low-set ears, upturned nostrils, droopy eyes, and microcephaly.” I remember
thinking her head was small, but she was a tiny infant. What did this mean? I remem-
bered when I went for my 26-week sonogram the doctor could not measure her head
circumference. I remember hearing side chatter among the doctor and the nurse and
then being told, “It is okay, we finally got a measurement of 10 inches—that is within
normal limits.” Now, remembering this and being told Gina had microcephaly, what
was happening? He then said, “I have to go work on your baby now” and left the
room. More spinning, spinning, spinning. Why did he need to “work” on Gina? What
was wrong with her? What did all those words really mean? Was she okay? Was she in
pain? Did she need me? Was I allowed to see her? Did she belong to the hospital or to
me? I was not sure. Where was she, what was happening to her? My body felt heavy,
and numb. I could not move my legs (due to the epidural) but I wanted to jump out
of the bed and “save” her, only I was too afraid to speak. I remember the anesthesiol-
ogist tapping my shoulder telling me, “It is going to be okay,” and my doctor saying,
“I have to put you back together and then I will go see what is wrong with your
baby.” Did I even have a baby, or was this a dream? What was going to be okay?
What was happening? Spinning, spinning, spinning.
Gina remained in the NICU for 35 days. She was on a respirator for 2 days, had a
feeding tube (orogastric [OG] tube) placed through her mouth to her stomach,
received blood transfusions, and was considered as failing to thrive as her body con-
tinued to reject all formulas. Gina was tested for multiple syndromes (trisomy 13, 18,
23, Down syndrome, etc.). But it wasn’t until the geneticist noticed Gina’s syndactyl
toes (toes that are fused together) on both feet that he then tested her for Smith-
Lemli-Opitz syndrome (SLOS). We were told NOT to research the syndrome, that the
syndrome was extremely rare. But of course I immediately got my hands on a medical
journal and looked up the syndrome. I then understood why he told us not to research
the syndrome. It was devastating! I remember feeling that there is no way my little
baby has this syndrome. How could it be? I went back to my pregnancy—it was great,
we were prepared, we were “normal” people. What was I going to do if the test came
back positive for SLOS? Spinning, spinning, spinning.
xx Introduction
Three weeks later the test came back positive, and Gina was diagnosed with SLOS.
This is a rare genetic, autosomal recessive gene disorder. A person with SLOS lacks
an enzyme to convert 7-DHD cholesterol to cholesterol. High levels of 7DHD choles-
terol are toxic to the body, while low levels of cholesterol effects the body’s ability to
produce cell membranes, which are needed to make brain cells in utero and after
birth. SLOS is a spectrum disorder in which all, or various parts, of the body and
areas of development are affected. A person’s initial cholesterol level (at birth) is an
indicator of the severity of which the syndrome will affect a person’s development.
The cholesterol level of a healthy infant is in the 120s. When Gina was 12 weeks old,
we learned that her cholesterol level was 12. This meant Gina was severely affected
by the syndrome. At that point, Gina was one of five babies at Boston Children’s Hos-
pital diagnosed with this extremely low level of cholesterol. Gina was the one out of
those five who survived past the age of 9 months.
The doctors explained that the syndrome was a spectrum disorder, but that they
were not sure where Gina fell within the spectrum—from mild to severe. My world
came crumbling down for about 3 minutes, and then, my response was, “Just tell me
what I need to do.” The words just came flying out of my mouth. I did not even think
about it. My love for Gina was stronger than ever at that moment.
The doctor went on to explain that if Gina was on the mild end of the spectrum,
she could have a “normal life with maybe a learning disability. She could probably
learn to ride a tricycle and zipper her coat.” What in the world was the doctor talking
about—how was this even a real conversation? She was 3 weeks old and lying in an
incubator hooked up to machines, and being fed by a tube. Why were we talking
about her riding a tricycle? I did not understand that he was trying to prepare me for
the limitations Gina would have. At that point, I felt that she was just sick and was
going to get better; that she was going to develop like my nieces and nephews and all
the other children I knew.
It was suggested we consider looking for an institution to place Gina in once she
was discharged. It was explained that life would be too difficult for Gina, and it
would be “too difficult to care for Gina at home.” The hospital’s social worker
explained that we were “young and needed to continue on with our life. In this
type of situation, you hope for the worst.” Her passing? These words did not scare
me; on the contrary, they helped me to develop a strength I could never have
dreamed of, and an overwhelming feeling of love, dedication, and a responsibility
to fight for this little baby—my baby! The “strength” I said I felt the second I held
Gina and looked into her eyes, had returned. There was only one place Gina was
going, and that was home with us—her parents! She was ours, and we would care
for her always.
The doctors and social workers emphasized, “Gina has microcephaly. Do you
know what that means? She is going to be mentally retarded.” My world had a differ-
ent type of spin this time. I felt empowered, motivated, and ready to take Gina home.
Those 35 days in the NICU taught me to stand tall, speak up, ask questions, and not
to blindly and passively accept statistics or any type of information that was pre-
sented to me. I learned that Gina was not a statistic, she was not a burden, she was
not someone to pity. She was just a baby, she was our daughter, and she deserved a
chance at life—just like everyone else. I also understand now that because the
syndrome is so rare, the doctors also lacked confidence in predicting outcomes for
Gina’s life.
Looking back, I am grateful today that I was so innocent then. What I understand
now, that I did not then, is that the “professionals” looked at Gina as “a person with
limited brain function that would be a burden to her parents and society.” They could
not find any positives in Gina’s life. They could not see past her limitations. We could
and we did.
Introduction xxi
Gina and friends enjoying winter fun at the Getting ready for the holidays with her sisters
bowling alley. Winter 2018 Mia and Toni December 2017
and me playgroup once a week; everyone stared at us—all but one mom, Kim, with
her son Sal. Kim asked about Gina’s differences, she asked because she cared. She
felt compassion toward our situation. She was aware that life as a new mom was very
different for her than it was for me. She recognized how fortunate she was and was
grateful for that. She wasn’t like the other new moms, complaining about sleepless
nights, complaining that their children kept waking to eat, that their baby wanted to
be held all the time (all the things I wished I had). Kim made us feel welcomed.
I knew then that life was going to be different than what I had planned. I tried to
keep a balance between “special” and “typical,” but it was getting more difficult as
the months went by.
We remained hopeful, and I continued to learn everything I could by talking to
other families all over the world via email and parent-directed Internet support
groups. I read all I could find about SLOS research.
Gina was nearing the end of early intervention, and she would be going to a spe-
cial preschool program in Queens, New York, not far from our home. I was no longer
going to be with her every second of every day. I needed to educate myself on the
next step—the Committee on Preschool Education. I tried to always be a step ahead
of Gina’s progress to be able to advocate to the fullest of my ability for her. It was
then that holding a BA in education and a MS in Early Childhood was not enough to
take on this challenge. I decided (with the help of family, friends, and Gina’s thera-
pists) to go back to Queens College and study Special Education. I needed to under-
stand special education law, to know her educational rights, and furthermore, what
school life was going to be like for Gina. How does a person who is nonambulatory,
nonverbal, and fed by tube get by in a classroom? Who will help her? How will I learn
about her day? Will she be safe? How will I really know? Can the school system really
help her? Would her teachers see her as a beautiful little girl? Would her teachers
know when she was uncomfortable, or when she wanted attention? Would they know
what made her happy? Would they know what is important for her to learn? Would
they know how to teach her?
Preschool
When it was time for Gina to end home services at the age of 3, and begin preschool,
we had decided on a special preschool—a BOCES program. (BOCES, the Boards of
Cooperative Educational Services, is a New York State program that provides educa-
tional programs and services to individuals with disabilities as a partnership with the
home school.) As I toured the school, asking to see all the preschool classrooms,
I was devastated. I could not place Gina in such an environment that lacked stimula-
tion, participation, and rich language opportunities! As the tour came to an end,
I stumbled upon an interaction between a teacher and student. The teacher had
stopped in the hallway to assist her student with a reading device (a device attached
to a storybook that provided auditory output). I was very impressed with the teach-
er’s loving way while helping this youngster (who was nonverbal, and hearing and
vision impaired). I immediately asked her name, and what grade she taught. I was
Introduction xxiii
surprised to learn that she, in fact, taught preschool (why hadn’t we visited her class-
room?). The social worker who was giving me the tour said, “Gina is not appropriate
for that class.” How could she possibly know this—she never met Gina; obviously she
was making this statement based on the packet that she received of Gina’s educa-
tional evaluations. Upon my request, we visited Ms. Kathy’s classroom. Two months
later, and after much needed advocacy, Gina was placed in Ms. Kathy’s class for the
next 3 years and flourished! By the end of the 3 years, the assistant principal said,
“Well Mrs. Mirabella, we took a chance and made a stretch by putting Gina in a ‘high
functioning class,’ but Gina did very well in spite of it all, and made great progress in
Ms. Kathy’s class.” I had hoped to change the mindset of the administration at the
school, but unfortunately did not. Likely the next family will have to go through the
same efforts and persistence, but only if they had the vision of reaching and
stretching!
K–12 Years
As Gina continued at this school for the next 10 years, little was done to promote
socialization, peer interaction, and communication through assistive technology. We
continued to listen to reports on “what Gina was not doing,” and how “she was not
meeting goals” (which were unrealistic most times), and no information was given on
how to modify and change programs to help Gina reach goals—goals that were func-
tional and meaningful to her.
Through endless meetings, my suggestions to the school, and rich video documen-
tation of Gina interacting with peers outside of school and at home with her family,
no real change occurred. At the age of 13 we found a program outside of our county
that focused on socialization, peer interaction, and communication. It was then that
we requested the school district consider new placement for Gina. Through many
meetings, advocacy by our family and the school district, the school board agreed to
the change. Starting over was not easy, but the new school was open to our sugges-
tions, input, and saw positives rather than negatives in Gina’s abilities.
In Gina’s new placement she began not only to participate in school programs,
but she also helped to develop new school programs. The antibullying Peer Buddy
program was designed with Gina’s needs in mind. When Gina was 15, I talked with
the school about the need to have Gina socialize more with peers who were verbal
and social. As Gina’s mom I understood that Gina had a desire to socialize, although
it was not as obvious to all the people working with her. I asked if they could have
her experience different classes during the day and target socialization skills, such as
eye contact and initiating peer interaction with the other children. Just like in her
other school, this school reluctantly agreed. To their surprise, although not my sur-
prise, the feedback was so remarkable that the school decided to pilot a program
under the antibullying club, the Peer Buddy program. The program has been run-
ning ever since, and the data show positive outcomes in socialization and peer inter-
actions. This is one of many programs that Gina both directly and indirectly has
helped to develop. All would agree that Gina is an important part of the school
community.
program(s) will Gina will be part of as an adult with a disability? Are there post–high
school opportunities for Gina? What are they? How will I advocate for these? Will
those educators be willing to take a chance and stretch their imaginations? How can
I learn about adult benefits and services, navigating the Medicaid system, and contin-
uing to support Gina’s medical and social needs? Through it all though, I continue to
be shaped by that smile she gives me each morning—that smile that got me through
the beginning of our journey—that smile that said a million words. “Go tell the world
about me, mom!”
From 2000 until now, I have spent my life loving Gina, and advocating for her—to
help her meaningfully participate in all that life has to offer—to all that life offers to
other children. My husband and I now have four children—Gina has two loving sis-
ters who are 13 and 8 years old, and a brother (from Alfred’s first marriage) who is
27 years old. Between my children, my husband, my mother, my in-laws, our sib-
lings, our nieces and nephews, our friends, and neighbors, Gina has a rich family
life. She is not a burden to her family, or society; she never has been, and never will
be! She is an active participant in her community and her participation is unique. She
attends a public school in Suffolk County, New York, where she is a member of her
class, the choir, Girl Scouts, the GEM club (a girls only club), and the antibullying
Peer Buddy program. Gina has a one-to-one assistant on the school bus, in the class-
room, and at home. She attends a variety of community-based programs—some are
designed for all children in the community, and some are focused on children with
disabilities. She is well known in our neighborhood, and she is greeted by our neigh-
bors as she rides her “tricycle” and uses her gait trainer up and down the streets of
our neighborhood.
Gina has also brought couples together! It was through Gina that Danielle and
John, and then Lisa and Dave met and were married in 2017. Danielle was one of
Gina’s personal assistants at our home for several years; she met Gina’s cousin at
family gatherings and a connection was made! And then there was Lisa
who attended camp with Gina one summer as her assistant, and Dave
Gina as a bridesmaid at John and
(Gina’s former counselor). Yet another connection! Gina has also helped
Danielle’s wedding May 2017
many in higher education decide what career to pursue. Through work-
ing with Gina, several first-year college students decided to pursue
nursing or education careers, and are very successful in their careers
today. They will often say, “It is because of Gina.” Actually, this is a
phrase we have gotten used to hearing. Whether it is because of a mar-
riage, career, or the successful job interview—“It is because of Gina.”
Gina has clearly made a difference in so many people’s lives. She is
admired by many, and the most significant part of it all, the most purest
part, is that she has no idea how much of an impact her life has on the
world. I am so proud to call her my daughter and I am so grateful for
the wonderful people I have met through this journey. I share my story
to help educate people to never give up no matter how trying some-
thing may be. Believe with your heart that YOU can make a difference!
I know this book is filled with so much information—from the philo-
sophical foundations of educating students with severe disabilities, to
trends and issues in the field, through the most recent research and evi-
dence-based strategies. There is a lot here—I know, as I too used this
book when I was in my MS in Special Education program. There is a lot
to learn, but please keep Gina and her mom, and her family, and all
those who love her, in your thoughts as you journey through this book.
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up. He thinks now the Creator put into my heart to do that—doesn’t
give himself a bit of credit for it!”
He laughed reminiscently.
“I don’t suppose he has seen six hundred pounds to spend since he
bought that pony! He has had a hard row to hoe all his life, and
never did an ounce of harm to any living thing, yet at the first turn of
good luck, he fairly oozes thankfulness to the Almighty. He is a
churchman clear through. He believes in revealed religion—though
no religion ever is revealed—and yet he doesn’t mistake theology for
Christianity. He positively doesn’t know the meaning of the word
cant. Ah—there goes another type!”
Gordon was looking at a square, mottle-faced man passing slowly on
the opposite side of the street, carrying a bundle of leaflets from
which now and then he drew to give to a passer-by. He was high-
browed, with eyes that projected like an insect’s and were flattish in
their orbits. He wore a ministerial cloak over his street costume.
“There’s Cassidy,” he said to himself. “Dr. James Cassidy, on shore
leave, distributing his little doctrinal tracts. I remember him well. He
is in the navy medical service, but it’s the grief of his life he can’t be
a parson. He talked enough pedantry over the ship’s table of the
Pylades, while I was coming home from Greece, to last me till the
resurrection. He is as ardent a predestinarian as any Calvinistic dean
in gaiters, and knows all the hackneyed catch-phrases of eternal
punishment. He has an itch for propaganda, and distributes his
tracts, printed at his own expense, on the street-corner for the glory
of theology. He is the sort of Christian who always writes damned
with a dash. And yet, I wonder how much real true Christianity he
has—Christianity like Dallas’, I mean. I remember that scar on his
cheek; it stands for a thrashing he got once at Bombay from a
deserting ensign named Trevanion—a youth I met in Greece
afterward, and had cause to remember, by the way!”
His eyes had darkened suddenly. His brows frowned, his firm white
hand ran over his curls as though to brush away a disagreeable
recollection.
“Cassidy would travel half around the globe to find the deserter that
thrashed him and land him in quod. That man would deserve it richly
enough, but would Cassidy’s act be for the good of the king’s
service? No—for the satisfaction of James Cassidy. Is that
Christianity? Dallas never treasured an enmity in his life. Yet both of
them believe the same doctrine, worship the same God, read the
same Bible. Does man make his beliefs? Or do his beliefs make
him? If his beliefs make man, why are Dallas and Cassidy so
different? If man makes his beliefs, why should I not make my own? I
will be an Anythingarian, and leave dreams to Emanuel
Swedenborg!”
His gaze, that had followed the clerical figure till it passed out of
sight, returned meditatively to the slaty white buildings opposite.
“Some people call me an atheist—I never could understand why,
though I prefer Confucius to the Ten Commandments and Socrates
to St. Paul,—the two latter happen to agree in their opinion of
marriage,—and I don’t think eating bread or drinking wine from the
hand of an earthly vicar will make me an inheritor of Heaven. Dallas
would tell me not to reason, but to believe. You might as well tell a
man not to wake but to sleep. Neither Cicero nor the Messiah could
ever have altered the vote of a single lord of the bed-chamber! And
then to bully with torments and all that! The menace of hell makes as
many devils as the penal code makes villains. All cant—
Methodistical cant—yet Dallas believes it. And both he and Cassidy
belong to the same one of the seventy-two sects that are tearing
each other to pieces for the love of the Lord and hatred of each other
—the sects that call men atheists because the eternal why will creep
into what they write. If it pleases the Church—I except Dallas—to
damn me for asking questions, I shall be only one with some millions
of scoundrels who, after all, seem as likely to be damned as ever. As
for immortality, if people are to live, why die? And our carcases, are
they worth raising? I hope, if mine is, I shall have a better pair of legs
than I have moved on these three-and-twenty years, or I shall be
sadly behind in the squeeze into Paradise!”
There was a knock at the door. He rose and opened it. It was
Hobhouse. Gordon caught up his hat and they left the hotel together.
As they crossed Park Place a woman, draggled and gin-besotted,
strayed from some Thames-side stews, sat on the worn stone base
of the fountain, leaning uncertainly against its bronze rim. Her
swollen lids hid her eyes and one hand, palm up, was thrown out
across her lap. Gordon drew a shilling from his pocket, and passing
his arm in Hobhouse’s, laid it in the outstretched hand. At the touch
of the coin, the drab started up, looked at him stupidly an instant,
then with a ribald yell of laughter she flung the shilling into the water
and shambled across the square, mimicking, in a hideous sort of
buffoonery, the lameness of his gait.
Gordon’s face turned ashen. He walked on without a word, but his
companion could feel his hand tremble against his sleeve. When he
spoke, it was in a voice half-smothered, forbidding.
“The old jeer!” he said. “The very riffraff of the street fling it at me! Yet
I don’t know why they should spare that taunt; even my mother did
not. ‘Lame brat!’ she called me once when I was a child.” He
laughed, jarringly, harshly. “Why, only a few days before I sailed from
England, in one of her fits of passion, she flung it at me. ‘May you be
as ill-formed in mind as you are in body!’ Could they wish me worse
than she?”
“Gordon!” expostulated the other. “Don’t!—”
He had no time to finish. A grizzled man in the dress of an upper
servant was approaching them, his rubicund face bearing an
unmistakable look of haste and concern.
“Well, Fletcher?” inquired Gordon.
“I thought your lordship had gone out earlier. I have been inquiring
for you at the clubs. This message has just come from Newstead.”
His master took the letter and read it. A strange, slow, remorseful
look overspread the passion on his face.
“No ill news, I hope,” ventured Hobhouse.
Gordon made no reply. He crushed the letter into his pocket, turned
abruptly and strode up St. James Street.
“His lordship’s mother died yesterday, Mr. Hobhouse,” said the valet
in a low voice.
“Good God!” exclaimed the other. “What a contretemps.”
Gordon was alone in the vehicle, for Fletcher rode outside. He set
his face to the fogged pane, catching the panorama of dark hedges,
gouged gravelly runnels and stretches of murky black, with
occasional instantaneous sense of detail—dripping bank, sodden
rhododendron and mildewed masonry—vivid in a dull, yellow,
soundless flare of July lightning. A gauze of unbroken grayness, a
straggling light—the lodge. A battlemented wall plunging out of the
darkness—and Gordon saw the Abbey, its tiers of ivied cloisters
uninhabited since Henry the Eighth battered the old pile to ruin, its
gaunt and unsightly forts built for some occupant’s whim, and the
wavering, fog-wreathed lake reflecting lighted windows. This was
Newstead in which the bearers of his title had lived and died, the
gloomy seat of an ancient house stained by murder and insanity, of
which he was the sole representative.
What was he thinking as he sat in the gloomy dining-room, with
Rushton, the footman he had trained to his own service, standing
behind his chair? Of his mother first of all. He had never, even as a
child, distinguished a sign of real tenderness in her moments of
tempestuous caresses. His maturer years had grown to regard her
with a half-scornful, half good-humored tolerance. He had shrugged
at her tempers, dubbing her “The Honorable Kitty” or his “Amiable
Alecto.” His letters to her had shown only a nice sense of filial duty:
many of them began with “Dear Madam”; more had been signed
simply with his name. Yet now he felt an aching hope that in her
seclusion she had not seen the unkindest of the stories of him. His
half-sister—now on her way from the north of England—absorbed
with her family cares, would have missed the brunt of the attacks; his
mother had been within their range. He recalled with a pang that she
had treasured with a degree of pride a single review of his earliest
book which had not joined in the sneering chorus.
He pushed back his chair, dismissed the footman, and alone passed
to the hall and ascended the stair. At the turn of the balustrade a
shaded lamp drowsed like a monster glow-worm. In his own room a
low fire burned, winking redly from the coronetted bed-posts, and a
lighted candle stood on the dressing-table. He looked around the
familiar apartment a moment uncertainly, then crossed to a carved
cabinet above a writing-desk and took therefrom a bottle of claret.
The cabinet had belonged to his father, dead many years before.
Gordon thought of him as he stood with the bottle in his hand, staring
fixedly at the dull, carved ebony of the swinging door.
His father! “Mad Jack Gordon” the world had called him when he ran
away with the Marchioness of Carmathen to break her heart!
Handsome he had been still when he married for her money the
heiress of Gight, Gordon’s mother. A stinging memory recalled the
only glimpse he had ever had of that father—a tall man in uniform on
an Aberdeen street, looking critically at a child with a lame leg.
Gordon winced painfully. He felt with a sharper agony the sensitive
pang of the cripple, the shame of misshapenness that all his life had
clung like an old-man-of-the-sea. It had not only stung his childhood;
it had stolen from him the romance of his youth—the one gleam that
six years ago had died.
Six years! For a moment time fell away like rotten shale from about a
crystal. The room, the wine-cabinet, faded into a dim background,
and on this, as if on a theater curtain, dissolving pictures painted
themselves flame-like.
He was back in his Harrow days now, at home for his last vacation.
“George,” his mother had remarked one day, looking up from a letter
she was reading, “I’ve some news for you. Take out your
handkerchief, for you will need it.”
“Nonsense! What is it?”
“Mary Chaworth is married.”
“Is that all?” he had replied coldly; but an expression, peculiar,
impossible to describe, had passed over his face. He had never
afterward seen her or spoken her name.
“Mary!” he murmured, and his hand set down the bottle on the table.
Love—such love as his verses told of—he had come to consider
purely subjective, a mirage, a simulacrum to which actual life
possessed no counterpart. Yet at that moment he was feeling the
wraith of an old thrill, his nostrils smelling a perfume like a dead
pansy’s ghost.
He withdrew his hand from the bottle and his fingers clenched. How
it hurt him—the sudden stab! For memory had played him a trick; it
had dragged a voice out of the past. It was her voice—her words that
she had uttered in a careless sentence meant for other ears, one
that through those years had tumbled and reëchoed in some under
sea-cavern of his mind—“Do you think I could ever care for that lame
boy?”
He smiled grimly. She had been right. Nature had set him apart,
made him a loup-garou, a solitary hob-goblin. He had been
unclubbable, sauvage, even at Cambridge. And yet he had had real
friendships there; one especially.
Gordon’s free hand fumbled for his fob and his fingers closed on a
little cornelian heart. It had been a keepsake from his college
classmate, Matthews, drowned in the muddy waters of the Cam.
He released the bottle hurriedly, strode to the window and flung it
open. A gust of rain struck his face and spluttered in the candle, and
the curtain flapped like the wing of some ungainly bird. Out in the
dark, beneath a clump of larches, glimmered whitely the monument
he had erected to “Boatswain,” his Newfoundland. The animal had
gone mad.
“Some curse hangs over me and mine!” he muttered. “I never could
keep alive even a dog that I liked or that liked me!”
A combined rattle and crash behind him made him turn. The wind
had blown shut the door of the cabinet with a smart bang, and a
yellow object, large and round, had toppled from its shelf, fallen and
rolled to his very feet.
He started back, his nerves for the instant shaken. It was a skull,
mottled like polished tortoise-shell, mounted in dull silver as a
drinking-cup. He had unearthed the relic years before with a heap of
stone coffins amid the rubbish of the Abbey’s ruined priory—grim
reminder of some old friar—and its mounting had been his own
fancy. He had forgotten its very existence.
Now, as it lay supine, yet intrusive, the symbol at one time of
lastingness and decay, it filled him with a painful fascination.
Picking it up, he set it upright on the desk, seized the bottle, knocked
off its top against the marble mantel and poured the fantastic goblet
full.
“Death and life!” he mused. “One feeds the other, each in its turn.
Life! yet it should not be too long; I have no conception of any
existence which duration would not render tiresome. How else fell
the angels? They were immortal, heavenly and happy. It is the
lastingness of life that is terrible; I see no horror in a dreamless
sleep.”
He put out his hand to the goblet, but withdrew it.
“No—wait!” he said, and seating himself at the desk, he seized a
pen. The lines he wrote, rapidly and with scarcely an alteration, were
to live for many a long year—index fingers pointing back to that dark
mood that consumed him then:
He repeated the last stanza aloud and raised the goblet in both
hands.
“Rhyming and revelling—what else counts? To drink the wine of
youth to the dregs and then—good night! Is there anything beyond?
Who knows? He who cannot tell! Who tells us there is? He who does
not know!”
Did the dead know?
He set the wine down, pushing it from him, sprang up, seized the
candle and entered the room on the other side of the corridor. The
bed-curtains were drawn close and a Bible lay open on the night-
stand. He wondered with a kind of impersonal pity if the book had
held comfort for her at the last.
He held the candle higher so its rays lighted the page: But the Lord
shall give thee there a trembling heart, and failing of eyes, and
sorrow of mind.... In the morning thou shall say, Would God it were
even! and at even thou shalt say, Would God it were morning!
It stared at him plainly in black letters, an age-old agony of
wretchedness. Had this been the keynote of her lonely, fitful,
vehement life? Had years of misery robbed her—as it had robbed
him, too? A distressed doubt, like a dire finger of apprehension,
touched him; he put out his hand and drew aside the curtains.
Looking, he shuddered. Death had lent her its mystery, its
ineffaceable dignity. He recognized it with a new and inexplicable
feeling, like rising from the grave. Back of the placid look, in
abeyance, in the stirlessness of the unringed hands—she had lost
her wedding-ring years ago—some quality, strange, unintimate, lay
confronting him. He remembered his words to Hobhouse in the
street—words that had not been cold on his lips when he read
Fletcher’s message. Ever since, they had lain rankling like a raw
burn in some crevice of his brain. “Lame brat!” And yet, beneath her
frantic rages, under the surface he had habitually disregarded, what
if in her own way she had really loved him!
A clutching pain took possession of him, a sense of physical
sickness and anguish. He dropped the curtain, and stumbled from
the room, down the long stair, calling for the footman.
“Rushton,” he shouted, “get the muffles! Let us have a bout like the
old times.” He threw off his coat, pushed the chairs aside and bared
his arms. “The gloves, Rushton, and be quick about it!”
The footman hesitated, a half-scared expression in his look.
“Never fear,” said Gordon, and laughed—a tightening laugh that
strained the cords of his throat. “Put them on! That’s right! What are
you staring at? Do you think she will hear you? Not she! Put up your
hands—so! Touched, by the Lord! Not up to your old style, Rushton!
You never used to spar so villainously. You will disgrace the fancy.
Ah-h!” And he knocked him sprawling.
Rushton scrambled to his feet as the housekeeper entered, dismay
upon her mask-like relic of a face. Gordon was very white and both
noticed that his eyes were full of tears.
Long after midnight, when the place was quiet, the housekeeper
heard an unaccustomed sound issuing from the chamber where the
dead woman lay. She took a light and entered. The candle had
burned out, and she saw Gordon sitting in the dark beside the bed.
He spoke in a broken voice:
“Oh, Mrs. Muhl,” he said, “she was my mother! After all, one can
have but one in this world, and I have only just found it out!”
CHAPTER VII
THE YOUTH IN FLEET PRISON
Behind the closed shutters of the book-shop which bore the sign of
“The Juvenile Library,” in the musty room where George Gordon had
burned the errant copies of his ubiquitous Satire, old William Godwin
sat reading by a guttering candle, Livy’s Roman History in the
original. It was his favorite book, and in the early evenings, when not
writing his crabbed column for the Courier, or caustic diatribes for the
reviews, he was apt to be reading it. A sound in the living-room
above drew his eyes from the black-letter page.
“Jane!” he called morosely—“Jane Clermont!”
A lagging step came down the stair, and a girl entered, black-eyed,
creole in effect. Her cheeks held the flame of the wild-cherry leaf.
“Where is your sister?”
“I have no sister.”
The old man struck the table with his open hand. “Where is Mary, I
say?”
“At the door.”
“Go and see what she is doing.”
The girl stood still, regarding her stepfather with a look that under its
beauty had a sullen half-contempt.
“Why don’t you do as I tell you?”
“I’m not going to be a spy for you, even if you did marry my mother.
I’m tired of it.”
The anger on the old man’s face harshened. “If you were my own
flesh and blood,” he said sternly, “I would flog that French impudence
of yours to death. As long as you eat my bread, you will obey me.”
She looked at him with covert mockery on her full lips.
“I’m not a child any longer,” she said as she turned flauntingly away;
“I could earn my bread easier than by dusting tumble-down book-
shelves. Do you think I don’t know that?”
To William Godwin this defiant untutored girl had been a thorn in the
side—a perpetual slur and affront to the irksome discipline he laid
upon his own pliant Mary, the child of that first wife whose loss had
warped his manhood. Now he saw her as a live danger, a flagrant
menace whose wildness would infect his own daughter. It was this
red-lipped vixen who was teaching her the spirit of disobedience!
He raised his voice and called sharply: “Mary!”
There was no answer, and he shuffled down the shabby hall to the
street door. The old man glowered at the slender, beardless figure of
the youth who stood with her—the brown, long coat with curling
lamb’s-wool collar and cuffs, its pockets bulging with mysterious
books. In a senile rage, he ordered his daughter indoors.
Passers-by stopped to stare at the object of his rancor, standing
uncertainly in the semi-dusk, a brighter apparition, with luminous
eyes and extravagant locks. Words came thickly to the old man; he
launched into invective, splenetic and intemperate, at which the
listeners tittered.
As it chanced, a pedestrian heard the name he mouthed—a man
sharp-featured and ill dressed. With a low whistle he drew a soiled
slip of paper from his pocket and consulted it by a street lamp, his
grimy forefinger running down the list of names it contained.
“I thought so. I’ve a knack for names,” he muttered, and shouldered
through the bystanders.
“Not so fast, young master,” he said, laying his hand on the youth’s
arm; “t’other’s the way to the Fleet.”
The other drew back with a gesture of disgust. “The Fleet!” he
echoed.
“Aye,” said the bailiff, winking to the crowd; “the pretty jug for folk as
spend more than they find in pocket; with a nice grating to see your
friends so genteel like.”
Breaking from her father’s hand, the girl in the doorway ran out with
fear in her blue eyes.
“Oh, where are you taking him?” she cried.
The fellow smirked. “I’m just going to show his honor to a hotel I
know, till he has time to see his pal Dellevelly of Golden Square to
borrow a tidy eighteen pound ten, which a bookseller not so far off
will be precious glad to get.”
“Eighteen pounds!” gasped the youth, with a hysteric laugh.
“Debtors’ prison for only eighteen pounds! But I have the books still
—he can have them back.”
“After you’ve done with ’em, eh?” said the bailiff. “Oh, I know your
young gentlemen’s ways. Come along.”
“Father!” cried the girl, indignantly, as the bailiff dropped a heavy
grasp on the lamb’s-wool collar. “You’ll not let them take Shelley.
You’ll wait for the money, father.”
“Go into the house!” thundered the old man. “He’s a good-for-nothing
vagabond, I tell you!” He thrust her back, and the slammed door shut
between her and the youth standing in the bailiff’s clutch, half-
wonderingly and disdainfully, like a bright-eyed, restless fox amid
sour grapes.
“Go to your room!” commanded her father, and the girl slowly
obeyed, dashing away her tears, while the old bookseller went back
to the cluttered shop and his reading of Livy’s Roman History.
John Murray, anax of publishers, sat that evening in his shop in Fleet
Street. He was in excellent humor, having dined both wisely and
well. His hair was sparse above a smooth-shaven, oval face, in
which lurked good-humor and the wit which brought to his drawing-
room the most brilliant men of literary London, as his genius as a
publisher had given him the patronage of the greatest peers of the
kingdom, and even of the prince regent. His black coat was of the
plainest broadcloth and his neck-cloth of the finest linen. Dallas sat
opposite, his scholarly face keen and animated. The frayed
waistcoat was no longer in evidence, and the worn hat had given
place to a new broad brim.
“Yes,” said the man of books, “we shall formally publish to-morrow. I
wrote his lordship, asking him to come up to town, to urge him to
eliminate several of the stanzas in case we reprint soon. They will
only make him more enemies. He has enough now,” he added
ruefully.
“You still think as well of it?”
The publisher pushed back his glasses with enthusiasm. “It is
splendid—unique.” He pulled out a desk-drawer and took therefrom
a printed volume, poising it proudly, as a father dandles his first-born,
and, turning its pages, with lifted forefinger and rolling voice read: