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Title: Following darkness
Author: Forrest Reid
Release date: March 20, 2025 [eBook #75675]
Language: English
Original publication: London: Edward Arnold, 1912
Credits: Produced by Donald Cummings and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.)
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FOLLOWING DARKNESS ***
FOLLOWING
DARKNESS
BY
FORREST REID
AUTHOR OF “THE BRACKNELS,” ETC.
“Lost, lost, for ever lost,
In the wide pathless desert of dim sleep,
That beautiful shape!”
SHELLEY.
LONDON
EDWARD ARNOLD
1912
[_All Rights Reserved_]
TO E. M. F.
FOLLOWING DARKNESS
It is not without some hesitation that I offer to the public the
following fragment of an autobiography, even though in doing so I am
but obeying the obvious intention of its author. When the papers of
Mr. Peter Waring came into my possession I had indeed no idea of its
existence, and I have now no means of telling when it was written.
The fact that he left it unfinished proves nothing. He may have begun
it and abandoned it years ago: he may have been working at it shortly
before his death. That he intended to carry it to completion, there is,
I think, abundant evidence in a mass of detached notes and impressions
bearing on a later period of his life. These, rightly or wrongly, I
have not printed, partly because the earlier portion has in itself a
certain unity and completeness, which would be marred were I to add
anything to it, and partly because they never received his personal
revision. Moreover, many of them are in the highest degree fantastic
and exotic, so that it is at times difficult to take them literally,
especially if the simplicity and directness of the earlier pages be
borne in mind.
Those who are familiar with Mr. Waring’s writings published during his
lifetime――writings in which the personal element is so slight――will
hardly be prepared for anything so intimate as this journal. His
critical methods were entirely scientific. Of their value I am not the
proper person to speak, having neither the necessary knowledge, nor,
to tell the whole truth, the necessary sympathy. Our paths, if they
seemed to run parallel for a moment, diverged very early in life, and
I could never take much interest in the work to which he devoted his
real, though, I venture to think, somewhat narrow gifts. He was still a
young man――barely thirty-six――when he died, but he had already become
eminent in his own particular line, that of the newer art criticism,
invented, I believe, by the Italian, Morelli. It was scarcely a career
to bring him much under the public eye, but his “Study of the Drawings
of the Early Italian Masters” gained him, I understand, the recognition
of a small number of persons, of various nationalities, occupied in
making similar researches. He was busy with the proofs of the second
and larger edition of this work when, on the 10th of September, 1911,
he died under tragic circumstances. The mystery of his death, about
which there was some noise in the papers at the time, will, I think,
never now be cleared up, though, to my own mind, it is perfectly clear
that he was murdered.
* * * * *
In relation to the autobiography, a word or two of comment and
explanation is possibly due to the reader. To begin with, I have
altered all the proper names save two――my own, and that of Mrs.
Carroll, of Derryaghy, Newcastle, County Down, his oldest friend, which
I have allowed to remain. I feel this, myself, to be unsatisfactory,
but I cannot see how at present it is to be avoided. Again, though I
have added nothing, I have left out a few pages――only a few――and none,
I believe, of importance, so far as the understanding of the whole is
concerned. For this I have no excuse to offer, except that it seemed to
me that he himself should have omitted them.
In the main the portrait he has given of himself coincides with my
own impression of him in early life. I can remember very well when
I first came to know him at school. I was more struck by his gifts
then, perhaps, than I was later, though even at that time he seemed to
me to be intensely one-sided. He was very intelligent, but from the
beginning his whole manner of looking upon life was, in my opinion,
unfortunate. It may sound harsh to say so, but as the years passed I
do not think he improved. Latterly, he appeared to me to have little
but his fine taste. It was as if everything had become subservient to
an æsthetic sense, which was extraordinarily, morbidly acute. Yet even
while I write this I have a suspicion that I am not doing him justice.
If he had been nothing but what I say he was, I should not be able to
look back with tenderness upon the friendship of those early days,
whereas the recollection of that friendship will always remain one
of the pleasantest memories of my life. I regret that it should have
been broken, but that was almost inevitable. It came about slowly and
naturally, though no doubt the actual break was hastened by a mutual
friend of ours, who informed me that Waring had described me as borné
and tedious. That is the kind of thing which rankles. You may say to
yourself it is of no consequence, but to have an uneasy feeling that
your friend finds your company dull quickly becomes unendurable. A man
would rather be thought almost anything than a bore; hence it was that
for a long time I entirely ceased to see him. I regret it now, for he
may never have made the fatal remark, and even if he did, judging from
his journal, it need not have been inconsistent with affection.
The last time I saw him was at Mrs. Carroll’s house, about a year
before his death. She had asked me down, I suppose by Waring’s request,
and I went, though I stayed only one night. I had not seen him for
years until this occasion, and I was struck, and even shocked, by his
altered appearance, and still more by his manner, which was that,
I imagined, of a man haunted by some secret thought that has come
between him and everything about him. This impression, though I do
not desire to lay stress upon it, may throw a light on certain of the
later notes I have not printed, and these, in turn, may afford some
clue as to the mystery surrounding his death, for it is evident that
he had come under the influence of strange and disreputable persons,
who professed to experiment in occult sciences――spiritualism, and
even magic. His hair had turned quite white at the temples. He seemed
restless and dissatisfied; and, whatever else he may have found in his
long wanderings, I could not believe he had found peace.
Late in the evening we sat together. He was so silent that I looked at
him to see if he had fallen asleep. The room we were sitting in――the
morning-room――gave on to a garden at the side of the house, into which
one could easily pass through tall French windows. The night was warm,
and one of these windows stood wide open, letting in the scent of
flowers, but with a curtain drawn across it to keep out moths and other
winged creatures attracted by lamplight. I did not speak, but waited
for him to talk or to keep silent as he chose. After a while I got up
to examine a few black-framed etchings that hung upon the walls. These,
with some pieces of china, formed the only decorations. I drew back
the curtain and looked out into the night. The moon was high above
the trees, and I could hear the low sound of waves breaking on the
shore. When I turned round he was watching me, and I was struck by his
expression, which was that of a man on the point of making some very
private communication. But perhaps my sudden movement disconcerted him,
for he said nothing, and in a little I could see the impulse had left
him. I began to talk, not of my own work, which I thought would have no
interest for him, but of his, which I was surprised to find he seemed
to regard as equally unimportant. I asked him what had first led him to
take it up.
“There was nothing else,” he answered.
Seeing that I waited for him to go on, he made an effort to shake off
his abstraction. “If I hadn’t found it I should have bored myself to
death. What is there for a boy of eighteen, with no taste for society,
and left to wander about Europe alone, to do? Fortunately, I had always
cared for pictures, and early Italian art appealed to me particularly.”
“Of course, you had your writing.”
“I never wrote a line except to take notes. I was nearly thirty before
it occurred to me to publish anything. Even then, it was only for a
few pedants more or less like myself that I wrote. My writings are of
no account. The only people I can imagine it pleasant to write for
are quite young people. They might lend your work a sort of charm by
reading their own youth and enthusiasm into it. But it is not easy to
arouse enthusiasm by describing how Bernardino de’ Conti paints ears,
or how Pontormo models hands. For one thing, nobody wants to know. All
that it leads to is that presently you find yourself approaching the
most innocent work of art with the mind of a detective, revelling in
clues and the æsthetically unimportant. Nine-tenths of your enjoyment
comes from the gratified sense of your own ingenuity. Of course it is
wrong. When I was a boy I fell in love with one of Giotto’s frescoes
in the Upper Church at Assisi, a thing half-peeled from the wall, and
representing Saint Francis preaching to the birds. But why I liked it
had nothing in the world to do either with Giotto or Saint Francis. I
simply saw a bit of decoration, a Japanese print in gray and blue....
That is the proper spirit. One day, however, a year or so later, I
was in the Louvre, in the Salle des Primitifs, and before me was a
beautiful little picture which hangs on the side wall, near the door.
Below it was printed an artist’s name, Gentile da Fabriano. I looked
at the picture again, and I said to myself, ‘Why Gentile, when it is
obviously by Jacopo Bellini?’ That was the beginning.”
“You don’t think, then, it matters very much?”
“About Gentile? Not in the least. I haven’t even persuaded them to make
the alteration in the catalogue.”
But I could see he was talking merely not to be silent, so I got up and
we lit our candles. At the top of the staircase I said good-night, for
our bedrooms were on opposite sides of the house, but he pushed open a
door. “There is a picture here,” he said.
I followed him into the big, dark room, black shadows that seemed
almost solid gliding away before us. He took my candle and held both
up so that their light flickered across a small canvas that hung
just above the level of our eyes. The painting represented the head
of a quite young girl, and I recognised it at once as a portrait of
Katherine Dale. I am no judge of pictures, so I will only say that this
picture gave me pleasure. Yet I should have hesitated to call the face
beautiful, and it certainly was not pretty. It reminded me rather of
an early Millais――that is to say, the subject reminded me of a Millais
type. There was the same breadth of forehead, the same rich colouring
and steadfast, serious eyes that were more like the eyes of a boy than
of a girl. I wondered why he had brought me in to look at it just now,
and thought it had perhaps been painted by a celebrated artist.
“Whose is it?” I asked, and was greatly surprised when he told me he
had done it himself, from memory. I had never seen any of his work
before, and I congratulated him on his success, which seemed to me
to be really a genuine one. I asked another question, but he did not
reply. He merely returned me my candle, which I held up for another
look. The small, wavering, uncertain flame lent a curious air of life
to the portrait, and I continued to regard it, for the frankness and
simplicity of the young face gave me great pleasure. When I glanced
round I discovered I was alone. My companion had disappeared without
my noticing it, and evidently he had gone out, not by the way we had
entered, but by another door at the farther end of the room. That
this was the case I had more positive proof next moment, for a sudden
draught extinguished my candle so swiftly and unexpectedly that I had
an odd feeling that somebody had stolen up behind me and blown it out.
OWEN GILL.
CHAPTER I
What is there in this house, in these surroundings, so utterly
different from those I was born amongst, that revives a swarm of
memories of my childhood and youth? My notes are piled up on the table
before me, they have been there for several days, and I have not
touched them, though I came here to work. A warm Italian sun floods
the stiff and formal garden stretching from my window, with its pale
paved walks, its fountain, and dark cypress-trees; but when I shut my
eyes, it is quite another garden that I see, and now, when I have at
last taken up my pen to write, it is not to fulfil the task I had set
myself, but to chatter idly of a boyhood passed under other skies,
grayer, softer, and colder. The odd fact is that ever since my arrival
here, in spite of my being upon “classic soil,” in a district rich
in historical suggestion, and full, too, of the colour and odour of
the south, I have been communing daily, hourly almost, with my own
youth. I should like to set down simply what that youth was, without
embroidery, without suppression, though, on the other hand, a mere bald
enumeration of the outward facts will be little to my purpose. The
facts in themselves are nothing. Unless I can recapture the spirit that
hovered behind them, my task will have been fruitless, and even though
in my effort to do so I shall probably accentuate it, alter it, clip
its wings and make it heavy, yet that must be my aim if I am to write
at all. I have little eloquence, and perhaps no power of evocation, but
the whole great, soft, time-toned picture is before me at this moment,
and I cannot resist the temptation to linger over it. If I linger over
it pen in hand, what matter?
* * * * *
In the foreground there must be the portrait of a boy, but painted in
the manner of Rembrandt rather than Bronzino. By this I mean there will
be less of firm, clear outline, than of light and shadow. The danger is
that in the end there may be too much shadow; but at least I shall not,
in the manner of a writer of fiction, have sacrificed my subject for
the sake of gaining an additional brightness and vivacity. The spirit
of youth is not merely bright and vivacious; above all, it is not
merely thoughtless and noisy. It is melancholy, dreamy, passionate; it
is admirable, and it is base; it is full of curiosity; it is healthy,
and it is morbid; it is animal, and it is spiritual; sensual, yet
filled with vague half-realised yearnings after an ideal――that is to
say, it is the spirit of life itself, which can never be adequately
indicated by the description of a fight or of a football match.
CHAPTER II
Of my earliest childhood I can form no consecutive picture; I shall
therefore pass over it quickly. Certain incidents stand out with
extraordinary vividness, but the chain uniting them is wanting, and
it is even impossible for me to be quite sure as to the order in
which they occurred. Some are so trivial that I do not know why I
should remember them; others, at the time, doubtless, more important,
have now lost their significance; and countless others, again, I
must have completely forgotten. But it occurs to me, on looking back
deliberately, that I have changed very little from what I was in those
first years. I have developed, but what I was then I am now, what I
cared for then I care for now. In other words, like everybody else,
I came into this world a mere bundle of inherited instincts, for the
activity of which I was no more responsible than for the falling of
last night’s rain.
Of the dawning of consciousness I have no recollection whatever. Back
farther than anything else there reach two impressions――one, of being
set to dance naked on a table, amid the laughter of women, and the
rhythmic clapping of their hands; the other, probably later in date,
of what must have been a house-cleaning, stamped on my mind by an
inexplicable fear of those flakey collections of dust which gather
under furniture that has not been moved for a long time. By then I had
certainly learned to talk, for those flakes of dust I called “quacks.”
I do not know where the name came from, nor why I should have disliked
“quacks,” but they affected me with a strange dread, and here was a
whole army of them where I had never seen but one or two. Some stupid
person running after me with a broom pretended to sweep them over me,
and I started bawling at the top of my voice. Then, for consolation,
I was lifted up to bury my nose in a bowl of violets, and the colour
and sweetness of the flowers took away my trouble. Probably it was
later than this that I first became aware of a peculiar sensibility to
dress――not to underclothing, but to my outer garments. To be dressed in
a new suit of clothes gave me a curious physical pleasure――a feeling
purely sensual, and that must, I imagine, have been connected with the
dawn of obscure sex instincts. Such things can be of little interest
save to the student of psychology, and it would be tedious to catalogue
them in full, but I have no doubt myself that if they, and others,
had been intelligently observed, the whole of my future could have
been cast from them. To me, I confess, they throw a disquieting light
upon all human affairs, reviving that sombre figure of destiny which
overshadowed the antique world.
Another and happier instinct which I brought with me from the unknown
was an intense sympathy with animals. There was not a cat or dog or
goat or donkey in the village that I had not struck up a friendship
with. I even carried this sympathy so far as to insist on feeding daily
the ridiculous stone lions which flanked the doorsteps at Derryaghy
House. I don’t think I ever actually believed that their morning meal
of stale bread gave much pleasure to these patient beasts, and I had
with my own eyes seen sparrows and thrushes――who very soon came to look
out for me――snatch it from them before my back was turned; still, I
persevered, stroking their smooth backs, kissing their cold muzzles,
just as I lavished depths of affection on a stuffed, dilapidated,
velvet elephant who for many years was my nightly bed-fellow.
My only impressions of my mother go back to those days or, possibly,
earlier――a voice singing gay songs to the piano, while I dropped
asleep in my bed upstairs――and then, again, somebody lifting me out of
this bed to kiss me, the close contact of a face wet with tears, the
pressure of arms that held me clasped tightly, that even hurt a little.
That is all. I cannot remember how she looked, or anything else. On the
evening when she said good-bye to me and left our house, I knew she was
crying, but, though it called up in me a sort of solemn wonder, I did
not understand it, and went to sleep almost as soon as she put me back
into my bed. It was not till next day that my own tears came, with the
first real sorrow I had known.
* * * * *
There follows now a sort of blank in my recollections, which continues
on to my ninth or tenth year. I do not know why this period should
have been so unproductive of lasting impressions. It is like a
tranquil water over which I bend in the hope of seeing some face or
vision ripple to the surface, but my hope is disappointed. Nothing
emerges――not even a memory of any of those ailments, measles and what
not, from which, in common with other children, I suppose I must have
suffered. Nor can I recollect learning to read. I can remember quite
well when I couldn’t read, for I have a very distinct recollection of
lying on my stomach, on the parlour floor, a book open in front of
me, along whose printed, meaningless lines I drew my finger, turning
page after page till the last was reached, though what solemn pleasure
I could have got from so dull a game――surely the most tedious ever
invented――I now utterly fail to comprehend.
I was always very fond of being read to, except when the story had
a moral, or was about pious children, when I hated it. The last of
these moral tales I listened to was called “Cassy.” I particularly
disliked it, but I can remember now only one scene, where Cassy comes
into an empty house at night, and discovers a corpse there. This had an
effect on my mind which for several days made me extremely reluctant
to go upstairs by myself after dark. “Jessica’s First Prayer,”
“Vinegar Hill,” “The Golden Ladder”――how I loathed them all! Every
Sunday, after dinner, my father would take some such volume from the
shelf, open it, and put on his spectacles. Holding the book at a long
distance from his eyes, he would read aloud in a monotonous, unanimated
voice, while I sat on a high-backed chair and listened, for I was
not allowed to play the most innocent game, nor even to go out for a
walk. These miserable tales were full of the conversions of priggish
children; of harrowing scenes in public-houses or squalid city dens.
Some of them were written to illustrate the Ten Commandments; others
to illustrate the petitions in the Lord’s Prayer. They contained not
the faintest glimmer of imagination or life: from cover to cover they
were ugly, dull, unintelligent, full of death, poverty and calamity.
On the afternoon when “Cassy’s” successor was produced――I forget its
name――in a state of exasperation, brought about by mingled boredom and
depression, I snatched the book out of my father’s hands and flung it
on the fire. I was whipped and sent to bed, but anything was better
than “Vinegar Hill,” and next Sunday, also, I refused to listen. Again,
with tingling buttocks, I was banished to the upper regions, but really
I had triumphed, for when the fateful day came round once more, the
book-case was not opened, and I had never again to listen to one of
those sanctimonious tales.
Fairy stories and animal stories were what I liked best, while some of
the old nursery rhymes and jingles had a fascination for me.
“How many miles to Babylon?
Three score and ten.
Can I get there by candlelight?――
Yes, and back again.”
Was it some magical suggestion in the word “candlelight” that
invariably evoked in a small child’s mind a definite picture of an old
fantastic town of towers and turrets, lit by waving candles, and with
windows all ablaze in dark old houses? Many of these rhymes had this
quality of picture making:
“Hey, diddle diddle,
The cat and the fiddle,
The cow jumped over the moon:
The little dog laughed
To see such sport
When the dish ran away with the spoon.”
That, I suppose, is pure nonsense, yet the magic was there. Before and
after the cow made her amazing leap the stuff was a mere jingle: it
was the word “Moon” that brought up the picture: and I saw the white,
docile beast, suddenly transformed, pricked by the sting of midsummer
madness, with lowered head and curling horns, poised for flight, for
the wonderful upward leap, while a monstrous, glowing moon hung like a
great scarlet Chinese lantern in the clouds, low against a black night.
At this time I had few books I cared for, but as I grew older, and my
powers of understanding increased, I found more, for up at Derryaghy
House was a whole library in which I might rummage without any other
interference than that my father could exercise from a distance.
Sometimes when I brought a book home which he did not approve of, he
would send me back with it; but if I had begun it I always finished it.
I had made this a rule; though, on the other hand, if I had not begun
it, I let my father have his way.
Everything connected with the East had a deep attraction for me――or,
shall I say, what I imagined the East to be――a country of magicians and
mysterious talismans, of crouching Sphinxes and wonderful gardens. I
delighted in the more marvellous stories in the “Arabian Nights,” and
I regretted infinitely that life was really not like that. To go for a
walk and fall straightway on some wonderful adventure, that was what I
should have loved. I remember poring over a big folio of photographs of
Eastern monuments. Those mystical, winged beasts with human heads, in
their attitude of eternal waiting and listening, touched some chord in
my imagination: they had that strangeness which I adored, and at the
same time they had an odd familiarity. I appeared to remember――but, oh,
so dimly!――having seen them before, not in pictures, but under a hot,
heavy, languid sun, long, long ago. The luxuriousness, the softness and
sleepy charm of the Asiatic temper――I had something in common with it,
I could understand it. The melodious singing of a voice through the
cool twilight; the notes of a lute dying slowly into silence; another
voice, low and clear and musical, reading from the “Koran”――where
had I heard all that? I pictured great coloured bazaars, where grave
merchants with long white beards sat cross-legged and silent, where
beautiful, naked, golden-skinned slaves stood waiting for a purchaser,
where you could buy silken carpets that would carry you over the world,
and black, ebony horses, swifter than light.
* * * * *
Mrs. Carroll had given me one of the upstairs rooms at Derryaghy to
be my very own, and had let me furnish it myself from a store of
old, out-moded furniture, which, for I know not how long, had been
gathering dust and cobwebs in a kind of immense, low attic called the
lumber-room. Everything was more or less threadbare and worn, but I had
plenty to choose from, and the actual rummaging was as exciting as an
adventure on a desert island. I had discovered a quaint little piano,
with but two or three octaves of notes, and most of those silent, save
for a twangling of wires. This I thought must be Prudence Carroll’s
spinet, for it looked exactly like the one in her portrait; indeed,
that had been my principal reason for bringing it downstairs. With
Prudence Carroll I had been in love all my life, and sometimes, in the
dusk, when I struck very softly one of the cracked treble notes of the
spinet, I would imagine her spirit stealing on tip-toe up behind me
to listen. Another discovery, and perhaps the most exciting, was of
an old davenport, with a secret drawer at the back of it――not so very
secret, perhaps, since I had found it without looking for it, owing to
the weakness of the spring, and my own energetic dusting. Inside was
nothing more interesting than some old accounts, written on discoloured
paper, but anybody who opened it to-day would, I fancy, find more
appropriate documents....
There was a cushioned window-seat, low and deep, and from it I could
look out over the sea. In summer, with the window wide open, I could
listen to it also, and to all kinds of lovely songs coming through
it, dreamy and happy and sad. For there was a sort of undercurrent of
dreaming that ran through my life. The romance surrounding the picture
of Prudence Carroll, that peculiar, brooding quality of mind by which
I could give to such things a kind of spiritual life that had for me
an absolute reality, was, perhaps, only too characteristic of a mental
condition which might unsympathetically be called that of perpetual
wool-gathering. Though I played cricket and football, and bathed and
knocked about generally with the other boys in the village, I had no
close friend, and I dreamed of an imaginary playmate. For this playmate
and myself I invented appropriate adventures. He had a name, which I
shall not write here, and I still think he was an extraordinarily nice
boy, but he dropped out of my existence about my fifteenth year. I
had my secret world, too, where such adventures took place. Behind
this inner, imaginative life must have lurked a vague dissatisfaction
with life as I actually found it. Now and then I read something which
appeared to me to describe my other world, and, as I chanced on such
suggestions more frequently in verse than in prose, I became a great
reader of poetry. The passages that echoed so familiarly, though so
faintly, from my mysterious, lovely land, brought it up before me very
much as the scent of a flower may call up a vision of a high-walled
summer garden. Whether any reality lay behind it, I don’t know that I
even asked myself; but, on drowsy summer afternoons, dream and reality
would float and mingle together, and I would feel intensely happy.
As I write I would give much to be able to live over again one of those
summer afternoons, when the air hung heavy with the scent of mignonette
and roses, and Mrs. Carroll sat reading or working, while I lay in the
grass on my back at her feet, and the low sound of the sea splashed
through the silence of my sleepy thoughts, and the booming of a bee
was the slumberous soul of June or July heat turned to music. In those
hours my other world was very, very near.
Afterwards I sometimes wondered if there were a place where those lived
days were laid away, or if their beauty, happiness and peace, must be
quite lost. They had a quality of peacefulness that for me no later
days have had: I seemed to dip deep into their cleansing dreamy quiet,
as into a clear sea.
Other dreams I had, that were not so pleasant, but they came only
at night. One I still remember vividly was unfortunately typical of
many. I seemed to be walking down a street with another boy, when
our attention was attracted by the high, bare wall of a house. There
was something, I know not what, about this house, which made it
different from its neighbours and aroused our curiosity. We noticed
in the wall, almost on the street level, a small window. This window
was open, and a fatal fascination drew us to it at once. I watched my
friend crawl through, for we knew the house was empty; then I followed
him, the opening being just wide enough to admit me. Inside, we found
ourselves on a gigantic marble staircase, spiral in form, and winding
up and down as far as we could follow it with our eyes. There were
no windows except the one we had entered by, and it, somehow, was
invisible from inside, yet the place was perfectly lighted. There
were no landings, no doors, nothing but this staircase, absolutely
uniform in its construction, with low, broad, marble steps which wound
down and down, and up and up. The place resembled a vast, still well,
and we could not hear the slightest sound as we stood listening. The
steps were very shallow, and we ran lightly down. The other boy went
more quickly than I did, and in a little while I lost sight of him,
though I still heard his footsteps, growing ever fainter, till at last
they died away, and the stillness closed in about me with a strange
heaviness. I continued to follow him, but all at once I noticed that
the stairs I trod were darker and stained with damp. A faint chill
odour and feeling of damp and decay rose, too, into my face, and the
light was growing dimmer. I knew I was going down into a great vault
or tomb far below the ground, a charnel-house, an unknown place of
death. I caught sight far below me of a light as of a lamp burning, and
I had an intuition, a consciousness that came to me in a flash, that
my companion had awakened something. This knowledge brought with it
a memory of mysterious horror, a memory that I had been here before.
Then, with an ever increasing terror, I began to run up the steps I
had just run down, but my feet had grown heavy and my limbs weak. Up
and up I hurried, seeing nothing before me but an endless stretch of
winding marble stairs. I did not know where my window was, I might even
now have passed it. I heard nothing, but I knew I was being followed,
and that whatever it was that followed me was gaining on me rapidly. I
could hardly breathe: an agony of fear shook me. Then I heard close to
my ear the bark of a dog. It was the window. I dropped on my knees and
squeezed my head and shoulders through; I was almost free when I felt
myself grasped from behind and with a scream I woke, shaking, panting,
bathed in sweat.
There came a time when these nightmares occurred so frequently that
I got to be able to waken myself out of them. While I was actually
dreaming――when I would have run a few steps down the stair, for
example――a sudden foresight of what was coming would dawn upon me, and
by a violent struggle I would break through the net of sleep and sit
up in bed. Many of these dreams were connected with a dark, mahogany
wardrobe which stood in my father’s bedroom. When I had begun to dream
and found myself in that room I knew something evil was going to
happen, and I would watch the wardrobe door and struggle violently to
wake myself before it should open. Even when I was wide awake, and in
broad daylight, this so ordinary piece of furniture came to have, for
me, a sinister aspect. It was odd that I should have suffered so from
these grisly nocturnal terrors, for in ordinary life I was not in any
way a coward. A feeling of shame made me keep them a profound secret,
and as I grew older they diminished, till by the time I was fifteen
they had practically ceased.
* * * * *
Perhaps I should here attempt some slight description of my father,
whom I have already mentioned, and of my home. My father was the
National schoolmaster at Newcastle, County Down, and our house was next
door to the school. My bedroom window looked out over the sea, about
a hundred yards away, and behind the house were the Mourne Mountains,
and the Derryaghy estate, which took in the lower slopes of Slieve
Donard. Our house, when the Virginian creeper that covered it was red,
looked pretty enough from the road, but was poorly and even meagrely
furnished. The most that could be said for it was that it was clean
and tidy. The few attempts at ornamentation would have been better
away――the two or three pictures, the hideous vases on the mantelpiece.
My father had a strong liking for illuminated texts, and there were
several of these, in gilt frames, in every room in the house, including
the kitchen and the bath-room. What furniture there was was modern,
cheap, and objectionable: it was characteristic of my father that he
had never even bought himself a comfortable arm-chair.
He was a tall man, thin and grizzled, pale, and dressed always in an
ill-cut, ready-made, black tail-coat and waistcoat, with dark gray
trousers. I always disliked his clothes, especially the two shining
buttons at the back of his coat. He wore a beard and moustache, both
somewhat ragged, and his brown eyes were indescribably melancholy. His
hands and feet were very coarse and large. There was power in his face,
but there was a depressing lack of anything approaching geniality. He
gave me the impression that he did everything from a sense of duty,
and nothing because he took a pleasure in it. The seriousness of his
expression was truly portentous: it was impossible that anything in
the world could matter so much as that. He was not well-off――that is
obvious from the position he occupied――but he lived in a way that was
unnecessarily economical. He was by no means ungenerous if it were
some case of distress that had come to his knowledge, but in ordinary
life he was excessively near. The only luxuries he had ever permitted
himself were these coloured texts, and they cost little.
When I was with him I never felt quite at my ease, and this made me
sulky and perpetually on the defensive. I was not more with him than
I could help, and as we lived alone together, with only an old woman
who came in every day to look after the house and do the cooking, it
must have been easy for him to see that I avoided his society. I never
pretended to myself to have any particular affection for him, and I
don’t even know that it would have mended matters if I had.
One night, when I was about fourteen, I woke up in the dark, with the
consciousness that it was very late and that I was not alone in my
room. The next moment I knew my father was there, kneeling beside my
bed. I lay absolutely quiet: I knew he was praying, and praying for me.
Presently I heard him sigh, and then rise noiselessly to his feet, but
I gave no sign. I heard him move away, I heard my door being softly
closed, the faint click of the latch as it slipped into its place. I
lay on with my eyes wide open, wondering why he had come in like this.
I did not like it. It made me feel uncomfortable, as all emotions do
when we are unable to respond to them. I believed my father cared for
me far more than for anything else in the world, yet somehow that did
not help matters. It was not the sort of love that begets love in
return. Though he loved me, I felt he did not trust me, or rather that
he believed I had an infinite capacity for yielding to temptation. By
this time I understood that when my mother left home she had gone to
somebody else. I knew at any rate that she was living, for she had sent
a sum of money for my education, which my father had returned, though
some scruple of conscience had made him think it right to tell me he
had done so. But he explained nothing and I asked no questions. As I
lay awake that night I thought of all this, and it occurred to me
that it might have much to do with his extraordinary anxiety about my
religious and moral life. He was afraid, and I lay awake for a long
time trying to puzzle out what it was he was afraid of.
* * * * *
It was quite impossible for him to make me religious. For one thing,
it was not in my nature. It was not so much that I disbelieved what
I was taught of religion, as that these instructions aroused in me
an implacable antagonism. I did not like the notion of an all-seeing
God, for instance. Imperfectly grasped, this conception represented
to my mind a kind of tyranny, a kind of espionage, which I strongly
resented. Moreover, I detested Sundays and everything connected with
them. When I went to church it was with a face like a thunder-cloud,
and once there, with an incredible obstinacy, I would shut my ears to
all that went on, prayers, hymns, and sermon. This fact, combined with
so many others, tended, as time passed, to make my relations with my
father more and more strained, for he was religious in the narrowest
and severest fashion. I remember his taking me, one Sunday evening,
when I was between twelve and thirteen, to hear a preacher who had come
from a considerable distance to hold two special services. The occasion
stands out from all others, because it was the only one upon which I
was startled out of my habitual attitude of sulky defiance. For the
first three-quarters of an hour all went as usual, and when the sermon
was about to begin I prepared myself to think of other things. But the
text, or texts, delivered in a quiet, impressive voice, arrested my
attention.
“For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom:
and great earthquakes shall be in divers places, and famines, and
pestilences; and fearful sights and great signs shall there be from
heaven.... Your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young
men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams: and I will
show wonders in heaven above, and signs in the earth beneath; blood and
fire, and vapour of smoke: the sun shall be turned into darkness, and
the moon into blood.... And then shall they see the Son of Man coming
in a cloud, with power and great glory.”
In spite of myself the words thrilled me with their vivid, menacing
suggestiveness, and I listened intently to what followed. It seemed
apparent that the end of the world was at hand. The signs were taken
up one by one, and it was shown, to my growing discomfiture, that all
had been fulfilled: nothing remained but the sounding of the last
trumpet, which, according to the preacher――he seemed even to regard
it as highly probable――might take place that very night. By the time
he had reached this point my disquietude had become abject fear, and
I joined fervently in the last prayer. But why had I never been told
of this imminent danger? When we got back from church, it was a very
subdued boy who sat by his father’s side, a Bible open on the parlour
table in front of him. I read with a feverish haste to prove my changed
way of life, and, it must be confessed, also to keep off as long as
possible the hour of bed-time. There was a horrible plausibility about
what I had heard. The concluding words kept ringing in my ears. “I see
no reason why it should not be this very night.” “Wouldn’t it, in fact,
be just the kind of thing that _would_ happen at night?” I asked myself
piteously; and I was tormented by a dread of the hideous trumpet note,
by a bloody moon, and by the apparition of dead and shrouded bodies,
rising up with glaring eyeballs and tied jaws and all the mouldering
signs of the grave――dreadful, galvanized corpses, risen from their
wormy beds to meet their Lord in the air. At length I could put off my
bed-time no longer. I could see my father was not convinced by the open
Bible, and, with his usual suspiciousness, had become curious as to
what passages I was so interested in. Ten minutes later, on my knees
in my small, candle-lit bedroom, I was lying to my God of a tremendous
love I had begun to feel for Him; but in spite of this I passed an
abominable night. In the morning I continued my miserable hypocrisy,
grovelling before this frightful Deity for Whom I had developed so
sudden and demonstrative an affection, and Whom, at the same time, I
begged naïvely not to come. Gradually, but not for several days, these
terrors faded, receiving their death-blow when my father told me that
all Jews must return to Jerusalem before the last day. Now there was a
Jewish family living at Castlewellan, whom I thought I could keep my
eye on, and as I had heard nothing of their moving I felt fairly safe.
* * * * *
Very quickly I became more emancipated as I began to think things
out for myself, and a year later I could laugh at these early fears.
My father told me a crude anecdote which he had read, I think, in
Mark Pattison’s “Memoirs.” A man in a public-house in Leicestershire
had used the oath, “God strike me blind,” and instantly he had been
struck blind by a flash of lightning. On becoming converted he had
recovered his sight while taking the Sacrament. This edifying tale was,
I believe, vouched for by a friend and disciple of Cardinal Newman’s,
but to me, I confess, it seemed as stupid and revolting as anything
I had ever heard. My father declared it to be true, yet I secretly
doubted it, and that afternoon, in my own room, standing by the window,
I said aloud, and very deliberately, “God strike me blind! God strike
me blind!” I waited with a mingled trepidation and incredulity, as if
I had thrown some mysterious bomb into the unknown. A sea-gull flew
past the window, white against the dark autumn sky: the leaves of the
Virginian creeper trembled and grew still. I said again and in a louder
voice, “God strike me blind!” But no flash of lightning followed. Down
below, on the beach, the gray waves curled over with a slow musical
splash. I looked into the sky, but it was calm and untroubled, and I
decided that the story was a myth.
Most of my religious difficulties were, however, metaphysical. The
conception of eternity was one I could not grasp. I could, in a vague
way, figure myself as living on for ever, but I could not with the
same facility move my mind backward. I seemed able to imagine that
there might be no end, but I could not imagine that there had been no
beginning. “If there had been no beginning, how could we ever have
got as far as this?” I asked myself. “Where I am now――this particular
moment――must be at a certain distance from something, or it cannot be
anywhere. But if there is no beginning, then this moment cannot be any
further on than yesterday was!” My brain grew dizzy with vain efforts
to think impossible thoughts. I would break a stick and say, “God can
make it that I haven’t broken it. But if I shut my eyes, and when I
open them the stick is whole, that will only show He has mended it. Yet
He is all-powerful!” And so on, and so on; for whatever point I took
up, sooner or later I was met by an insoluble problem. These problems
were, nevertheless, just what fascinated me. The practical ethics
of religion, that I should simply be good and encourage in myself a
variety of Christian virtues――that kind of thing did not interest me
in the least. As a matter of fact, I possessed singularly few of these
virtues. It is true that I detested any kind of meanness or cruelty,
that I was truthful, straightforward, and, in certain directions,
loving and gentle enough; but I was egotistical, proud, and ludicrously
self-conscious, quick tempered, flying into violent passions for very
little, and, above all, I had a stubbornness nothing could move.
CHAPTER III
It is difficult, as I have said, in looking back over those days, to
see things in any fixed order. It is as if one’s memories floated in
a kind of haze, appearing and disappearing, melting into one another.
But there is a definite point from which my story becomes consecutive,
and I can carry it back as far as that cold, clear January morning,
the morning of Mr. Carroll’s funeral, when I stood beside my father,
at some distance from the grave, among a group of people I did not
know, and whom I should never see again. I examined them all with a
mild and impartial curiosity, and was struck by the fact that none of
them showed the slightest emotion, though all alike wore a grave and
decorous demeanour. I could not blame them, for I did not feel sad
myself. Mr. Carroll had always been perfectly amiable to me, but I had
seen little of him, and when we did meet he had looked at me vaguely,
as if he were unable to remember who I was. I had only known him as
an invalid, occasionally hobbling about with the aid of two black,
silver-headed sticks, but for the most part keeping pretty closely
to his own rooms. He seemed to me to be very old, yet at his death
I learned that he was not old at all, his appearance of decrepitude
being simply the result of an excessively disorderly life, imposed upon
a naturally wretched constitution. I learned, at the same time, the
history of Mrs. Carroll’s marriage; how, before the first year was
out, she had ceased to see much of her husband, and a little later had
ceased to see him altogether. It was fifteen years afterwards, when
he had become the futile person I knew, that he had returned to her.
As the coffin, bared of its covering of sickly-smelling flowers, was
lowered into the ugly, gaping grave, and the damp red earth rattled
heavily on the lid with a hollow, brutal sound, I recalled the strange,
white face, the watery blue eyes, the fixed smile, the soft, polite
manner; but I was not in the least grieved to know I should never see
them again. And when, a week or so later, I was once more in and out of
the house just as of old, I had already ceased to think of him. Once
or twice, passing the closed door of his room in the dusk, the thought
of meeting his ghost, of hearing the tap, tap of his stick coming
toward me down the long passage, gave me a momentary thrill; but even
these poor tributes to his memory faded swiftly, passed into a total
oblivion.
CHAPTER IV
Scarlatina broke out in the village in the spring of that year, a week
or two before my sixteenth birthday. There were not many cases, and all
were mild, but there was much talk of closing the school. My father,
for I know not what reason, was against this, and in the end got his
own way, but about a month later he had the satisfaction of seeing me
catch the infection just when everybody else was getting better. I can
remember quite distinctly the day I took ill. I had not been feeling
well the day before, but had said nothing about it, and that morning I
went to school as usual. I might as well have stayed at home for all
the work I did. I sat there with a book before me, my head aching, my
throat dry and painful. The noise of the classes saying their lessons
at the tops of their voices, especially the junior class, to whom
Miss McWaters was repeating a stanza of poetry, line by line, while
they screamed it after her, irritated, even while it amused, me. Miss
McWaters was a thin and angular person, no longer young, endowed by
nature with a high-pitched voice, prominent teeth, and a red nose, and
by art with a yellow, fuzzy fringe. All these qualities now loomed
particularly large in my vision of her, though at other times I knew
she was a kind and friendly person. Her red nose and her fringe haunted
me, her whole face seemed to undergo extraordinary, kaleidoscopic
changes; she became a sort of fantastic witch who was exercising
horrible spells on these small children standing in a circle round her
chair; her mouth grew larger, her big white teeth seemed thirsting to
bury themselves in their soft little throats. This impression grew
suddenly so sharp that I had to shake myself and sit back in my seat
to get rid of it. Then once more she was only Miss McWaters, to whom
years ago I had repeated this same verse of poetry in that same shrill
sing-song tone which now was going through and through my head....
I looked about the room with heavy eyes――at the white walls, the torn,
ink-stained maps, the scored desks and forms, the wooden floor――and
the whole place seemed to move round and round like a wheel. I saw my
father, with a pointer in his hand, indicating differently shaped areas
on a large blank map of England, and asking a row of youngsters what
counties they represented. That was the kind of lesson I had always
detested myself and had never even attempted to learn. I knew from my
father’s angry, “Next――next――next,” that nobody in the class was giving
satisfaction. And then they all seemed to shrink and float back, while
the room shot out like a telescope, and I watched them from somewhere
miles and miles away. And the high, clear voice of Miss McWaters
proclaimed:
“Our bugles sang truce, for the night-cloud had lower’d,
And the sentinel stars set their watch in the sky.”
And a dozen shrill voices replied:
“Our bugles sang truce, for the night-cloud had lower’d,
And the sentinel stars set their watch in the sky.”
The words seemed mere nonsense in my ears, and I had a sort of
delirious vision of a big star, with a red nose and a fringe and large
white teeth, pointing out the time on a huge clock, while a lot of
little stars stood round in a ring and pulled watches out of their
waistcoat pockets and set them to the time told by the big clock. This
seemed funny to me, and I began to laugh; and then, next moment, I
wanted to lie down somewhere and be quiet. My head was throbbing like
a steamboat with a too powerful engine, and there was a dull aching at
the back of my eyeballs. I got up and tip-toed across the room, but my
foot caught the end of a form, and I nearly pitched through the door,
head first.
I had intended going home, but with my hand on the latch of the gate I
decided to go up to Derryaghy instead. Singularly enough, the thought
that I might be sickening for scarlatina never occurred to me. The
distance to Derryaghy was not more than a quarter of a mile, yet it
seemed to me long, and before I arrived I regretted having started.
The hall-door being open when I reached the house, I went in without
ringing. I knew they would be at lunch, but I had no appetite, and as
I did not want to answer questions or talk, I went straight on up the
broad, low stairs, with the intention of going to my own room. At the
head of the staircase, full in the light, hangs the celebrated portrait
people come from far to admire. I sat down on the wide couch before it,
not because I wanted to look at what I had already seen thousands of
times, but because my head swam. I leaned against the back of the couch
and closed my eyes. When I opened them, the portrait being in front
of me, I could not help staring at it, in a dull way. It represents a
young man standing bare-headed on a hill-side, holding a gun in his
hand, and with an elderly dog seated sedately by him. The curiously
long, oval face, with its high forehead and narrow, pointed chin, has
much distinction, though little beauty, and its pallor contrasts oddly
with the faded red of the full sensuous lips, completely revealed
beneath the light, curled moustache. The eyes are dark, the hair light
brown. The hands are hidden by brown gauntlet gloves, and over the
dark brown doublet falls a lace collar. The trousers would look black
but for the darker shade of the long boots, and this darker note is
carried through to the trees behind, sombre and heavy against a yellow
sky. Both man and dog are obviously posing for their portraits――the
whole thing is a work of art, that is to say, it is something utterly
beyond nature. The highest light is in the face, but there is no white
anywhere, and, with the exception of the faint red of the lips, no
colour save the browns and blacks, the creamy flesh-tints. Over all,
the mellow tone of time has cast a kind of golden softness. I had been
told that it was by a great Spanish artist called Velasquez――his name,
indeed, was there, in large black letters on the dull gilt frame――and
that it was a very valuable painting, worth fabulous sums. I can affirm
to-day that it is really a fine work; but it is not by Velasquez. It is
by Mazo, and is, in fact, only a slightly modified copy of Velasquez’s
famous portrait of Philip in the Louvre.
This picture had always had an odd fascination for me, though there
was something about the face I did not like, something cold and proud,
which I knew I should have detested in actual life. I gazed at it now
stupidly enough, and then I had a nervous thrill, for it seemed to me
to have come all at once to life. One part of my brain knew this to
be nonsense, and that I had been seeing queer things all day, but the
other part of my brain continued to watch it, with a half expectation
of seeing it descend out of its frame. The eyes had begun to move, and
the lips trembled; the mouth opened slowly in a yawn which the brown
gloved hand was raised languidly to conceal; and then from behind the
picture I heard a little mocking laugh. These things bewildered me,
but did not startle me; and through them I became conscious that Mrs.
Carroll was coming up the stair and that she was speaking to me. I
answered her in words which I knew were perfectly idiotic, and which
moreover sounded husky and strange, as if some other voice than my own
were speaking through my lips. Again I heard the little mocking laugh.
This time I thought it came from the top of the picture, and glancing
up I saw, sure enough, a black imp, like a small, naked, negro boy,
perched cross-legged, on the top of the frame, from which he grinned
down at me impudently, raising his fingers to his snub nose, and
spreading them out in a derisive and very familiar grimace. I began to
talk about the picture, about school, and about Miss McWaters. Then
a cloud waved back from my brain; the portrait slid into its place,
the imp disappeared, and everything was once more as it should be.
But I felt a burning thirst, and when Mrs. Carroll opened the door of
a large, bright, sunny room, I was glad to fling myself down on the
bed. Almost immediately I was seized by a deadly sickness. I managed
to get off the bed in time to avoid making a mess, but the vomiting
returned again and again, till I collapsed into a state of exhaustion.
Heavy clouds waved across my brain, obscuring my thoughts, and again
clearing, leaving consciousness to flicker up, like the flame in a
dying lamp, so that I knew I had been undressed and was safe in bed.
And all the time I wanted to drink――to drink.... More than one person
was in the room with me; Mrs. Carroll was there, and old Doctor
O’Brian. In the open doorway Miss Dick hovered. And then suddenly I
was alone. I could hear a fire crackling in the grate, and it had
grown darker. A lamp was burning on a table somewhere over beside the
fireplace. I listened to the fire, and presently it seemed to me I
could hear the lamp burning too. It burned with a soft low continuous
sound that was like the note of a flute, and it occurred to me that
everything in the world was only sound――the bed I was lying on, the
shadows flickering across the ceiling, the dancing firelight――all were
but notes of a tune. This appeared so strikingly obvious that I could
not understand why I had never noticed it before. I tried to make out
what the tune was, but it eluded me, flickering away from me like a
butterfly. I turned round in my bed, for I had heard a slight noise
at the door. All seemed now to have grown silent. I could not hear
the lamp burning, nor even the fire. This silence was surely unusual,
abnormal; it filled me with a vague disquietude. It grew deeper and
deeper till I could not hear, even when I strained my ears, the
faintest murmur either without or within the house. The silence was
like a liquid, luminous atmosphere, through which strange things were
floating nearer. It was like a sea, and gradually it darkened into
colour――there was a broad, dark, blue sea before me, in a strange, rich
light, as if I were watching it through old stained glass. I saw sirens
swimming about in the warm, swelling waves, appearing and disappearing.
They followed a high-pooped, fantastic ship, just as I had often seen
porpoises following a boat out in the bay. The ship moved along slowly,
and its broad, coloured sails were embroidered with green dragons
that shone like fire, and at its bow was a green, jewelled serpent’s
head. Then once more there was nothing but the room, and I heard a
faint noise as of someone moving in a chair. Another sound immediately
followed, and I started, for it was curiously different; it was the
sound one hears before something happens. I watched the handle of the
door turn, and the door itself open and close quickly yet stealthily.
Three figures had entered. One was a tall figure in brown, with a gun
in his gloved hand, and he was followed by a great dark brown dog, who
at once leaped on to the bed and sat at the foot, watching me with
sombre, burning eyes. The third figure was Miss McWaters. Her nose
was longer and redder than I had ever seen it before, and it kept
twitching from side to side in a curious way; her big teeth flashed
in an unpleasant grin, and her fringe waved and curled about as if it
were alive. For the third time I heard the strange little mocking laugh
that had come from behind the picture, but I could not discover who had
uttered it. Perhaps it was Miss McWaters, for I knew she was waiting
for me to say something――a verse of poetry――yes, I remembered:
“Our bugles sang truce, for the night-cloud had lower’d,
And the sentinel stars set their watch in the sky.”
Then a dense, heavy darkness swept up, blotting out everything.
CHAPTER V
I awoke in broad sunlight. The room was full of it, and the scent of
flowers floated in through the open windows and mingled with the faint
smell of drugs. For some time I lay there quietly, too languid to make
a movement or to speak. Then the door softly opened, and I saw Mrs.
Carroll come in and stand beside my bed. “Is he asleep?” I heard her
ask, for I had closed my eyes. I opened them and looked up at her.
“No,” I answered, smiling.
She smiled, too. “It’s time for you to take your medicine,” and the
nurse came forward to give it to me. When I had swallowed it, I lay
back among the soft pillows deliciously....
* * * * *
The memory of my convalescence is a strange one, for it came at a
time when certain physical changes were taking place within me, and I
seemed to myself to be somehow different from what I had been before
I fell ill. My voice had altered; my mind was coloured by vague and
happy dreams. Sometimes when I turned in bed or stretched myself, the
contact of the fine linen sheets against my skin gave me a peculiar
thrill, which ran all down my spine. It appeared I had been very ill,
that it had been a touch-and-go matter whether I should manage to pull
through; yet now I did not feel that I wanted to get well too quickly.
The flowers, the fruit, the brightness, the big delightful room――so
different from my room at home――the care everybody took of me, the
books that were read to me, the sense of being here so securely, with
everything just as I liked it, and with Mrs. Carroll to look after
me――all that was delicious. The one jarring note was my father’s
letter, which I read, and then put back in its envelope. It was about
my escape, how near to death I had been, and how he hoped the mercy
that had been shown me would make me think seriously. I did not want
to think seriously: I wanted to bask in the sunshine of these pleasant
days while they lasted. If I had died it would have been all over by
this time, and since I hadn’t, why should I be different? It seemed to
me hardly the time to talk of God’s mercy, seeing that I had barely
scraped through a severe illness. It was like thanking a man, who has
just broken your head with a stick, for not killing you outright. My
father talked of a miracle, but I had slender faith in miracles, and I
regret to say his entire letter struck me as amazingly unintelligent.
In a kind of lazy and sublime egotism I began to ponder on the oddity
of a man like my father having a son such as I was; and while I was
engaged with these speculations Mrs. Carroll sat beside me, playing
“patience.” She told me my father could not come to see me for fear of
carrying the infection to school, and I received these tidings with
an immense relief, for I had been dreading that he would want to talk
to me about death, and perhaps make me join in returning thanks for
my recovery. I watched her as she sat there, her plump hands drawing
out the cards, her eyes seriously scanning the faces of those already
turned up. She was a large, placid lady, stout and ruddy. She must
always, even in her earliest youth, have been plain, but her face
was filled with an extraordinary kindness that made it infinitely
pleasant. It was not the sort of kindness which can be simulated; it
was something that was a natural part of her, and was reflected in all
she did and said. It had moulded the expression of her countenance,
just as time and weather will alter the features of a statue. Her
eyes were small and gray, and she wore gold-rimmed spectacles, which,
somehow, were becoming to her. I never saw her dressed in anything but
black, and with a light lace cap on her gray hair. She was extremely
fond of me, and I knew it, and I’m afraid imposed upon it, though I
loved her sincerely. At that time it appeared to me perfectly natural
that she should be fond of me; it was simply a part of the order of
things; it had always been so, and I couldn’t have imagined anything
else. It never even occurred to me that I had no claim upon her, except
that which she herself had established; it never occurred to me that I
might, in my relation to her, have been just like any of the other boys
in the village. On the contrary, I looked upon Derryaghy quite as if it
were a second, and certainly much my best-loved, home.
The “patience” failed, and Mrs. Carroll swept up the cards. “Shall
I read to you?” she asked me, and, I having graciously given my
permission, she took up “Huckleberry Finn.” It was a book I rejoiced
in, but I don’t think Mrs. Carroll cared for it, I don’t think she even
found it funny. She spoke rather slowly, and it amused me infinitely
to hear her gentle voice reproduce the talk of Huck, or Pap, or the
King....
That same day, after lunch, the nurse left. I was getting on very well,
and was to be allowed up toward the end of the week. In the afternoon
Mrs. Carroll had gone out, and I found myself alone. I went on with
“Huck,” but a chapter or two brought me to the end. I began another
book, “Bevis,” but my eyes grew tired, and I let it drop on the bed
beside me. As I lay idle I was seized by a desire to get up. I resisted
it for a few minutes, and then I slid into a sitting posture, with
my legs hanging over the side of the bed. It struck me that they had
grown absurdly thin and long, and I felt wretchedly shaky. I stood
up, all the same, holding on to the bedpost till I got accustomed to
being on my feet, when I put on my dressing-gown, and walked somewhat
uncertainly as far as the door. I turned the handle and looked out
with a strange curiosity into the passage. It was as if I had been
ill for months, it all somehow seemed so queer and new. The long high
corridor, off which the rooms opened, was hung with tall portraits
that appeared, in the mellow sunlight of high far windows, to watch
me stiffly yet furtively. I liked them, I liked everything about the
place, I liked to look down the passage with its long row of closed
doors, which seemed so mysterious, reaching right on to the head of
the staircase. I listened for footsteps, but heard nothing. Miss Dick
probably was out, and the servants’ quarters were far away. I had a
feeling that I was really the son of the house, that everything about
it, its pictures, its ghosts, were mine. I went to my favourite picture
and stood beneath it. It was a portrait of a lady with dark hair and
dark blue eyes, and it was partly this peculiar contrast, I think, this
contrast of blue eyes and black hair, that had originally pleased me.
She was young and she had a strange quaint name――Prudence Carroll. The
artist had painted her as if she were just come in from the garden,
for she held still a bunch of flowers in her hand. She was standing
by a queer little piano――or was it a spinet?――the spinet I had now in
my room? It was open, and in a minute or two she would lay down her
flowers and play some air on it, or the accompaniment of some forgotten
ballad. Did the painter intend to show that these were the things she
was fondest of――music and flowers? Poor Prudence Carroll had been dust
these hundred years, the notes of her spinet were either cracked or
dumb, and her tardy lover had arrived a century too late, for she had
died unmarried, and but a year after this portrait was painted! Why
had no one cared for her? Perhaps some day, between twilight and dusk,
she would slip into my room and sing to me, “Rose softly Blooming,”
or “Voi che sapete!” A rustle of muslin, a ghostly scent of ghostly
flowers, the twangling notes of the spinet, and a voice singing a song
that would sound thin and far off, like the sound of wind――that is how
it would happen.
I was charmed with these fancies, but I stood there only a few
minutes, for there was something odd in that silence of closed doors
and listening portraits, and I returned to the sunshine of my room. I
went to the window and leaned my forehead against the pane and looked
out. Far away I could see a stretch of sand, streaked with streams and
pools of water, for the tide was out: and beyond the sand, clear in the
sunlight, was the sea, blue-green under the soft blue sky, marked with
indigo and purple where the bottom was formed of rocks and seaweed. At
the water’s edge some children――from this distance I could not make out
who they were――were sailing toy boats. With trousers and petticoats
well rolled up from bare brown legs, with their scarlet jerseys and
caps and striped cotton dresses, they formed a bright note of colour,
and brought me into touch again with life out of doors. On the left
horn of the bay’s crescent the sand-hills, with their sparse covering
of bleached, wan grass, were pale and iridescent in the sun.
A gardener was mowing the grass just below my window, and the sleepy
sound of the mowing-machine was delightful, and the smell of the fresh
green grass, turned over in bright cool heaps. I got back into bed
again, and took up “Bevis.”
I read for half an hour, when my eyes once more grew tired. The sound
of the mowing-machine had ceased, and a deep silence filled the
afternoon. I lay listening to the silence, half-asleep, half-awake,
when all at once I heard a sound of scraping under my window. It
flashed across my mind that I was alone here in this part of the
house, and that burglars were taking the opportunity to break in, and
perhaps they would murder me. The thing was utterly nonsensical, and
would never have occurred to me had I been in my normal health, but
it had hardly entered my head when I saw a ladder shoot up past the
window, and strike with a grating sound against the wall. My heart
began to thump. I heard steps on the ladder; somebody was mounting it.
The next moment Jim’s face, brown and ruddy and grinning, popped in,
and I gasped with relief. Jim was a boy who worked in the garden, and
was about the same age as I was. He smiled broadly, and his bright,
brown eyes gazed at me with evident pleasure. “How are you, Master
Peter?” he grinned. “They’re nobody about, so I thought I’d look in.”
“Oh, I’m all right,” I answered, “but you mustn’t stay there, or you’ll
be catching the infection.”
“I wanted to see the skin peeling off you. What like is it underneath?”
I felt disappointed at this callous explanation of what I had imagined
to be sympathy. “You can’t see it,” I answered crossly. “You’d better
clear out before somebody catches you.”
Jim disappeared, but I called after him, “I say ... Jim――――”
The round, ruddy-brown face bobbed up again.
“Will you do something for me?” I asked.
“Ay.”
“Will you play something to me. I’m sick of lying here, doing nothing.”
“I darn’t. Oul Thomas’d stop me, an’ I’d get in a row. I be to red up
all the grass, an’ rake the walk.”
“All right.”
I took no further interest in Jim, and he again vanished. There was a
further scraping noise, and the ladder, too, disappeared. I lay on in
a kind of waking-slumber till Mrs. Carroll came in, bringing me my tea.
When I had finished I once more fell into a doze, but opened my eyes in
the dusk, when I heard the notes of Jim’s flute under my window, in a
slow melancholy tune, with an occasional pause, as if the musician was
not very certain of his music. I recognised the air――the Lorelei. It
had a curious effect in the gathering twilight, as if the music and the
fading light were in some subtle way mingled. I knew that the unseen
musician was Jim, yet none the less the mournful notes, coming slowly
in a minor key, seemed the very soul of the deepening darkness, and
called up before me a world of imaginary sorrows, a passionate regret
for I knew not what, a kind of home-sickness for my dream-land. Tears
gathered in my eyes and ran down my cheeks. Fortunately nobody could
see them, but I was ashamed of them myself, though I knew they were
partly the result of my physical weakness. Still, it was ridiculous
that I should cry over Jim’s playing. Jim really couldn’t play at all.
It was stupid, idiotic; and the other day I had cried just in this same
senseless fashion over a book I had been reading; I had wept my soul
out in an ecstasy of love and misery.
When Jim’s serenade was ended I lay on in the darkness, my tears drying
on my cheeks, and thought what a fool I was. Why should I have cried?
What was the matter with me? It was not that I was unhappy; on the
contrary, I was extremely happy. Yet somehow I felt dimly that there
was a greater happiness than any I had ever experienced or probably
ever should experience. The meaning of my emotions and desires never
became quite clear, though I seemed on the verge of discovery. It was
as if there were something stirring within me to which I could not give
freedom, something which remained unsatisfied even in the midst of my
keenest pleasures....
On a bright morning early in June I was allowed out for the first time
since my illness, and I insisted on going alone. As I came out into
the warmth of the sun I felt a charm as of a mysterious new birth. I
went straight to the woods. The green alleys winding in front of me
amid tall old trees, in all the vivid richness of early summer, seemed
exquisitely beautiful. It was as if I had never realized before how
lovely the world was. I lay down on my back on the warm, dry moss and
listened to a skylark singing as it mounted up from the fields near
the sea into the dark clear sky. No other music ever gave me the same
pleasure as that passionately joyous singing. It was a kind of leaping,
exultant ecstasy, a bright, flame-like sound, rejoicing in itself. And
then a curious experience befell me. It was as if everything that had
seemed to me external and around me were suddenly within me. The whole
world seemed to be within me. It was within me that the trees waved
their green branches, it was within me that the skylark was singing,
it was within me that the hot sun shone, and that the shade was cool.
A cloud rose in the sky, and passed in a light shower that pattered on
the leaves, and I felt its freshness dropping into my soul, and I felt
in all my being the delicious fragrance of the earth and the grass and
the plants and the rich brown soil. I could have sobbed with joy, but
in the midst of it I heard the sound of footsteps, and looked behind
me quickly, to see the figure of one of the two idiots, who lived in
a hovel outside the village, approaching. This was the man; there was
a woman also, his sister. He was perfectly harmless, and he drew near
now with smiles meant to be ingratiating. He held an empty pipe in his
hand, and made guttural noises that I knew were asking me for tobacco.
I told him I had none, but he would not go away. He stood right over
me, a grin on his deformed face. The big, misshapen head, the horrible,
slobbering mouth, the stupid persistence, all filled me with a cold
rage. He had spoiled everything; I hated him, and I could have killed
him, for it. But he still stood there and jibbered with his ugly,
dripping mouth. It was only when I struck at him savagely with my stick
that he moved off, glancing back at every step. And when he was gone
I felt nothing but a kind of cold disgust and animosity, mingled with
shame at my own conduct. All the beauty had gone out of the woods, and
I got up and went home.
CHAPTER VI
When, some time in July, Mrs. Carroll told me that she had invited
her nephew and niece, Gerald and Katherine Dale, to come on a visit
to Derryaghy, I became at once very curious to see them. I had never
even heard of them before, and now I learned such interesting items
as that they lived in London, were twins, and about my own age, or
perhaps a year older, Mrs. Carroll could not remember. They arrived
at the end of the month, and that night I went to dinner to meet
them. As it happened, I was late. My watch had stopped for half an
hour or so in the afternoon, and then gone on again, an annoying and
foolish trick it occasionally played me. I was told they were already
in the dining-room, but that dinner had only begun. The prospect of
meeting strangers always produced in me an unconquerable shyness,
and, to-night, partly because I was late, and partly because these
particular strangers were so nearly my own age, my shyness was doubled.
I did not look at either of them as I entered the room where, though
daylight had not yet quite failed, two softly shaded lamps burned, amid
a profusion of flowers, upon the white and silver table. I shook hands
with my hostess and with Miss Dick, mumbling out apologies, and had
begun a lengthy and involved description of the cause of my delay, when
Mrs. Carroll cut me short by introducing me to the Dales. I shook hands
with one and bowed to the other, blushing and incapable of finding a
word. I should never have guessed they were even brother and sister,
let alone twins, for in appearance they were utterly unlike. Katherine
pleased me. She was fresh and bright and attractive; I even thought her
beautiful, for there was something of the open air about her, something
of nature. At any rate she gave me that impression; her beauty had
a kind of grave simplicity; and, if I had been a poet, and had been
describing her, all my similes would have been taken from nature, from
open hill-sides, from the wind and the sky. As I sat down beside her,
her clear, dark, very blue eyes rested on me frankly, and with that she
suddenly set me puzzling over where I had seen her before, or whom she
reminded me of. I kept glancing at her furtively, but, seen in profile,
her face was no longer suggestive, and I decided I had made a mistake.
She appeared to me friendly and candid and unaffected, but I doubted if
she were clever. Her brother, on the other hand, probably _was_ clever.
I did not take to him, he was smaller than she, thin and brown and
subtle; also he had a way of looking at you that made you want to ask
him what it was he found amusing.
“Peter will be able to show you everything, and take you everywhere,”
Mrs. Carroll explained, comprehensively, and then Katherine asked me if
I played golf.
I answered, “No,” and felt ashamed. I went on to prove that it was not
my fault, that my father had refused to allow me to join the club, but
at that point I caught Gerald’s eyes watching me with an expression
of interest, and I suddenly blushed. “Do _you_ play?” I asked him
aggressively.
He seemed surprised. His glance just brushed mine and rested on a
picture above my head. “No,” he answered quietly.
“Gerald is studying music abroad,” said Mrs. Carroll, “at Vienna,
where I don’t suppose they have ever heard of golf. He is going to be a
musician.”
“How interesting!” exclaimed Miss Dick. “Fancy, Vienna!”
Miss Dick was Mrs. Carroll’s companion, and was even, in some distant
way, related to her. Her family, however, had fallen on evil days, and
she was permanently settled at Derryaghy. She was a gushing, fussy,
kindly creature, with a minimum allowance of brains, but overflowing
with good intentions and amazingly loyal in her affections, though
these latter, I must add, had never been bestowed upon me. I took Mrs.
Carroll’s word for it that she had once been very pretty, but now her
thinness, accentuating a peculiar type of feature, gave her an absurd
resemblance to a lean and restless fowl. I noticed that she had attired
herself to-night as for a striking festival. She was a person liable
to these unexpected changes in the degree of her brilliancy, which at
present was positively dazzling. She began to ask about Vienna, and
expressed a deep regret at never having visited that city.
“We have had the piano specially tuned for you,” said Mrs. Carroll to
Gerald.
“Oh you shouldn’t have bothered,” he answered.
“You evidently don’t know what it was like before!” I began, and then
stopped short. Nobody took any notice.
Miss Dick, who seemed determined, cost what it might, to keep the
conversation on the subject of music, mentioned that her mother had
heard Patti in “La Sonnambula,” and how, when that great prima donna
had paused in the middle of the opera to sing “Home Sweet Home,” the
entire house had risen to its feet with enthusiasm. “It has always
seemed to me that music is the most perfect of the arts,” she added,
fixing her lace collar.
“Painting is the most perfect of the arts,” I contradicted. Somehow,
when they were uttered, all my remarks sounded unhappy, not to say
rude, though I was only trying to be agreeable. Miss Dick accentuated
this last one by helping herself to potatoes in significant silence.
“You can look at a picture oftener than you can read a book,” I went
on, addressing Gerald, “and oftener than you can listen to a piece of
music.”
“I daresay,” he answered, and I resented his politeness. “Why can’t he
stand up for his own business?” I thought.
I glanced at Katherine, and wanted to say something pleasant to her,
but that was apparently beyond my power. My solitary “No,” in answer to
her question about golf, had been the one word I had so far addressed
to her. I relapsed into silence and did not speak again till dinner was
over.
When we went to the drawing-room it looked as if we were going to have
a musical evening, for Miss Dick sat down at the piano with all the air
of a person opening a concert. She played an arrangement of something
or other, by Thalberg. All Miss Dick’s pieces were arrangements, except
those that were fantasias, and it was a feature of them that the
beginning of the end could be heard about a couple of pages off, in a
series of frantic rushes and arpeggios. She played now with a fierce
concentration on the task to be accomplished; her face getting redder
as Thalberg became more surprising; her mouth screwed up slightly at
the right corner, through which just the tip of her tongue was visible;
her eyes glaring, devouring the sheet of music before her, at which
every now and then she made a frantic grab with her left hand, to turn
the page――she would never allow anybody to turn for her.
When she had struck the last note, to which she indeed gave an
astonishing rap, there was a general sigh, as for a danger evaded.
“My dear, I don’t know how you do it!” Mrs. Carroll murmured, almost as
breathless as the performer.
“It does take it out of one,” Miss Dick panted complacently.
Gerald sat looking on with a barely perceptible smile. “Won’t you play
something now?” Miss Dick said to him.
His eyebrows twitched slightly. “Not just yet, I think. In a little. I
want to smoke a cigarette first.” He passed out on to the terrace, and
we all gazed after him. When he thought, I suppose, that the echoes
awakened by Miss Dick had had time to subside, he came back, and began
to fiddle with the music-stool, screwing it up and down. Yet when he
did commence to play, after many preliminaries, it was in a broken
fragmentary fashion, beginning things and suddenly dropping them after
a few bars. I was prepared not to like him, but he had not struck more
than a note or two when I knew I had never heard the piano really
played before. In spite of myself I felt the dislike I had conceived
for him slipping away, and then, just as I was commencing to enjoy
myself, he stopped abruptly. He got up and walked over to the window
where I sat.
“You haven’t altered, Gerald,” said Mrs. Carroll dryly.
“Do you mean my playing, Aunt?” he asked sweetly. “It is supposed to
have got rather better, but I am sure you are right.”
Mrs. Carroll gave something as nearly resembling a sniff as she could
give. I saw she was not in love with her nephew; but Miss Dick’s cat
jumped on to his knee and he began to stroke it. There was something
in his extreme self-possession which, though I knew it to be based on
a profound sense of superiority to everybody present, I could not help
admiring, just as I could not help admiring his playing, or, for that
matter, his personal beauty, which was striking. And I admired the
way he was dressed. While remaining quite conventional, it managed to
suggest individuality, and its perfect taste, apparent in the slightest
details, gave him, as he sat there, something of the finish, of the
harmony and tone, of an old portrait. Again his glance met mine. I
believe he knew I had been watching him, and perhaps something of what
I had been thinking, and I turned away abruptly. Miss Dick, who had
taken a great fancy to him, begged him to play again. He refused, yet
a moment later he said, speaking so that nobody but I could hear him,
“Would you like me to?”
“Not in the least,” I answered rudely. Rather ashamed of myself I got
up, crossed the room, and boldly took possession of a chair beside his
sister. But with that my boldness ended, and I could think of nothing
to say. I had not even sufficient courage to look her in the face, and
the fact that I had so deliberately come to sit beside her only to
maintain a fixed and gloomy silence made me feel ridiculous.
“Do you play golf?” I stammered out at last, the inanity of my remark
only striking me after it had left my lips. “She will think I am a
fool, and dislike me,” I told myself miserably; but Katherine answered
as if the subject had never been alluded to before. Her reply only left
me to rack my brains anew. It was no use; a malignant spell appeared
to have been cast upon me, holding me tongue-tied, my mind a blank.
A perspiration broke out all over my body and I could feel my shirt
sticking to my back. Every minute was like an hour, yet I could think
of nothing but this accursed golf. I described the links and even the
Club House, and might have gone on to enumerate the caddies had I
remembered their names. I became suddenly conscious that my hands and
feet were enormous. I thrust my hands in my trouser pockets, but my
feet still remained visible. I knew my thick nose had neither shape nor
character, that my coarse, brown hair was more like a kind of tropical
plant than like hair, and that my overhanging brows and the shape of
my mouth gave me a sullen look. I had tried to alter my appearance
by doing my hair in different ways, but it was no use. I remembered
having noticed in the morning, when I was tying my tie, that a slight
frown made me more thoughtful looking, and I instantly assumed one. I
compared the appearance I imagined myself to present with Gerald’s, and
then I saw him watching me with what I believed to be a kind of veiled
mockery in his eyes. My shyness turned to rage. Katherine tried to talk
to me, but I answered in monosyllables, and, an hour earlier than I had
intended, I got up to say good-night.
“We shall see you to-morrow, Peter,” Mrs. Carroll suggested, as I shook
hands with her. “What would you like to do to-morrow?” she added,
turning to Katherine.
Katherine smiled at me as if we were quite old friends. “I want to
climb some of the mountains,” she said. “I planned that the minute I
saw them.”
Again her face awakened in me the memory of another face I had
known――but where? when?
“In that case you ought to start early,” Mrs. Carroll went on, “and you
could take your lunch with you. Peter knows all the different walks for
miles round.”
I was on the point of declaring that I had an engagement, but I
overcame the temptation. I promised to come soon after breakfast, and
made my escape.
CHAPTER VII
I went home in a state of profound depression. I had made a hopeless
fool of myself; probably they were talking about it now. These thoughts
were rendered no brighter by being mingled with anticipations of what
I was returning to. Above all else in the world, perhaps, I hated,
and almost feared, that atmosphere of dullness and joylessness, which
hung like a mist over our house. It exasperated me, it seemed to sap
my vitality, and with all the strength of my nature I tried to resist
it. It was as if the narrowness and dinginess, the gray, colourless,
melancholy monotony of my father’s existence, had a hateful power of
penetrating into my brain, like the fumes of a drug, clouding my mind,
subduing it to a kind of cold lethargy: there were times when I had a
feeling that I was struggling for life.
My father was in the parlour when I came in. He glanced up at the
clock, which meant that he was surprised at my returning so much
earlier than usual, but he made no remark. I sat down to take off my
boots; then I took up the book I was reading. My father all this time
had not spoken a word, and I had returned him silence for silence.
Sometimes, after a whole evening of this kind of thing, my feeling of
constraint would become so acute that the effort required to say even
good-night would appear almost insurmountable, and I would invent all
sorts of excuses for slipping out of the room without doing so. My
father was correcting exercises. The books were arranged in two piles
in front of him――those he had already finished with, and those he
had not yet touched. Behind him was the wall, with its cheap, ugly,
flowered paper, and illuminated texts. I glanced at him from time to
time over the top of my book. There was a perpetual dinginess in his
appearance; his linen was not often scrupulously clean, and his nails
never were. Just now I wanted to ask him to stop snuffing. How could I
read while he kept on making such disgusting noises! He had a peculiar
way of breathing through his nose so as to produce a sort of whistling
sound, which I could never get accustomed to. Often I had gone upstairs
and sat in an ice-cold bedroom merely to be rid of it.
Suddenly he looked up over his spectacles and addressed me across the
table. “I intended to ask you about that book you have brought home.
Who gave it to you?”
I at once assumed an air of elaborate nonchalance. “Nobody gave it to
me. I found it in the book-case.”
“What are you reading in it?”
“‘Venus and Adonis.’”
“I don’t like the books you have been reading lately.”
“But this is Shakespeare!” I exclaimed, feigning tremendous
astonishment.
“I don’t care who it is. Why can’t you read what other boys read?”
“I thought he was supposed to be the greatest poet in the world!”
“You know very well what I mean. If you _do_ read him, why don’t you
read the plays――‘Julius Cæsar?’”
“I’d rather have poems than plays. What is the harm in this?”
“The harm is that it is not suited to your age. It is full of all kinds
of voluptuous images and thoughts. You have been too much at Derryaghy
lately.”
The train of reasoning which connected voluptuous thoughts with
Derryaghy was difficult to follow, yet I was not surprised that my
father had come out there. With him all roads led to Derryaghy,
and I could never understand what he really felt about my position
in relation to Mrs. Carroll. When he spoke face to face with her
his manner always expressed something like a carefully repressed
disapproval, and at the same time he allowed me to remain under
countless obligations to her. For example, she looked after, that is
to say, she paid for, my clothing. Also it had been settled recently
that she was to pay my school, and later my university, expenses. I
believe a struggle was perpetually going on within him between his
consciousness of my interests and a desire to tell her to mind her own
business and to leave him to look after his son himself. This peculiar
combination of natural antipathy, a fear to give offence, and a sense
that it was his duty to be thankful, was singularly ill adapted to
produce a graceful attitude in his personal dealings with her, and I do
not think she cared for him.
“Now that Mrs. Carroll has her nephew and niece, there is no need for
you to go there so often,” he went on. “I was glad to see that you did
not stay late to-night.” He added the last words in a conciliatory
tone, even with approval.
“Why don’t you like her?” I asked simply.
He fixed his eyes sternly upon me. “Why don’t I like whom?”
“Mrs. Carroll.”
“Mrs. Carroll! I don’t think I understand you!”
As I gave no further explanation he returned to his exercises, but I
could see an irrepressible desire to justify himself working in his
mind. It broke out in another minute. “You don’t appear to realise
that your question accuses me of both ingratitude and hypocrisy! Or,
possibly, that is what you intended to do?”
Oh, how well I knew this mood, and how we would go round and round
the same little circle, and how he would outwardly be so calm and
reasonable and not in the least annoyed, yet inwardly be perfectly
furious. “I think I’ll go to bed,” I murmured, getting up, and
pretending to yawn.
My yawn was only meant to convey sleepiness, but my father saw in it
impertinence. “Why do you try to vex me?” he asked.
“I don’t try to vex you. Why should I?”
“Mrs. Carroll is different from us. Her position in life is different;
it alters her view of everything; it is only natural that she should be
more worldly.”
“Is she very worldly?” I asked, without enthusiasm. Anybody less so, I
could hardly imagine, but there was no use arguing.
My father branched off in another direction. “To-night, at dinner, were
you offered wine?”
“I had some claret.”
“You remembered I had told you I would rather you didn’t take anything?”
“No.”
“Are you speaking the truth, Peter?”
“I don’t know whether I remembered or not,” I answered petulantly. “I
didn’t think it important enough to make a fuss about. You always want
me to do everything differently from other people. If I can’t do as
other people do, I’d rather not go at all.”
“I’m not aware that I told you anything except what would please me,”
he answered coldly. “I left you perfectly free.”
“How can you call it ‘leaving me free’ when you’re for ever asking me
whether I’ve done it? You say you don’t forbid me to do things, but you
always talk about them afterwards.”
There was a pause. It was broken by my father who seemed now deeply
offended. “Did you make any arrangement about going back?”
“I promised to go to-morrow, after breakfast.”
“What for?”
“I was asked to take the Dales somewhere.”
“Can’t they find their own way? It isn’t very difficult.”
“Does that mean I’m not to go?”
“You can’t be always going there. You seem to me to live there.”
“It’s easier than living at home,” I muttered.
“It is pleasanter, I daresay; but I don’t want you to make yourself a
nuisance to strangers.”
“Aren’t they the best judges of whether I’m a nuisance or not?”
“Well, I don’t wish you to go to-morrow.”
“You might have said so sooner,” I burst out. “What reason have you?”
“I hope you don’t intend to be as disrespectful as you are,” my father
said slowly. “If I had no other reason for not wanting you to go, I
should have a very good one in the way it seems to make you behave when
you come back. I _have_ another reason, however: I don’t desire you to
grow up with an idea that you have nothing to think of in life but your
own pleasures. You are quite sufficiently inclined that way as it is.”
He spoke quietly, but there was a concentrated feeling behind his
words. “What have I been doing?” I asked, trying to be equally calm,
though I knew my eyes were bright, my cheeks flushed, and my lips
pouting.
“I wasn’t alluding to anything particular so much as to your whole way
of looking at things. You appear to wish to be absolutely independent,
to go out and in just as you please. You appear to think you have no
duty to me or to anybody else. You are becoming utterly selfish.”
“Selfish!” I was too indignant to protest more than by simply repeating
the word. People always called you selfish, I thought, bitterly, when
you only wanted to prevent _them_ from being so. I was convinced I was
capable of making the most sublime sacrifices, if there were any need
for them. Indeed I had often imagined myself making such sacrifices,
making them secretly, but to be discovered in the end, when all my
unsuspected nobility would suddenly be revealed, in some rather public
way, perhaps, but too late to save those who had wilfully misunderstood
me from agonies of remorse. It was my father who was selfish, with his
idea of making everybody think and act exactly as he did. He was not
only selfish, but he was jealous. That was at the back of all these
objections to my going to Derryaghy. Only, he never realized his own
faults; he found moral justifications for them. One thing was certain,
I was going there to-morrow, whether he allowed me to or not. I was
so full of these thoughts that I missed a great deal of what he was
saying, but the gist of it I gathered――and I had heard it frequently
before――that I should have my living to earn, my way to make in the
world, that I shouldn’t have Mrs. Carroll always, and that the fewer
luxurious tastes I acquired, the more chance I should have of being
happy in the very obscure and humble path that was apparently all my
father saw before me.
If he really wanted to inspire me with feelings of humility, however,
he could hardly have wasted his breath on a more thankless task. It
was not that I saw myself becoming remarkably successful, but simply
that I seemed to have had a glimpse of what an extraordinary youth
I was. My interview with my father had made me forget all about my
unhappy behaviour at Derryaghy, and as soon as I was in bed I began to
compose a passionate drama, of which I was, naturally, the hero, but
in which, without any rehearsal, Katherine Dale appeared as heroine. I
had braved my father’s anger in order to be with her, and now I was
no longer shy, the right words rushed from me in a torrent. Sometimes
our love story was happy, more often it was a perfect bath of tears.
Indeed, I think I must have had some inborn feeling for the stage, so
frequently did I lead up to the most telling and lime-lit situations,
on the very weakest of which a curtain could only go down to a thunder
of applause. In this present drama there was a fathomless well of
sentiment, of “love interest” of the most uncompromising type. I had
read lately, in bound volumes of _Temple Bar_, one or two novels by
Miss Rhoda Broughton, and as I lay there in my small room, with a text
above my head, I was far from anxious to “keep innocency.” On the
contrary, I was one of those bold, dark, rugged, cynical creatures, one
of those splendid ugly men, who carry in their breasts a smouldering
fire of passion for some girl “with eyes like a shot partridge”; one
of those men who gnaw the ends of their moustaches, and have behind
them the remembrance of a fearful life. My name was Dare Stamer, or
Paul Le Mesurier, and my heart was sombre and volcanic. The plot of our
romance did not vary a great deal. We met; we loved; we quarrelled. I
married somebody else――a cold, soulless, blonde beauty with magnificent
shoulders――and Katherine sometimes went into a consumption, and
sometimes did not, but in either case there was a last meeting between
us, when the veils of falsehoods were torn aside, and for one wild,
mad, delirious moment I held her in my arms, my lips pressed on hers.
It was these wild, mad, delirious moments that so appealed to me. They
followed one another thick and fast as rain-drops in a thunder-shower.
I was ever at a climax. The room was brimmed up with lovers’ tears
and lovers’ kisses, meetings and partings, yet never perhaps had the
text above my head, though I was far from thinking so, been obeyed so
literally and so successfully.
CHAPTER VIII
I was wakened in the morning by Tony scratching at my door. Still
half-asleep, I got up to let him in, and then returned to bed, where
he had already taken the most comfortable place. He looked at me for a
moment or two and then closed his round, dark, innocent eyes till they
showed only as two slits of dim silver, and set up a loud snoring. I
was too lazy to get up, and lay idly watching him. He had a curious and
expressive beauty, resembling that of some wonderful piece of Chinese
porcelain, at once bizarre and attractive. There was something quaint
about him, an adorable simplicity. In colour he was white, decorated
with brindle patches. Leonardo would have made a drawing of him, would
have delighted in the superb limbs and wide deep chest, the big, broad,
heavy, wrinkled head, with its massive, low-hanging jaw, its upturned,
flat, black nose, its silky ears, like the petals of a rose, and those
dark, lovely eyes, in which, when he was at rest, a profound melancholy
floated. As a pup, able to walk and no more, he had been a birthday
present from Mrs. Carroll: now he weighed about sixty pounds and was
three years old.
As I watched him I tried to make up my mind whether I should say
anything further about going to Derryaghy. In spite of all last night’s
bravery I knew well enough that, when it came to the point, it was
really rather impossible deliberately to disobey my father; and, what
is more, that I shouldn’t want to do so. I somehow kept seeing the
thing from his point of view, and this irritated me, because it made me
powerless to do anything but sit at home and sulk.
“I’ll have to go up to the house and say that I can’t come,” I told
him after breakfast. He had risen from the table and was in the
act of taking down our Bibles from the book-shelf, preparatory to
“worship”――a function which took place every morning and evening, and
which consisted in my reading aloud a chapter from the Bible, and in
my father making a prayer. Sometimes he commented on what I read,
explained a verse, drew a lesson from it――interruptions I secretly
resented, as they tended to prolong “worship”――sometimes he listened in
silence.
He put my Bible down beside my tea-cup before replying. Then, when he
had resumed his seat, and fumbled with his spectacle-case, he said,
“You may go with them: I have been thinking it over.”
I answered nothing, though I had a sort of uncomfortable feeling that
thanks might possibly be expected. I wondered what would happen if I
were to say I didn’t want to go, that I should never go again, that I
would rather stay here with him quite alone, free from all “worldly
temptations.” It was really the most perfect opportunity imaginable
for a thoroughly sentimental scene, like those in the stories he used
to read to me. I pictured how it would be wrung out to the last drop
of sloppiness, and be promptly followed by my conversion, or even
death-bed.
“I think it is the ninth chapter of Isaiah,” my father said,
interrupting these meditations.
“I read the ninth yesterday,” I replied. “It’s the tenth.”
My father turned another page, and I began:
“‘Woe unto them that decree unrighteous decrees――’” I felt my cheeks
grow red, because the verse seemed to me so extraordinarily apt to the
decree about my not going to Derryaghy. I did not look at my father,
but keeping my eyes glued to the page went on. The rest of the
chapter, however, was less pertinent.
“‘He is come to Aiath, he is passed to Migron; at Michmash he
hath laid up his carriages:
‘They are gone over the passage: they have taken up their
lodging at Geba; Ramah is afraid; Gibeah of Saul is fled.
‘Lift up thy voice, O daughter of Gallim; cause it to be heard
unto Laish, O poor Anathoth.
‘Madmenah is removed; the inhabitants of Gebim gather
themselves to flee,’” etc., etc.
It was not wildly exciting in itself, and I cannot say my reading of it
made it more so. The only good point about it was that it did not lend
itself to exegesis. The kind of thing my father liked was, “Servants,
be obedient to them that are your masters.” Then he would interrupt me
to say, “That means, when their masters tell them to do what is right.
If we are told to do something we know to be wrong, we must refuse to
obey.”
When I had finished we knelt down before our chairs. My father prayed
aloud, and I stared out of the window, and tried to decide whither
I should take the Dales. Between the sentences my father, as usual,
kept crossing and uncrossing his feet, and scraping them together, as
if he were trying to remove a tight pair of slippers. It seemed odd
to me that he could pray so earnestly and at the same time use such
artificial language, crammed with “thees” and “thous,” and “hearests”
and “doests.” Before he had reached “Amen” I was on my feet, dusting
the knees of my trousers.
CHAPTER IX
A quarter of an hour later, as I walked up to Derryaghy, Willie Breen,
the grocer’s son, a little boy of ten or eleven, ran out from the shop,
and, after gazing carefully up and down the road, slipped a small piece
of paper into my hand. One side of this paper was painted black; on the
other a single word, “Friday,” was printed in red ink. I put it in my
pocket and walked on without making any sign or uttering a word, which
was the proper etiquette to observe under these peculiar circumstances;
and in equal silence Willie returned to the shop.
When I reached the house, though I had been intending all along to ask
for Katherine, I suddenly asked for Gerald instead.
“Gerald isn’t down yet,” Mrs. Carroll informed me, coming into the hall
from the dining-room. “Probably he’s not even out of bed. Go up and
tell him to hurry. He’s in the room next yours. Katherine is seeing
about your lunch.”
Rather reluctantly I went up to Gerald’s room and tapped at his door.
“Come in,” he said, sleepily.
He was indeed still in bed, and, in spite of the fact of our
appointment, did not seem in any hurry to get out of it.
“Oh, it’s you!” he exclaimed. “Good-morning.”
I felt uncomfortable, for I was sure he would think it queer my coming
into his room when I hardly knew him. “Good-morning,” I answered,
trying to imitate the tone he had used. “I was told to tell you to
hurry.”
He sat up and yawned. “It’s late, I suppose,” he murmured. “They hadn’t
sense enough to send me up my breakfast.”
“Do you always have breakfast in your room?” I asked.
He looked out of the window as if I did not interest him. “No,” he
answered, after a perceptible pause, “but I have it when I want to.”
I felt snubbed. I didn’t know whether to stay or go, but he decided
the matter by telling me to wait till he had had his bath, that he
shouldn’t be long. He put on a dressing-gown, and left me. When he came
back I didn’t know why he had asked me to stay, for he began to dress
without taking the slightest notice of me. I sat on the edge of the bed
and watched him. It seemed to me stupid that I should feel slightly
in awe of him, but there was no use pretending that I didn’t. I had
already made up my mind that I disliked him, yet somehow I could not be
indifferent to him――I wanted him to think me important, to admire me.
He was only a year older than I was, but he was infinitely more a man
of the world, and it was this, really, that impressed me. He dressed
very quickly, yet I noticed that the result was just as harmonious
as it had been last night. His clothes were of a light brown colour,
that was exactly the same shade as his hair, and a little darker than
his skin. A pale violet tie was loosely knotted over a cambric shirt.
His forehead was broad; his yellow-brown eyes were set widely apart,
and were neither large nor small; his nose was straight and his mouth
extraordinarily delicate. His ears seemed to me, too, to have their
own peculiar beauty. His skin was of a golden-brown colour, but clear
almost to transparency, and a tiny blue vein was faintly visible on his
left temple, running from the delicate eyebrow to the cheekbone. When
he listened his brows slightly wrinkled. I would have given a good
deal to have looked like him.
Suddenly I caught his eyes in the mirror watching me ironically. “Do
you know you were extremely rude to me yesterday?” he said, without
turning round.
I blushed and had nothing to reply.
“Well, I forgive you.” He patted me on the shoulder. “I’m ready now.
Come along.”
“Why wouldn’t you play properly when you were asked?” I blurted out, as
we went downstairs.
“I would have played if there had been anybody to play to. Neither
Katherine nor Aunt Clara knows _God save the Queen_ from the _Moonlight
Sonata_, and that Dick person is too absurd for words. I’ll play for
you some time when they aren’t there. And now I must have breakfast; I
won’t keep you very long.... What do you want all that for?” he asked,
as Katherine suddenly appeared with a large basket.
“For lunch; we’re not going to starve ourselves.”
“Poor Katherine; evidently you’re not. We can each take our own lunch;
a basket like that is only a nuisance.”
“You needn’t carry it,” said Katherine. “You and I will carry it by
turns,” she said to me.
“What’s the use of talking like that,” answered Gerald. “It doesn’t
mean anything. If that huge thing has to be dragged all the way I
shan’t go at all.”
He departed to the dining-room, while Katherine and I were left
standing in the hall, the basket between us.
“We needn’t take any drinkables,” I began, “there’ll be plenty of
water.”
“I haven’t put in any,” said Katherine.
We sat down in the porch to wait for Gerald. When he rejoined us, which
he did very leisurely, I glanced at his shoes, and suggested that he
should change them for something more substantial.
“Why? We’re not going through ploughed fields, are we? I haven’t any
hob-nails even if we were.” A panama hat shaded his face and he swung
a light cane in his hand. I knew at once we should have difficulty in
getting him any distance, and was very nearly proposing he should stay
at home.
“Why aren’t we driving?” he asked.
“Such nonsense!” exclaimed Katherine. “If Aunt Clara had wanted us to
drive she would have said so.”
“I don’t mind making inquiries,” Gerald intimated. “I somehow feel it’s
the proper thing to drive.”
“You’re not to say anything about it; Aunt Clara won’t like it, I know.”
“I’ll drive with our young friend Peter, here,” he said airily, tapping
me on the shoulder with his cane.
I could see Katherine was becoming impatient; Gerald was the only one
who was perfectly cool. “About carrying Katherine’s lunch,” he began.
“Hadn’t we better get a stick and put it through the handle of this
thing?” He kicked the basket lightly. “Then two of us could struggle
with it together.”
The idea was a good one, and we put it into practice.
Our road kept all the way by the coast: on the right, the mountains;
on the left, a strip of waste land, varying in width, and covered with
dry, sapless grass upon which, nevertheless, there were goats feeding;
below this, the steep drop down to the sea. Shadowless in the strong
sun, the road wound on ahead, white with dust, like a pale ribbon on
the green and russet landscape. We had gone about a mile when Gerald
suddenly announced, “I’m not going any further; it’s too hot.”
This brought us again to a standstill. “It’s so like you to spoil
everything,” said Katherine.
“What am I spoiling? I suppose I can please myself. Only, since I’m
not coming, I’d advise you to chuck some of that grub away.” He took
his cigarette-case from his pocket and offered me a cigarette, which I
refused. He lit one himself.
“You know very well that if you go home Aunt Clara will think I
ought to have come with you, or at any rate be back for lunch,” said
Katherine quietly.
“How should I know such absurd things? And I can’t help what she
thinks, can I?”
“We could have stayed out all day.”
Gerald had begun to whistle an air very softly, and I recognized it as
something he had played last night. His eyes were fixed on the distant
horizon, and he seemed slightly bored.
“Perhaps if we were to bathe it might make a difference――who knows?
Suppose young Peter and I bathe while you watch the basket here in this
pleasant sunny spot; or you could walk on slowly with it, and we might
in the end even overtake you?”
I turned to Katherine. “Come along,” I said brusquely. “What’s the use
of bothering about him?”
He looked at me and coloured faintly. “Then I’m to say you won’t be
home till dinner-time?” he asked, speaking directly to his sister.
Katherine hesitated. “Shall he say that?”
“Let him say what he likes,” I returned, shortly.
We moved on together, and I did not look back, though Katherine did,
more than once. “I’ll make no more arrangements with your brother,” I
remarked.
Katherine was silent. “Perhaps we should come another day instead?” she
began presently, and in a hesitating way.
“You mean you are going to give in to him?” I said, making up my mind
that there should be no other day, so far as I was concerned.
She was again silent, and meanwhile we continued to walk on. I could
see she was uncertain as to what she ought to do, that she did not
want to disappoint me, and that, on the other hand, she was not sure
about Gerald. “He’s offended at something,” she began. “He takes
offence very easily.... He thinks you didn’t want him.”
“Why should he think that?”
“I don’t know.... But it is something of that sort, I’m sure.”
I was going to say that I did not care a straw what he thought, but
checked myself. “He didn’t appear to me to be offended,” I replied. “It
was simply that he thought it too much fag.”
“You don’t know him,” said Katherine.
And we continued to trudge along, our feet white with dust. It really
_was_ very hot, and I was glad I had so little clothing on――merely a
light cotton tennis-shirt under my jacket. When we reached a low grey
bridge that spanned a shallow mountain stream we branched inland. This
was the Bloody Bridge, I told Katherine, and a religious massacre had
once taken place here. I pointed out the remains of an old church,
with its fallen tombs, and after resting for a few minutes we began
to climb the valley, which was the walk I had proposed to take them.
This valley was wonderfully beautiful, widening out gradually, and
gradually ascending; on each side of it steep dark mountains, covered
with heather, and grass, and gorse, and hidden streams which flowed
into the broader, deeper stream we followed. The colouring was rich
and splendid――dull gold, bronze, dark green and even black, with the
brighter purple of the heather woven through it, and the long, narrow,
pale, silver streak of water, glittering and gleaming, far, far up,
till in the end it was lost over the edge of a higher valley which
crossed ours at right angles.
“These are the Mourne Mountains?” Katherine asked gazing up at them.
“I’ve seen them from the Isle of Man. On a clear day you can make them
out quite distinctly.”
She began to talk to me about mountains, about Switzerland, where she
had been last spring, and I felt ashamed never to have been anywhere.
Yet, while she was describing it, I had an instinct that I should not
like Switzerland. By some chance I indeed pictured it very much as,
later on, I was actually to find it. Katherine’s enthusiasm could not
remove this conviction: in fact, what she said, secretly strengthened
my idea that it must be an odious country, and, years later, amid all
the showy banality of its picturesqueness, I remembered this particular
walk, and my own beautiful dark country rose up before me, with its
sombre hills, its dreamy, changing sky.
But at the time I had nothing to say, I had no comparisons to make, I
had seen nothing. “I should like to go to a big city like London or
Paris,” I told her, “not to live there, but to see it.”
“I don’t believe you’d like it.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know.... You’re so much a part of all this.” She glanced up at
the hills.
“Do _you_ like cities?”
“Oh, I simply love them; but then I’m quite different.”
“I’d like the picture galleries any way,” I declared.
“Are you fond of pictures?”
“I’ve not seen many――only reproductions.”
“I’m fond of them too. There was a splendid picture in the Academy this
year of a girl skating. She was holding a muff up to her face so that
it covered her mouth and chin, but she was awfully pretty, and when you
came into the room you would just think she was a real person. And the
snow was so nice, with a sort of pink light on it. If you come over to
London I’ll take you to see everything.”
But again, just as in the case of Switzerland, my instinct told me I
should detest this picture. For a moment I had a feeling of depression;
it seemed to me of infinite importance that Katherine should like the
things that I liked.
“I don’t care for pretty pictures,” I said. “I hate everything pretty,”
I went on almost angrily.
“Would you rather have ugly ones?” asked Katherine, laughing, as if
she had caught me in an absurdity. I had no answer to give, though I
knew myself exactly what I meant. I felt lonely and melancholy. Then I
looked at Katherine. She was very beautiful, and in a quite different
way from her brother. And suddenly I knew where I had seen her
before――her eyes, at least――they were the eyes of Prudence Carroll....
I gazed at her, seeking some further resemblance, but could discover
none. Her skin was very white, save where in her cheeks it flushed to a
soft radiant glow. Her brown, crisp hair was pulled back straight from
her forehead, though one or two little tufts had got loose and waved
in the faint wind. Her nose and mouth had the same delicate beauty as
Gerald’s, but her expression was quite different, and it was there
that her greatest beauty lay.... Yes, there again was a resemblance to
Prudence Carroll――her expression was the same as Prudence Carroll’s.
She had the same eyes, the same expression ... perhaps, then, the
same spirit.... A sort of daydream had begun to weave itself into my
thoughts.
“How far can we go this way?” Katherine interrupted me.
“As far as you can see. There is another valley beyond. We could go
along it and home over Slieve Donard, but it is a long distance.”
We climbed slowly, not talking very much. It was past noon now, and
hotter than ever, and when we reached a deep green pool under a
waterfall we stopped to bathe our hands and faces in it. Its cool
sweetness was alluring, as if a water-sprite sang up through it into
the hot sunlight, and the white spray sparkled in the sun. “It would be
splendid for a bathe,” I murmured.
“Bathe if you want to; I can walk on and you can overtake me.”
I remembered Gerald, however, and refused to do this, being full to the
brim just now of unselfishness and chivalry. “We might have our lunch
here,” I suggested. “Then we could hide the basket somewhere, and not
be bothered by it again till we are going home.”
We spread a napkin on a broad flat stone, and our lunch on top of that.
I now discovered why the basket had been so heavy, but, though it had
been a nuisance carrying it, its contents were extremely welcome. We
had almost finished when a peculiar feeling rather than a sound made
me look up, and I saw a man standing not more than three or four yards
from us. It was as if he had risen out of the earth. When you are
under the impression that you are miles away from any human being,
such a sudden apparition is a little startling, nor was the appearance
of this visitor reassuring. He was large and pale, with short brown
hair, and at the back of his head he wore a cap, like a boy’s cap,
which was too small for him. His clothes, without being ragged, were
stained and worn, and of a nondescript, brownish colour. He was young,
probably between twenty-five and thirty, and strongly built. There was
something coldly malevolent in the pale, clean-shaved face, something
indescribably corrupt and cruel, which seemed to stare out of the
hard brown eyes, and to hover about the smiling lips. He stood before
us, looking down in obvious enjoyment of our discomfiture, making
no movement to pass on. It was curious that features so perfectly
regular, features neither bloated nor disfigured, could give so vivid
an impression of ugliness. It was the ugliness of something positively
evil, and my first feeling was one of instinctive repugnance and
disgust, as if I had been touched by an obscene and noxious creature. I
felt, I can’t say why, that I was in the presence of something actively
dangerous, and not only to my body, but reaching beyond that: I felt
as if I were in the presence of some form of spiritual corruption or
decay, that I knew nothing about, and that yet I had a horror of, as
a young rabbit is afraid of a hawk. That prolonged, impudent stare,
passing over me, seemed to leave a trail of filth, of slime, of
something that defiled like a loathsome caress. His eyes slid from me
to Katherine with the same repulsive scrutiny. What was he doing here?
He was no country man. As my first startled feeling passed, my temper
began to rise. “What do you want?” I asked. “How much longer are you
going to stand there?”
He laughed almost noiselessly, though he still neither moved nor spoke.
It was as if the sound of his laugh touched a spring within me, and I
lifted a sharp piece of stone lying near my feet. I felt a sudden rage,
an extraordinary desire to destroy. I could actually feel my lips draw
back ever so little, just like the lips of an angry terrier. I had no
longer the faintest sensation of fear: on the contrary, what I wanted
was for him to make a movement forward, a gesture that I could take
as threatening. And the rough, natural weapon I had picked up must
have acquired a sudden appearance of dangerousness, for our visitor
drew back and his face altered. Then he laughed more loudly and on a
different note as he passed on his way down the valley. I felt elated.
Somehow, I was certain my stone would not have missed its mark, and
that there would have been no hesitation, no lack of force, on the
part of the wielder. Katherine and I watched him as he retreated, now
disappearing from our sight, and now again appearing, but always at a
point farther down.
“Well, he’s gone,” I said. “He was horrible looking.” I faced her with
a proud consciousness of having behaved very well.
“Do you know what _you_ looked like?” asked Katherine. And before I
could answer: “You looked just like David when he threw the stone.”
I blushed. Then, “I never cared much for David,” I answered
ungraciously, and moreover untruly, for I was, secretly, extremely
pleased and flattered.
“Neither did I till a minute ago, but that was because I didn’t know
what he was like.”
My blush deepened. “Well, the beast’s gone at any rate,” I said to
cover my gratification. “I will tell Michael when we get home. He can’t
be prowling about here for any good.”
“Who is Michael?”
“One of our policemen――the decentest.”
* * * * *
We hid the basket under the heather. A quiet had fallen upon us,
through which the noise of the splashing water seemed to weave itself
in patterns and arabesques of sound.
“Shall we go up higher?” I asked, and without answering me Katherine
began to climb the hill-side, and I followed her over dry, springy,
fragrant heather, and between huge mossy boulders that had lain
undisturbed for centuries. We stopped to look at a fly-catching plant,
that curious, unpleasant mixture of the animal and the vegetable.
Katherine had never seen one before, and she examined the outspread,
concave disc, with the skeletons, the grey husks of flies, adhering to
its green surface. We found a bee struggling on his back on the purple
flower of a thistle, waving his legs in the air, a ridiculous picture
of intoxication. But in spite of these interruptions the silence
that had crept over us lingered still. When we reached a place where
the ground rose steeply for a yard or two I gave Katherine my hand
to help her, and when we came to more level ground we still went on
hand in hand. And with this light contact there came to me a strange,
thrilling pleasure, intense yet dreamy, unlike anything I had ever
known before. I did not look at my companion. When I spoke, telling her
to avoid a patch of soft ground that had here spread across the path,
the sound of my own voice astonished me, so unfamiliar was it, even
trembling slightly; and I felt my limbs trembling. But why should it be
so? What was there? Why was I nervous? Nothing had happened but this
short easy climb hand in hand. I threw my hat from me and flung myself
down among the heather, lying with my hands clasped behind my head,
and my face turned up to the dark blue sky. Far, far below us, the
sea, blue and deep, broad, beautiful and free, lay shimmering in the
hot sun. I had a sensation of intense happiness, physical and mental,
into which I seemed to be sinking deep and deeper. I felt my eyes grow
moist, and I turned away my head that my companion might not see my
face.
Presently I looked round. Katherine was sitting beside me, gazing
straight out at the distant sea. The broad brim of her black hat
shadowed her face. The deep blue of her eyes seemed darker than before;
they had the blue now of the eyes Renoir so often painted, and that I
have seen nowhere else. I wanted to say something, I hardly knew what.
I hovered shyly on the verge of it, like a timid bather on the brink
of the sea, but there was no one to push me in, and my plunge was not
taken.
“It’s jolly nice here!” Those feeble words were all I could find to
express the rapid rush of emotion that had shaken my whole being.
The vast and complex forces of nature were stirring within me almost
as unconsciously as the new leaf germinates in the growing plant.
Yet there was something which, without any words at all, I must
have expressed, had there been an observer to see it. I mean the
helplessness of youth, its pathetic credulity and good faith, its
brightness and briefness in the face of those hoary old hills, and of
feelings that were almost as ancient.
I sat up and clasped my hands about my knees. “I wonder what it will be
like living in town?” I said.
“Yes, you’re going away next month, aren’t you? Aunt Clara told me.”
“My father wanted me to try for a post in a Government office. There
is a boy who lives here who is going to do that: he is working for his
exam. now.” Then I added, I don’t know why; “Mrs. Carroll is paying for
me, and will be afterwards, when I go to college. I’m to go to one of
the English universities――Oxford, I think. Of course my father couldn’t
afford to send me, and indeed he’d rather I didn’t go at all. He let me
decide, however, though there was really only one thing that made him
give in.”
“What?”
“My mother once sent money to be used for my education, and he would
not take it.”
Katherine was mystified, and, as I saw this, it dawned on me that I
should not have spoken. I had taken it for granted that she knew all
about me.
“You know, my mother doesn’t live at home,” I explained; and then, to
change the subject, I took the piece of paper Willie Breen had given me
that morning from my pocket.
“Can you guess what that is?” I asked.
She turned it over.
“It means that on Friday there will be a meeting of a kind of club we
have,” I said. “It is a night club. The whole thing is a secret. We
have supper round a fire, and talk, and tell yarns, and all that.”
“Outside?”
“Yes; over on the golf-links usually.”
“But why at night?”
“Oh, I don’t know. Pretty late too――about half-past eleven or twelve. I
got it up last year with some of the boys who were staying down here.
And then, afterwards, I kept it up with two or three of the chaps at
school. This year I got sick of it, and I’ve only been to one meeting.”
“At night! It must be rather queer. I love the sea at night. Are you
allowed to bring visitors?”
“There is no rule; there are no rules of any kind. Would you like to
come?”
Katherine hesitated. Then she laughed. “Yes. Would it matter?”
“There’ll be nobody but boys there.”
“But you’d take me; and of course, Gerald would come.”
“I’ll take you if you’ll come by yourself,” I said.
“Without Gerald? I couldn’t. What harm would he do?”
I did not say; but without Gerald I knew I could carry the thing off,
with him it would be difficult. “You’d have to promise not to tell
anybody,” I explained.
“Of course. If I told, I shouldn’t be there myself.”
“But I mean even afterwards.”
“I’ll not tell.”
For a minute or two we looked down the hill-side, bathed in the
afternoon sun; then I made up my mind. “If you can promise that Gerald
won’t talk about it I’ll take you. But won’t you find it difficult to
get out?” I added immediately afterwards.
“No; we’ll simply sit up later than the others. They seem to go to bed
about ten.”
“But the lodge-gate will be locked.”
“I can easily manage about that.”
I regretted having mentioned the matter at all, yet I hadn’t the
courage to draw back. “I’ll tell you on Friday morning exactly when to
be ready,” I said.
We sat silent. Katherine had taken off her hat and it lay on the ground
beside her; she was fastening a bunch of heather into her blue and
white muslin dress.
“Have you looked at the portraits in the long passage yet?” I asked
suddenly.
“Yes; not very particularly, but I noticed there were some.”
“Did you see one of a dark lady standing by a spinet, holding a bunch
of flowers?”
“I don’t remember. Who is she?”
“Prudence Carroll,” I answered. “Look at her when you go in.”
Katherine had completed her task. “Why?” she inquired, turning to me.
“I think she is very like you――or you are very like her.”
“I shall see; but suppose I don’t care for her?”
“Then you can say I’m a fool. But you will care for her――at any rate, I
do. I don’t mean that your features are just the same as hers.”
“And I’m not dark, am I?”
“No; at all events not _so_ dark. However, you will see what I
mean――perhaps you will see.”
“You’re not sure? It can’t be so very striking then.”
“That’s just what it is――it _is_ striking. It mayn’t, however, be
exactly obvious to everybody. When I first saw you, I kept wondering
who you were like. I couldn’t get at it for a long time――then I knew.”
“Well, I never even heard of her, but I’m shockingly ignorant of my
ancestors.”
“She wasn’t an ancestor: she was never married; the likeness isn’t
physical.”
“Oh, then I shan’t see it. Besides, I never _do_ see likenesses, even
when they’re much less mysterious than this.”
“I don’t know,――perhaps, in a way, it is mysterious. I can see it more
clearly sometimes than others. I don’t think I should see it at all if
you were asleep or dead.”
“What a horrid idea!” She laughed, but not quite easily.
“Do you not feel that these hills are familiar to you?” I asked
dreamily. “I can imagine a person coming to some house like Derryaghy
for the first time, and then finding that he knew this room and that,
where this passage led to, what view he should see when he looked out
through that little window at the top of the stairs. Or it might be
that two people would come there together, and everything they said
would sound like an echo from something that had been spoken before,
and each, while they waited for it, would know the answer, before it
had left the other’s lips.”
“I’m not sure that I follow you,” said Katherine prosaically, “but I
imagine you are trying to make out that I may be what-do-you-call-her
Carroll come to life again. You’re the strangest boy I ever met.”
“You told me I was like David. But――but――pretend it for a moment. Say
you were Prudence Carroll, then who should I be?”
“I haven’t any idea. Perhaps the apprentice of the artist who painted
her picture, if he had an apprentice.”
I considered this. It had never occurred to me before. But I could not
get back, I could not discover even a faint gleam. It was not the time;
I was too saturated with my actual surroundings.
I did not pursue the subject, for I saw it had no interest for
Katherine. Besides, I wanted to be quiet. I thought if we sat in
silence, if I held her hand; above all, if we sat in silence close
together, her arms about me, my cheek against her cheek, the past might
swim up into the present, and we should know. But instead of that we
began to talk, to talk of things that did not matter, until, by and by,
we got up to return home.
CHAPTER X
I stayed in the house all the evening, but I could not read, and so I
sat down to write to Katherine. I wrote for more than an hour, though I
was very doubtful whether, in the end, I should post my letter. It was
the first time in my life I had ever written to anybody. Of course I
cannot remember now what I said: I can remember the sense of it, or the
nonsense, possibly, but not how I expressed it. Very badly, I suppose,
for I tore my first attempt up, and began another, over which I must
have spent an even longer time, since, to finish it, I was obliged to
get up and light the lamp. When I went out to the post it was quite
dark, and immediately after I had dropped my letter in the box I had a
strong desire to get it back again. Why had I been in such a hurry? I
should have kept it till morning. Then, as I pictured Katherine reading
it, a thrill of pleasure swept through my timidity.
I did not go home, but strolled, instead, over the golf-links in the
direction of the sea. At such an hour they were absolutely deserted,
and the pale sand-hills, stretching away in the moonlight and beside
a dark waste of water, wore an unfamiliar, a slightly weird aspect,
suggestive of some desolate lunar landscape. I wandered on, utterly
oblivious to time, till I found a comfortable spot between two of these
hills, on a gentle slope that was almost like a couch. I was filled
with a passionate sense of life, and lying there, with the long thin
sapless grass about me and above me, and the soft white powdery sand
beneath, I could look out over the sea, and feel myself perfectly
alone. The water was a dark mass under the moon, darker than the beach,
darker than the sky, but not so dark as the Mourne Mountains, which
rose away on my left in smooth, bold, black curves.
There was no wind. Down in the hollow where I lay I was as sheltered
as I should have been in bed. The night was washed through with the
soft sound of the waves as they splashed in a long curving line on
the flat strand that stretched on round to Dundrum, three miles away.
Moths hovered above me with a beating of pale delicate wings; and all
around, like a vast background for the sound of the sea, was the deep,
rich, summer silence of the slumbering world, a silence of unending
music, as though the great, living earth were breathing softly in its
sleep. I lay on my back, and above me was the vast, deep vault of the
sky, full of a floating darkness, in which the white moon hovered like
a ghost. And I lay there in luxurious enjoyment of the night, and of
the life that was running through my own body. It seemed to me at that
moment as if my spirit were no longer merely passively receptive of
what was borne in upon it, but that it had actually taken wing, had
grown lighter, more volatile, were flowing out through the surrounding
atmosphere, through the sky and the sea, were moving with the movement
of the water. The earth beneath me was living and breathing, and,
obedient to some obscure prompting of my body, I turned round and
pressed my mouth against the dry grass, closer and closer, in a long
silent embrace.
It was very well there was no one to observe this exhibition of
primitive and eternal instinct. I felt a passionate happiness and
excitement. My head was bare, the salt sharp smell of the sea seemed
to have set all my nerves tingling, and I unfastened my shirt that
my breast might be bare also. All the past had slipped from me, and I
lived in this moment, squeezing out its ecstasy to the last drop, as I
might the juice of some ripe fruit. It seemed to me that I was on the
brink of finding something for which all my previous existence had been
but one long preparation and search. I was fumbling at the door of an
enchanted garden: in a moment it would swing open: already the perfume
of unknown flowers and fruits was in my nostrils. My feeling was deep
and pure and clear as a forest pool. In my mind I went over the story
of Shakespeare’s “Venus and Adonis.” I thought of the shepherd-boy
Endymion. I imagined myself Endymion, as I lay there half naked in the
moonlight. My eyes dimmed and the blood raced through my veins; it was
as if the heart of the summer had suddenly opened out, like a gorgeous
flower, and brought me some strange rapture....
* * * * *
When I awakened to more commonplace things I knew that it was very late
indeed. I wondered what had possessed me, and what story I should tell
my father standing there in the hall, holding up a candle, looking at
me before he turned round to fasten the chain. I raced home to the
fulfilment of this vision, but it was already past midnight, and my
father would not listen to my excuses. He was very angry indeed, but
his anger could not come between me and my happiness. I listened to
it in a kind of dream, and as soon as a pause came, slipped away from
it and on upstairs. In the dark, as I undressed, the delicate scent
of heather still clinging to my clothes filled the small bedroom,
and seemed to bring the whole day back to me from the beginning.
Comfortably between the cool sheets I went over every incident of
it, while the scent of heather still floated about me; and now I had
acquired an extraordinary bravery; I gave utterance to every thought
arising in my mind; the embrace which had been so impossible was
perfectly easy. One by one exquisite pictures drifted in through the
windows of my closed eyes; one by one they opened out before me, like
flowers, full of delicious sweetness, and in the midst of them I fell
asleep.
But my sleep was only a completer realization of my waking thoughts. I
was again with Katherine, and again we were alone on the mountain-side.
We were coming home and I was a little behind her, when she stooped
to gather a handful of heather. But instead of fastening it into her
dress she turned and flung it at me, and then ran on down the hill.
I followed quickly, and all at once she stopped running and we stood
there, hot and panting and laughing. Then she impulsively lifted her
face, and I kissed her. I held her close to me and kissed her again and
again.... And the scent of heather floated about my bed, the heather of
reality mingling with the heather of my dream.
CHAPTER XI
During the morning my father kept me working in the garden where he
was erecting a kind of arch of trellis-work above the gate, but after
our early dinner I went up to Derryaghy. Ever since I had awakened, my
mind had been filled with the letter I had written, and with guesses as
to how it would affect Katherine. I hurried along, for our dinner was
at two, while their lunch was at one, and I had made no appointment,
so that when I reached the house, and found they were all gone out, I
was not greatly surprised. Katherine and Gerald had gone out riding;
they would be back for tea. I left a message to say I would call some
time in the evening and went upstairs to choose a book. In the silent
library the faint sound of my feet on the thick carpet made little more
noise than the rustle of a ghost, and when I had found what I wanted I
paused with the book unopened in my hand. Through the window I could
look out into the afternoon garden, sunlit and mellow, but in the house
itself the silence of those upper rooms struck me, as always, with a
suggestion of a faint, bygone life, of spiritual presences, unseen,
yet watching and listening. I walked slowly down the passage, looking
at the portraits, and trying to picture the lives of those who had sat
for them. Were they aware of my scrutiny, of my curiosity, possibly
indiscreet? did I disturb the dust of the past, did they welcome or,
perchance, resent my intrusion into that delicate dream-life that
had fallen upon them? I loved to amuse myself with such fancies, idle
enough, not to be communicated to others. The air seemed heavy with a
kind of still, intense reverie, through which there came the vibration
of a hidden mysterious life. Were I the true son of the house, I told
myself, a sign of recognition might have been given to me; but I was
a stranger, an intruder, and my robuster, noisier presence could but
disturb their ethereal existence. There was something almost vulgar in
being physically alive among that shadowy company. I longed to pass
the threshold of their world and learn its secrets. Perhaps if I were
really to love that dark, sweet lady, Prudence Carroll, to declare my
love, to kiss her painted lips, I might be admitted to it. Would she
be jealous when I left her? To love a dream, a memory, that was very
possible; but to be faithful to it? Through the door I had left ajar a
golden stream of sunlight, filled with floating specks of dust, swam
across the shadowed passage, and just touched the flowers in her hand.
But my ghosts had never been afraid of sunlight: they were not afraid
to walk in the deserted garden or to pass me on the stairs or in the
hall. Often I had felt them to be there, and some day, I knew, I should
see them. With this thought there came to me a desire to revisit their
own garden, a walled place of dark green graves, where they wandered
undisturbed.
I went out, forgetting after all my book, and took a short cut across
the fields and down a disused, mossy lane, purple with tall foxgloves,
and sleepy with droning bees, which brought me out abruptly at the old
church. Service was still held here, and as I came up I saw the door
was open. I went inside, and an old woman who was dusting the pews
wished me good-day. I talked to her for a few minutes and then began to
wander idly about, trying my Latin on the inscriptions, peeping behind
doors and through windows. A church on a week-day was for me quite
a different thing from a church on a Sunday. Its quiet appealed to
me, a sort of homely, gentle charm that was at once dissipated by the
entrance of a congregation. I went into the pulpit and imagined myself
preaching, while the old woman, Margaret Beattie, leaned on the handle
of her broom and watched me.
“You’d make the queer fine curate, Master Peter,” she said, evidently
seeing in this exhibition the betrayal of a vocation.
“They’ll never get me, Margaret,” I replied. “The Church is not what it
was. I believe you are an old witch,” I went on, for she was half-deaf,
“and when you have done your mischief here, you will ride away on that
broomstick.”
I went out into the sunshine and pottered about among the graves. All
were old, for nobody was ever buried here now. Most of the head-stones
were stained green with age and weather, and the lettering was so worn
that it was often necessary to peer close to read a name or a date. I
lingered in the corner where lay the bones of some of those fine ladies
and gentlemen whose pictures I had been looking at. Well, it was a
pleasant place....
Margaret came out, locking the door after her. I heard her shambling
feet on the gravel, followed by the clanging of the iron gate that
left me to myself. Had my ghosts preceded me here, or did they still
linger in the upper rooms at Derryaghy? I threaded my way among the
graves to the low, sun-warmed wall, all golden and green and grey with
velvet moss on weathered stone. Before me lay the broad open country
I must cross to go home, rich and dark in the late afternoon light.
The gleam of water, of pool and stream, shone palely amid long grass
and darker gorse bushes: and beyond were trees, black and soft against
the western sky, as if rubbed in by a dusky thumb. Distant hills stood
out from the grey clouds and the softer, deeper background of luminous
sky. Everything shimmered and gleamed in a kind of romantic richness
and divine softness that I was to see later in dreamy landscapes by
Perugino. And over all was a great sea of light and sky――grey, faint
green, and deeper, warmer yellow, with clear silver where the water lay.
I turned from it and sat down on the wall, facing the churchyard. It
was a quiet spot, designed for contemplation. The faint wind in the
trees was like a low pleasant tune, and there was nothing melancholy
in its charm. To me it had a kind of happy beauty which I loved. I had
fallen into a mood when I seemed close to my dreamland. It lay beyond
an enchanted sea, whose shore was that bright cloud there. I could hear
the low, continuous sound of surf breaking on the pale glistening sand;
I could see deep lagoons, and sleepy rivers winding slowly down through
green lawns and meadowlands. I tried to draw nearer, but it swam away
from me, leaving only a broken cloud, and beyond that the endless sky.
Had it already been, or was it still to come? Was all this world,
apparently so solid under my feet, but my dream, and should I presently
awaken to that other? I had a sudden temptation to risk everything: the
fascination of death stole over me, quickening my curiosity to know
what lay beyond. Only _should_ I know? Death might not really solve
anything! If I tried to force an entrance I might lose my only chance
of finding one. A large, splendid butterfly, a red admiral, flitted
over the wall and perched on one of the grave-stones, spreading his
gorgeous wings, black and crimson, flat against the grey, sun-baked
stone. He remained there with the stillness of a painted thing,
drinking in the heat, knowing nothing save that.
The afternoon was waning. The sun had crept down the sky till he was
almost hidden, and the violet shadows were blurred on the tangled
grass. Again one of those strange, breathless silences seemed to wash
up as from some depth of Time, and I listened――listened for a sign,
a word, for in the stillness the faintest whisper would have reached
me. What were they, these strange pauses in life, in everything――these
feelings of suspense, of expectation? A kind of ineffable happiness
and peace descended upon me. A delicate spirit of beauty seemed to
be wandering through the unmown grass, which bent beneath its feet,
wandering under the broad-leaved trees, beside the grey old church.
Surely there was something of which all this was only the reflection!
I could feel it; I knew it. What did it mean? what was I waiting for?
what was it I desired? I thought of my soul as a little candle-flame,
hovering at my lips, ready to take flight. If I blew it from me it
might flicker away over the grass, down into the graves, up into the
air, a tiny tongue of flame, no bigger than a piece of thistledown. I
thought of the old, silent, listening house, darkening now to twilight,
mysterious, haunted, with its closed doors and brown portraits: a
dream-thing that, too, and all the ghosts who lived there.
CHAPTER XII
It was half-past eight when I left home to go to Derryaghy, but at the
corner of the Bryansford Road I met Willie Breen and stopped to get
particulars about our meeting to-morrow night. I did not mention the
Dales because I was almost sure that in the end Katherine would not
come, and in the midst of our talk he broke off abruptly with: “Here’s
your fine friends,” delivered half-contemptuously. At the same time he
stuck his hands in his pockets and strolled off whistling.
I wheeled round to face Miss Dick and Katherine and Gerald coming
towards me. I raised my straw hat.
“We’re just going as far as the station and back,” said Katherine. “We
thought we’d meet you.”
I dropped with her a little behind the others and walked as slowly as I
could.
“I got your letter,” she went on, simply. “It was very nice of you to
write, but I hope you didn’t want an answer. Letters are beyond me.”
“You weren’t angry?” I asked, timidly.
“No. What was there to be angry about? Of course, I couldn’t make out
what it all meant: you didn’t intend me, I suppose, to take it quite
seriously: but it seemed very flattering and poetic.... I was sorry we
weren’t in when you came for us. Tell me what you did with yourself all
afternoon.”
“I walked out to the old graveyard and sat there,” I replied.
“How cheerful!”
“It was rather: at any rate I liked it.... Let us go along here,” I
added. “We can get home round this way. It is a good deal longer, but――
Do you mind?”
“Not if it doesn’t keep us too late.”
“I have been thinking about the artist’s apprentice,” I began. “Do you
smell the meadow-sweet?”
“The artist’s apprentice? Oh, yes! Well, what were you thinking about
him?”
“That he must paint your portrait.”
“But can he?”
“He can try, like other apprentices.”
“When?”
“Any time. To-morrow.”
“Really? Do you paint?”
“Only a little in water-colours. I’ve not had any lessons.”
“And you’ve made pictures?”
“No, just a few sketches. I never finish anything. Just something to
remind me of――things.”
“You must show them to me.”
“If you like; but you won’t see anything in them; nobody ever does.
They’re only meant for myself――and they’re no use anyway.”
“What did you really mean by your letter, Peter?”
“I don’t know――burn it. I meant everything that’s there, but I’m not
sure now what _is_ there. After I had written it I went out and lay
down on the golf-links and listened to the sea.... Would you like me to
take you to my old graveyard? I expect you’ll be going to church there
on Sunday.”
“Do you mean now?”
“Yes. It’s not far away――just across those fields.”
We walked on through the scented darkness.
“I don’t know that I like graveyards,” said Katherine, doubtfully.
“I don’t either――new ones――but this is very old.”
I helped her across the stile. Out of the shadow of the tall hedge, the
grassy country lay grey and unsubstantial under the rising moon. The
black spire of the church showed through the trees, and in a little
while we reached the low wall where I had sat all the afternoon. But
how changed the place was! Flooded with fantastic moonlight, only the
shadows now seemed real.
“You do not want to go inside?” Katherine asked, dissuasively.
“No; we can see it from here.” And I leaned over the low wall. “It
is not like a modern cemetery,” I again told her. “There is nothing
horrid here. There are no bodies;――nothing but a little dust, and a few
spirits, perhaps, that have not gone away.”
“Ghosts? Are you not afraid of them?”
“I don’t know. Not now, at any rate; these ghosts are friendly; they
are so old.”
“Have you seen them?”
“No. I saw one at home in my bedroom when I was a little chap, but it
was not nice; it was not like these.... You are buried here,” I added,
smiling.
But Katherine turned away quickly. “Don’t,” she said. “Why do you like
to be so morbid? Besides, I don’t think it is right.”
I could see that I had vexed her, and I changed the subject.
Down by the grave just below us the tiny green light of a glow-worm
glimmered, but I did not point it out to Katherine. A fairy tale
of Hans Andersen’s came into my mind, and I saw Death, like an old
gardener, floating over the wall with a soul, like a baby, folded in
his arms; and I watched him lay it softly to sleep under the trees.
I had forgotten all the details of the story, but I made a story
for myself, and the moonlight on the grass and on the weather-worn
grave-stones, and the black, lurking shadows, and the still,
moon-drenched church, wove into it a mysterious beauty. It seemed to me
that something might happen now that would make, for me at least, all
things different for ever after, that would push the boundaries of life
infinitely further back, by bringing a dimmer, vaster world directly
into relation with me. In that world, perhaps, they dreamed of this,
just as I was now dreaming of it.
I was aroused by Katherine. “We must go, Peter.” She laid her hand on
my arm.
“All right.”
I took a last look, and then stepped out briskly beside her.
“I oughtn’t to have brought you here,” I said, “out of your way.”
“I enjoyed coming. I am not in any hurry myself, but you know how early
they go to bed, and it must be getting late.”
“Do you like me, Katherine,” I asked, pleasantly.
“If I had disliked you I don’t suppose I should have tramped all these
miles with you.”
“You are sure I don’t bore you, or anything?”
“Not up to the present. Why do you ask?” she smiled.
“I just wanted to make sure. Girls, as a rule, would rather have older
people than I am――wouldn’t they――fellows like the curate? I only
mention him because you happen to have met him. You’re seventeen, which
means that you’re grown up, and――――”
“I can’t make up my mind what you are,” Katherine interrupted, laughing
aloud. “The first night I saw you you were frightened to open your
mouth, and now you’re saying all kinds of things.”
“That shouldn’t be said?”
“No; I like them. I daresay in ten years’ time I won’t care to be told
how old I am, but at present it’s all right.”
“I didn’t mean anything except that there’s a difference between us.
Girls often get married at seventeen.”
“I think, you know, you’re rather a dear in your own way,” she said,
thoughtfully.
CHAPTER XIII
It was late, and the house was quiet. When I leaned out of my window I
could hear the sound of the waves, but no other sound; then I opened my
bedroom door softly, and crept out into the passage. From my father’s
room there came a heavy, muffled snoring as I made my way downstairs.
The hall-door I unfastened with the same elaborate precautions against
noise, but I left it open behind me, only slipping in the door-mat to
keep it from slamming. Once outside, I felt safe.
The night was clear and full of moonlight, and my black shadow danced
fantastically before me on the white, bare road. Not a soul was abroad,
and as I walked I had a curious sense of freedom and exhilaration; old
songs of romance and adventure hummed in my ears, and I wanted them
to come true. Contrary to my expectation and to my desire, Katherine
and Gerald were waiting for me at the lodge-gate, in the shadow of the
hawthorn hedge, and Katherine held a parcel in her hand.
We did not talk very much as we went quickly on, following the same
road we had taken on the morning of our picnic. I kept a sharp
look-out, but could see no sign of any of the other boys. Below us,
on our left, the sea murmured and splashed through the warm delicious
night; on the right, the Mourne Mountains rose, black against the sky.
“I’m afraid we’re rather late,” I remarked after a while. Then I added,
“You’ll have to take an oath of secrecy.”
I had already told them all they would have to do, but I was a little
nervous, for I had no idea what kind of reception they would get, and
to help to tide matters over I had recommended Katherine, if she came,
to bring a supply of provisions, which would always be so much in their
favour. For myself I didn’t care a straw, though I knew what I was
doing would make me unpopular.
We had walked for about a quarter of an hour and had left the village
well behind us when down towards Maggie’s Leap I saw the red glow of a
bonfire. We turned to the sea, clambering over the rough ground, till
presently, in a hollow, we saw them, seven or eight boys, sitting round
a fire. Thirty feet below, the sea looked black and strange; and the
mysterious night floated about us, a night of wonderful beauty.
There was an awkward moment when we advanced into the firelight, and
before I introduced them. A silence followed my very lame speech, in
the chill of which Gerald lit a cigarette, and we took our seats,
slightly beyond the main circle. Nobody made room for us, and when
Katherine produced her contributions to the supper I feared at first
they were going to be refused. We seemed to have dissipated the
romantic atmosphere of the gathering, nor was anything said about the
Dales taking a vow of secrecy, which was, nevertheless, one of the
rules of the club. I could see Sam Geoghegan, a boy whom I had never
liked, but who was the biggest boy there, whispering to his right-hand
neighbour, and I knew he was talking about us.
However, as supper progressed, the atmosphere thawed somewhat, and I
began to hope things would turn out all right. Willie Breen, who had
been fumbling in his pocket, now produced a small bottle filled with
some bright red liquid and held it up to the light, gazing at it in
silence. Suddenly, when everybody’s attention was fixed on him, his
face stiffened into an expression of suppressed agony, and he gasped
for breath, drawing his hand across his forehead.
“What’s the matter, Billy? Stomach bad?” asked Sam.
But Willie’s eyes were closed. “If I fall down,” he sighed in a
whisper, “an’ a deadly pallor creeps over me, force open my teeth
with a knife, and pour a single drop of this blood-red liquid down my
throat――――”
“How can you pour a drop?” interrupted Sam.
“Unless it is too late,” said Willie, “you will see the colour slowly
come back to my cheeks and suffuse them with the glow of life, until at
last, when you don’t expect it, I’ll open my eyes and say, ‘Where am
I?’”
“_Does_ he have fits?” Katherine whispered.
“No: it’s only ‘Monte Cristo,’” I told her.
Katherine looked at him wonderingly, but Willie had already his mouth
crammed with bread and sardines, the sardines she herself had brought.
Most of the boys now lit cigarettes, which Gerald had given them. From
the darkness below, the sound of the sea rose up, weird and melancholy,
full of an inexpressible loneliness. The warm, ruddy light of the fire
flitted across fresh young faces. A dim fragrance seemed to be blown
down from the woods, and to mingle with the saltness of the sea.
Sam Geoghegan said suddenly, “I’m a socialist.”
This announcement fell rather flat. The beauty of the night had cast a
vague spell upon the other members of the club, and they were content
to be silent.
“Do you mean like the chaps who were round last week with the cart?”
somebody asked indifferently, after a long pause.
“They gave one of the wee books they had with them to my father,” said
Sam.
“What is it?” asked Willie Breen.
“What’s what?”
“A socialist.”
“It’s not an ‘it,’ it’s a man. It means that everybody ought to get the
same chance. There should be no privileges nor private property nor
anythin’.”
“But whenever you’ve got things they’re yours,” said Willie Breen,
unconvinced.
“You don’t have things――isn’t that what I’m saying? Everything belongs
to the State――they belong to everybody.”
“Socialists are always poor,” put in Sam’s chum, Robbie McCann,
unenthusiastically. “Those lads that were round here tried to get up a
collection.”
“Of course they’re poor,” said Sam, pityingly. “You can’t give up every
thin’ and be rich, can you? For dear sake have a bit of wit!”
“Would _their_ aunt have to give up her place?” asked Willie Breen,
jerking his head toward the Dales.
“Why wouldn’t she? Does it belong to her?”
This was a bold idea, and Sam accompanied it with a glare of defiance
at Gerald, from whom, nevertheless, a minute ago he had accepted a
second cigarette.
“Of course it belongs to her,” said Willie, wonderingly.
“Not rightly. Man alive, but you’re all thick in the head. The point is
that nobody has a right to anything――more’n anybody else, I mean.”
“You know all about it, don’t you?” asked Gerald, gently.
“I know more than you, anyway, stink-pot,” said Sam. Two or three of
the bigger boys laughed, and I began to foresee trouble.
“We needn’t start a row, need we?” I suggested, amicably.
“I’m not startin’ a row; it was him. What call has he to put in his
jaw. He wasn’t asked to come.”
“He was asked,” I replied.
“Ay――maybe by you――that’s nothin’.”
“Let’s tell stories,” Willie Breen proposed. “Do you know how they make
castor oil? There’s a woman told me she saw it. It was a big round
room, and corpses hanging from hooks in the ceiling; and from the ends
of their toes yellow drops were falling into a basin. That was castor
oil.”
“I’m sure. Anybody can blether you up, Billy.”
“I’m not saying I believe it.”
“It’s a wonder.”
Suddenly a deep, low boom rose up from the sea, as if coming out of the
infinite night, swelling, like the heavy bass note of an organ, and
dying away.
Katherine laid her hand on my arm. “What was that?” she said.
“It’s nothing,” I murmured; but a vague sense of awe had crept over the
little group.
“It came last summer for the first time, didn’t it?” asked George Edge,
a boy who had not spoken before. He had been lying on his back, looking
up at the floating stars, but he now raised himself on his elbow and
looked out to sea. He was not one of the village boys, but his people
came down every summer for two months, and I had known him all my life.
“My mother gets frightened when she hears it,” he went on.
There was a pause, and then the sound came again, floating up, weird
and mysterious, as from somewhere far out on the water. We drew closer
round the fire, and began again to talk, but the conversation had grown
darker.
“It was here that the murder was,” said another boy, hidden in the
shadow of the rock, so that his voice seemed a disembodied sound
speaking out of the darkness.
“Just over there,” said George Edge.
“What murder?” asked Gerald.
The voice from the shadow spoke again. “It was a man called Dewar.
There was two of them comin’ home one winter afternoon from Annalong,
O’Brian and Dewar. O’Brian had been gettin’ money, and they both had
their load of drink. It was dirty weather and no one on the road, and
maybe they fell out about somethin’. Any way, next day they got O’Brian
down below there on the stones, his face bashed in you wouldn’t know
him. Him and Dewar were seen leavin’ Annalong together, and they got
Dewar lying drunk in his own house, and he confessed and was hung for
it.”
“But how did he do it?” Gerald asked.
“He smashed him on the face with a lump of rock, and then threw him
down into the sea. They say there are nights when you can hear O’Brian.
It’s like this.” He gave a low wail that shrilled up to a cry.
“I’m goin’ home,” said Willie Breen, rising to his feet.
“Wee scaldy! You’ll have to go by yourself,” jeered Sam. “And you’ll
meet him as sure as death. You’ll know him, because he won’t have any
face on him, only a lock of blood. And Dewar with him, with his neck
broke.” Sam’s head drooped horribly to his shoulder.
Willie Breen sat down.
“When you talk about ghosts or spirits it’s supposed to bring them
near,” said George Edge. “It gives them a kind of power over you.”
“For goodness sake stop all that rubbish,” cried Katherine, indignantly.
“Can’t you see you’re frightening the child out of his wits!”
“Go to her, baby. Hold her hand,” mocked Sam.
Willie turned angrily on his protectress. “I’m not frightened. It’s you
that’s frightened. You shouldn’t be here at all. There shouldn’t be any
women in the club.”
“Faith, he’s right there!” Sam exclaimed.
But George Edge, sitting up, pointed out to sea. “Listen,” he said
impressively.
We all sat still, Willie Breen with wide-open eyes. A moment after,
with a blade of grass between his thumbs, Sam made an unearthly screech
in the little boy’s ear. It was too much, and Willie set up a howl.
At the same instant Katherine turned to Sam and he received a
resounding slap on his fat face. Instantly there was tumult. Sam was
on his feet, red as a turkey-cock, blustering of all he would do if
Katherine were not a girl. Then he spied Gerald, and gave him a blow
on the chest that almost sent him into the fire. “That’s for you, you
‘get.’”
Gerald drew back, neither speaking, nor returning the blow: the other
boys had surrounded them. I saw Gerald’s face, and it was very white;
but he did nothing, he was afraid. That he should be disgusted me, and
at the same time I was furious with Sam, whom, for that matter, I had
always detested. I waited just long enough to give Gerald a chance to
face him, if he wanted to; then I gave Sam a slap with my open hand on
his cheek. It was the second he had received within two minutes, and
somehow, even in the excitement, I couldn’t help being amused.
We stripped to our shirts and trousers and moved out into the
moonlight. Katherine hovered in the background, but made no attempt
either to interfere or to go away. Gerald had disappeared. I looked at
Sam’s big fists. I knew he was taller and heavier than I was, but I was
not afraid of him; instead, I had a cold determination to lick him. I
felt elated; I was glad Gerald had drawn back, since it gave me this
chance of showing Katherine what a hero I was. We chose seconds, and
there was a time-keeper, though no one had a watch, for mine was wound
up and safe under my pillow at home. We had little science, but were
mortally in earnest.
At the beginning of the second round the nervous tremor of Sam’s
mouth as he stepped into the ring gave me a cruel pleasure. I did not
believe very much in his pluck, and I was now quite confident as to
the finish. It was in the middle of the third round, and we were both
panting and bleeding, when Michael, the policeman, appeared on the
scene, springing up as if from the bowels of the earth. How he came to
be out of bed at such an hour, and in this particular spot, I never
discovered, but he stepped in between us and stopped the fight.
“Well now, this is nice goings on! Will you tell me what it’s all
about?”
“You go quietly to hell,” said Sam in a low voice.
The others chimed in. “It’s none of your business, Michael, we’re not
in the town.”
“Do you tell me that, now? Well, I’ll be troubling you to go home to
your beds every one of yous. This is no place for you, Miss,” he added,
having discovered Katherine in the background, “with a lot of young
rapscallions. I’ll see you safe home.”
But Katherine did not move.
“Let them finish, Michael. Nobody’ll ever know you were here. There’ll
be no talk.”
Michael wavered. The presence of Katherine obviously both troubled and
puzzled him, for of course he knew who she was. He turned to her again,
but she had withdrawn into the shadow of the rocks, whither he followed
her, and they whispered together in inaudible tones. Then he came back.
Katherine had disappeared; possibly she had followed Gerald, who would
hardly have gone very far without her; at any rate I could not look
after her now.
“Well, I suppose you’ll be wanting to settle this,” said Michael,
doubtfully.
His words were received with an outburst of cheers and laughter. A
faint greyness of dawn was already spreading over the eastern sky.
“Time!” called George Edge, and I noticed that he had actually borrowed
Michael’s big silver watch.
CHAPTER XIV
Next morning I got a rowing up from my father. Indeed, as soon as I
saw my face in the glass, I knew it would be quite useless to try to
hide what had happened, and I told him frankly I had been fighting.
Fortunately, it was not necessary for me to say anything about our
club, nor did I even mention Sam’s name. I simply told him that the
fight had taken place at night to prevent its being stopped, and
after that held my peace. My main feeling, in spite of my father’s
lecture, was that I was extraordinarily glad it _had_ taken place, for
I had come out of it victorious, even though I was pretty sure I had
received more punishment than I had given. My state of mind absurdly
resembled that of a young cock who gets up on a wall to crow, and
nothing my father could say had the least power to damp my spirits. My
face――especially all round my forehead and temples――was beautifully and
variously marked, yet there was nothing I more ardently desired than
that Katherine should see me in this condition. I even felt amicably
disposed towards Gerald, who, after all, couldn’t help being a coward.
Perhaps he would come round this morning to see how I had fared.
But nobody came, and in the afternoon I determined to go up to
Derryaghy. Willie Breen, who now regarded me in the light of a hero,
accompanied me. When I left him at the lodge-gate, instead of going to
the hall-door, I went round to the back of the house, hoping to find
Katherine on the terrace. She was not there; nobody was there but Miss
Dick, who cried out at once on seeing my battered condition. Her tone
was certainly far enough removed from that of Willie Breen to have
cooled my conceit had such a thing been possible, but fortunately she
was too much occupied with a letter she kept folding and unfolding to
bestow any very lengthy attention on my appearance. “My sister, Mrs.
Arthur Jenkins,” she began, not because I was worthy of her confidence,
but because there was nobody else, “wants me to go and stay with her. I
don’t know what to do. Mrs. Carroll may not be able to spare me; though
I haven’t been there for a long time.”
“Oh, you ought to go,” I said easily. “Where is everybody?” I looked
round, preparatory to making my escape. Miss Dick regarded me
doubtfully.
“The last time I was there the youngest child had croup. They were very
anxious about him; indeed the doctor almost gave him up; though he
managed to pull through in the end, and is quite strong now. Not that
any of them are actually what you would call robust. They really take
after Arthur, Mr. Jenkins that is, though Sissie, that’s my sister,
always says _he’s_ stronger than he looks. I’m sure I hope so, for he
looks wretched. The whole family, you know, the whole Jenkins family
I mean, are vegetarians, and vegetarians, whatever they may feel,
invariably _look_ ill. When I say that to Sissie she always gets cross,
as if I could help it! But that’s what people are like. Arthur wants
to bring up the children in the same way, which is silly, and, to my
mind, trifling with their lives. Besides, it’s so difficult when you’ve
only one maid who has to do everything: and they only give fourteen,
and what can you get for fourteen nowadays, even in the country?
You certainly can’t expect a girl like that to cook two dinners a
day, because, you see, Sissie eats meat.” She stopped suddenly, as
if she had lost the thread of her discourse. “We’re all going to a
garden-party at Castlewellan. I’m just waiting for the others. Except
Gerald――he won’t come. You’ll find him over there,”――she waved her
left hand. “He’s put up a hammock and he’s been sleeping in it all
day. He’s dreadfully lazy. He won’t even practise. And though he’s so
polite and gentlemanly, I must say he’s really rather irritable: he got
quite cross at lunch. I don’t think Katherine understands him. People
with very artistic feelings, I’m sure, _are_ more easily annoyed than
others. It’s not as if he were just an ordinary person like you or me.”
Whether I was an ordinary person or not, I didn’t relish being told so,
even by Miss Dick, and I decided, as I had frequently decided before,
that she was a stupid creature, and that I didn’t like her. I left
her referring to the epistle from Mrs. Arthur Jenkins, or Sissie, or
whatever she was called, and went to look for Gerald.
He had heard me coming, for when I found him he had swung himself out
of his hammock and was standing beside it.
“Are the others gone yet?” he asked.
“They’re just starting. I only saw Miss Dick.”
“They’re going to some party, thank the Lord!”
“Yes; she told me.”
A pause followed, for I didn’t know what to say, and he himself kept
silence. What I had intended to do was to put him at his ease, to let
him know that it was all right about last night, but my magnanimity and
sympathy were evidently quite superfluous, and I was annoyed at this.
We strolled back slowly to the house. “Wouldn’t it be rather a good
time to play to me?” I said. “You promised to, and now we have the
place to ourselves.”
“If you like.”
We entered by the open window, and pulling the sofa over beside it, I
lay down in supreme laziness among a heap of coloured cushions. Gerald
went at once to the piano.
“What sort of music do you care for?” he asked me. “Or shall I just
play anything?”
“Yes; whatever you feel in the mood for.”
His head was bent a little over the key-board, and he seemed to be
thinking of what he should play. I watched a tendril of clematis that
waved softly over my head, and every now and again I breathed in
the sweet scent of a stalk of mignonette I had gathered in passing.
My thoughts floated away through the quiet afternoon, and I began
to wonder what things were like when there was no one there to be
conscious of them.
I know now that it was the fifteenth Prelude, but at the time I had
never even heard the name of Chopin, and all I was aware of was that
a soft, very delicate tune, was coming to me across the room, with a
curious pallor, suggestive of the whiteness of water. I half closed my
lids and lay absolutely still. Even in my ignorance I knew that the
beauty of Gerald’s playing was extraordinary. It may have had many
faults; he may have been incapable of doing all kinds of things that
professional pianists can do; he may have been, and probably was,
deficient in power: I do not know. He seemed to caress the notes rather
than to strike them, he seemed literally to draw the music out, and the
whole tone had a kind of liquid, singing quality, such as I have never
heard since save in the playing of Pachmann. As I listened, the music
gathered force and sombreness, growing louder and darker in a heavily
marked crescendo, and then once more it passed into the clear soft tune
with which it had begun.
The sound had stopped. I said nothing; I simply waited. The cool,
pleasant summer afternoon had become full of lovely voices which
flickered, like waves of coloured light, across my senses. Pensively,
a little shyly even, a simple, drooping melody breathed itself out on
the air with a strange hesitation and indecision, rising and falling,
faltering, repeating itself, resting on the “F” with a kind of desire
that gathered intensity as the note swelled and died away, sinking back
into “D.”
Listening to Gerald playing that sixth Nocturne, listening to him
playing all that followed it, you would have thought he was a youth
of the deepest feelings, yet I could never find any trace of those
feelings at any other time. Somewhere, I suppose, they must have been,
somewhere below the surface, but I was never able to discover them. It
was as if his soul only came into being when he sat down at a piano.
When he played you could see him listening to his own music, you could
see him drinking it up as if it were the perfume of my mignonette, as
if there were some finer echo audible only to himself. And his playing
would alter, would grow gayer, or a kind of weariness would creep into
it. I offer these only as the impressions I received at the time; what
I should receive now I cannot tell. Yet I find it hard to believe I was
utterly mistaken. It was never my fortune to hear him in later years,
when I had heard many famous pianists――and I suppose I have heard
practically all those of my time――but I cannot help thinking he might
have been among the greatest had he not chosen to be something else,
something I last saw at a café in Berlin. The puffed, horrible face,
the glazed, sodden eyes――no, there was no music there. Or if there was,
it was hidden, buried, lost for ever in that desecrated, half-paralysed
body, buried alive, like a lamp burning in a tomb. Now, I have nothing
to go upon save those first impressions of a boyish, uncultivated
taste, and the fact that in after years the playing of Vladimir de
Pachmann brought back sharply to me the memory of that afternoon.
He played on for nearly two hours. In the end he stopped abruptly and
got up from the piano, while I thanked him. I knew that he knew he had
given me a tremendous pleasure, and there was no need to say much. He
told me the music I had been listening to was all, or nearly all, by
one composer.
“And that last thing?” I asked.
“That was one of the Studies――the one in A flat. I can’t play anybody
else. I don’t mean that other things are more difficult, but they don’t
suit me.” He was silent, until he added, “I may as well tell you that
I’m not as good as you think.”
“I haven’t told you yet what I think,” I answered, smiling, for I
was still under the glamour of his mood, and indeed at that moment I
could have hugged him. I did not want to talk of ordinary things. The
music had wakened in me a feeling of melancholy, like a memory of some
delicious thing that had happened long ago, and would never happen
again.
I tried to explain my very tenuous ideas to Gerald, but they did not
interest him. And already I felt our relation altering. When he was at
the piano he had seemed to me a kind of angel; now that other element,
that element of latent antagonism, was beginning to re-awaken in me.
Tea had meanwhile been laid for us upon the terrace. Tony, who had
been asleep outside in the sun, threw off drowsiness like an outworn
garment, and sat up beside my chair, with raised head, and beautiful,
dark eyes that watched every movement I made, especially those which
happened to convey a piece of bread and butter or cake into my mouth.
When I looked at him he instantly gave half a dozen quick wags of his
tail, and then resumed his former attitude of motionless expectation,
to which attention was attracted by a variety of queer little highly
expressive noises he produced from somewhere in his throat. Nobody
being there to prevent me, I gave him about half the cake, piece by
piece, each of which he swallowed almost whole, and with a wag of the
tail to show how he appreciated this delicate pastime.
“Did you get much hurt last night?” Gerald asked me suddenly.
The question was unexpected, for I looked upon the whole incident as
closed. I glanced up from feeding Tony. “No; not much,” I answered.
“And the other――I forget his name――Sam something?”
“Oh, Sam’s all right.”
“Do you think I should have fought him?”
“One was enough,” I said carelessly.
“Did you think I was afraid?”
I looked away. His question seemed somehow to be all wrong. “I didn’t
think about it,” I answered, after a slight pause.
“It must have looked as if I were afraid,” he went on. “I thought so
afterwards.”
I couldn’t imagine what he was trying to get at. I wanted to stop him
talking like this. It was even less to my taste than his funking Sam
last night had been.
“Are you working at anything besides music?” I asked him, jerkily.
He shook his head. “Not very much. I have a tutor. Why won’t you talk
about last night?”
“What is there to talk about? I’m sorry it turned out that way, but I
can’t help it, though of course it was my fault for taking you without
letting the others know. I should have told them beforehand.”
“I’m not afraid of that lout, anyway. If I see him again――――”
“Oh, well, what’s the use of worrying about it?” I interrupted,
disgusted with his persistence.
The pause that followed was an uncomfortable one. If he had deliberately
tried to efface the impression his music had made upon me he could not
have succeeded better.
He gave a strange little laugh. “I see you don’t believe me.”
“No: I don’t believe you,” I answered bluntly, “and I don’t know why
you should want me to.”
“I suppose you think it is pleasant to be taken for a coward?”
“I’m sure it isn’t pleasant; but I can’t imagine that it matters
greatly to you what I think.”
“Of course, if I hadn’t done what I did, you wouldn’t have had _your_
particular little swagger!”
“Isn’t that rather a rotten sort of thing to say?” I answered as I got
up. “I think I’ll move on. Come, Tony.”
Gerald began to apologize.
“Oh, it’s all right,” I said, coldly, leaving him there.
CHAPTER XV
Katherine, who had promised to sit to me for her portrait, kept putting
me off from day to day, and it was nearly a week later when I made my
first attempt. By some happy chance on that particular afternoon I had
found her alone, for as a rule Gerald was there, and even now it was
almost as if he were with us, since she began at once to talk about him.
“You must take off your hat,” I said, ignoring her remarks.
She obeyed me, and I began to draw in my outline.
“Gerald likes you,” she said. “I wish you would be friends with him.”
“But I am friends with him,” I answered, abstractedly.
“Not very much. You would rather he was not with us.”
“That doesn’t mean I’m not friends with him.”
“He has so few friends,” she went on, still clinging to the subject.
“Has he? I’m afraid, no matter how much I tried, we could never really
be chums.”
“Why?”
“I don’t understand him.”
“Why don’t you understand him?”
“I suppose because I’m stupid. Besides, what I do understand I don’t
greatly like.”
She was not offended; she simply asked, “What is the matter with him?”
I feared I had been horribly rude, but the words had slipped out before
I could check them. “There is nothing the matter with him,” I answered
hastily. “I wasn’t thinking of what I was saying. It is only that――that
we’re not suited to each other: we’re too different. At all events, it
is of very little importance, seeing that you’re going away in a few
days.”
“We’ll be back again next year, I expect. Aunt Clara wants me to come.
_She_ isn’t very friendly to Gerald either.”
“Oh, you only fancy that; of course she is. And there’s Miss Dick, who
worships the very ground he walks on.”
“Miss Dick’s too silly for anything.”
“There you are! And yet you want me to worship him too!”
“I don’t want anything of the kind; and you know that. But of course if
you don’t like him I can’t make you. I think that night――the night we
went with you to your meeting――has something to do with it.”
“Oh that!” I answered lightly. It seemed to me a long time ago, though
there was a yellow bruise still visible above my left eyebrow.
I finished my outline and began to paint. The other picture had been
painted indoors, I reflected. I don’t know what made me think of it,
but I couldn’t get it out of my mind. It kept floating between me and
my work, and I seemed to see it quite as clearly as I saw Katherine
herself. Still I persevered, though my progress was slow and from the
beginning unsatisfactory. I talked to Katherine, or rather I replied to
her, for what she said penetrated only the fringe of my consciousness.
She had brought a book out with her, and by and by she began to
read aloud, but I have no idea what it was she read. I painted away
most diligently, yet all the time I couldn’t get rid of a foolish
impression that I was being watched. And this fancy, utterly absurd if
you like, took possession of me, grew stronger and stronger, till it
seemed to tremble on the verge of reality.
“What are you looking at?” Katherine asked me suddenly, having reached,
I suppose, the end of a chapter or a story.
“Nothing,” I answered guiltily.
But she wheeled round in her chair, and stared back at the house. I
dipped my brush in water, and remarked quite quietly, “It’s only that
I thought I saw someone at the window――the third window from the left,
upstairs.”
Katherine shaded her eyes with her hand. “I can’t see anybody: the sun
catches the glass. It must be one of the maids, for there’s nobody else
in.” She yawned and took up the book again. “If it _is_ one of the
maids,” she added, “she might have had sufficient sense to bring us out
tea. I’ve been simply dying for some for the last half-hour, only I
didn’t like to disturb you.”
“She hasn’t been there half an hour,” I replied. “I’ll go and tell
them. Promise you won’t look at what I’ve done while I’m away: it isn’t
finished.”
“All right. I must see it when it _is_ though: you’re not to tear it up
or anything.”
“No, of course not.”
I walked back to the house, and not till I was quite close did I glance
up at the windows above me. Naturally there was nothing. I hesitated
in the hall. Had I been really sincere in thinking I had seen anything
or not? I couldn’t be quite sure, for there was no doubt I often
deliberately gave my imagination a kind of push in a certain definite
direction, started it off, as it were, and then left it to perform
all kinds of antics. Before me lay the broad, low staircase. Should
I go up? I leaned against the balusters and listened, gazing aloft
into the cool shadow. Suddenly I heard a door open near the kitchen,
then the rustle of a dress, and one of the servants appeared. I told
her that Miss Dale would like tea brought outside, and went into the
morning-room myself for a small folding-table, which I carried back
with me.
I looked again at my drawing. “Tea will be here in a minute or two,” I
said. Then I handed the drawing to Katherine, for it was a failure, and
there was no use going on with it.
“Don’t hold it so close to you,” I cried, and Katherine obediently
stretched out her arm full length.
“I think it’s quite good, you know, if it wasn’t meant to be my
portrait,――but it’s no more like me than Adam.”
“Don’t be so rude. Of course it’s like you.”
A servant appeared with a tea-tray, and as soon as she was gone I
seated myself on the grass at Katherine’s feet. When I had finished tea
and had handed her back my empty cup I still sat there.
“Do you see that strip of yellow sand down below? It always reminds me
of a certain poem.”
I knew Katherine was not fond of poetry; she had told me so herself;
but I repeated the verses aloud for my own pleasure, in a sort of
sing-song, laying tremendous stress on the rhymes.
“It was many and many a year ago,
In a kingdom by the sea,
That a maiden there lived whom you may know
By the name of Annabel Lee;
And this maiden she lived with no other thought
Than to love and be loved by me.
“_I_ was a child and _she_ was a child,
In this kingdom by the sea;
But we loved with a love that was more than love――
I and my Annabel Lee;
With a love that the winged seraphs of heaven
Coveted her and me.
“And this was the reason that, long ago,
In this kingdom by the sea,
A wind blew out of a cloud, chilling
My beautiful Annabel Lee;
So that her highborn kinsmen came
And bore her away from me,
To shut her up in a sepulchre
In this kingdom by the sea.
“The angels, not half so happy in heaven,
Went envying her and me――
Yes!――that was the reason (as all men know
In this kingdom by the sea)
That the wind came out of the cloud by night,
Chilling and killing my Annabel Lee.
“But our love it was stronger by far than the love
Of those who were older than we――
Of many far wiser than we――
And neither the angels in heaven above,
Nor the demons down under the sea,
Can ever dissever my soul from the soul
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee:
“For the moon never beams, without bringing me dreams
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;
And the stars never rise, but I feel the bright eyes
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;
And so all the night-tide, I lie down by the side
Of my darling――my darling――my life and my bride,
In her sepulchre there by the sea,
In her tomb by the side of the sea.”
I looked up at Katherine and saw that she was smiling. “It was written
about this place,” I declared, “about just that strip of yellow sand
and that blue sea.”
“And about just this little boy,” said Katherine, stroking my hair back
from my forehead.
“Just this little boy,” I answered, narrowing my eyes under her touch,
“whom you think such a very little boy indeed.”
“Such a dear little boy,” murmured Katherine, lulling me with her
voice, and all the time stroking my hair.
“Is he dear?” I asked eagerly.
“I think so.”
“And you like him?”
“I like him very much.”
“How much? What do you like about him?”
She laughed. “I like everything about him?”
“But what?”
“The way he is: the way he looks: the way he pouts when he is cross:
the kind of things he says: the way he asks questions: even the way he
hesitates before some letters, so that you can see what he is going to
say in his eyes before he can get it out.”
I was intensely happy. I leaned back my head, and Katherine’s dark
blue eyes looked straight down into mine. I could see nothing but that
clear dark blue which seemed to shut me out from the world, yet I knew
she was smiling. Then she bent lower and her lips lightly touched my
forehead.
Almost at the same moment I heard the swish of petticoats rustling over
the grass from behind. I sat up straight, but did not look round till
the rattle of tea-cups had ceased, and the servant who was bearing them
off had almost reached the house.
“Gracious! I hope she didn’t see me kissing you!” said Katherine,
half-laughing.
“What matter?”
“Of course it matters; and it’s your fault too, for pretending to be a
little boy and all that nonsense. I’m sure she’s telling the cook about
it at this moment. _She_ doesn’t think you’re a little boy. Get up at
once.”
I knew Katherine wasn’t really much perturbed, but I got up and began
to put away my colours, and we went back to the house. I left my
painting materials on the window-sill, and, having made Katherine a
present of my drawing, we strolled down to the shore. As we walked
along the hard sand by the edge of the sea I wanted to tell her how
much I cared for her. It was an admirable opportunity, and, if I could
only get the first plunge over, I knew it would be all right. But I
couldn’t. White sea-gulls were swooping and wheeling over the dark
blue water, calling their peculiar lonely cry, and the foam of the
waves was white as snow. “I _will_ tell her: I _will_ tell her,” I kept
repeating to my soul; and all the time I maintained a most discreet
silence on the subject, and babbled instead of the regatta that would
take place on Saturday, and of the chance of a fine day. I had entered
for two swimming-races and a diving-competition, and Katherine was
coming to see me. I kept on talking about this, though I knew very well
everything would happen exactly as it had happened last year; that in
the swimming-races George Edge would be first and I should be second,
and that I should win the diving-competition; and moreover I didn’t in
the least care just then whether the regatta took place or not.
CHAPTER XVI
As a matter of fact I didn’t win the diving-competition; I wasn’t even
second; and my defeat was brought about simply by my own exceeding
eagerness to show off.
On that Saturday the village was a holiday village. The men and boys
perspired freely under heavy, ugly, Sunday clothes, and the women and
girls were decked out in all kinds of finery――bright dresses, trinkets,
ribbons, and cheap but brilliant hats. Why was it, I wondered, that all
these fine garments should have been chosen apparently for a mysterious
property they had of bringing out in the appearance of their wearers
a coarseness I never noticed on ordinary occasions? Sam Geoghegan’s
salmon-pink tie, Mr. McCann’s fancy waistcoat, the peacock-blue
dress of Annie Breen, with its white lace collar――these were things
positively bewildering, if one realized that they represented the
actual taste of the persons they adorned.
Every year the same programme was followed. In the morning the
water-races――boat-races and swimming-races――took place; in the
afternoon there were sports――foot-races, tugs-of-war, wrestling――held
in one of Mrs. Carroll’s fields.
I drifted about in the crowd with a group of boys. Our swimming-races
came off fairly early, but I was only third in each, and George Edge
second, for a youth, whom neither of us had ever seen or heard of
before, turned up and carried off both first prizes. This made me
anxious about the diving-competition, which he had also entered for.
We were to go in off the end of the pier, where a platform with a
spring-board had been erected for us. Then, when we had dived, we swam
round to the ladder and climbed up to take our turn again. It was the
last event but one of the morning’s programme, and had always been the
most popular. When the hour for it came round, having learned in the
meantime from some of the spectators that the victorious stranger was a
poor diver, I had regained confidence, and, as the crowd drew in closer
to watch us, I was fully prepared to show them what was what. As a
matter of fact, my first two dives were all right, but, before my third
and last, I caught sight of Katherine standing quite close to me, and
the result of this was that I determined to excel anything ever seen.
I took a tremendous race the full length of the platform, but, just at
the end of the spring-board, my foot slipped and I sprawled in flat on
my belly. The shock knocked all the wind out of me, and the smack I
gave the water could have been heard half a mile away. It was extremely
painful, and it put me out of the competition; yet when I clambered
up the iron ladder I was greeted by volleys of laughter and humorous
remarks. My accident, indeed, appeared to be by far the most enjoyable
event of the morning. It did not seem to occur to anybody, except one
of the stewards, that I might be badly hurt, and him, when he came to
ask me if I were all right, I sent about his business. I put on my
overcoat and went to the dressing-shed in a furious temper.
The field where the sports took place lay about a mile out of
the village. Mrs. Carroll and some other ladies were dispensing
refreshments to all comers, and afterwards the prizes would be given
out. I went up to Derryaghy to call for Katherine and Gerald, to go
with them, but found they were going to ride over, and were all ready
to start when I arrived. It was the first time I had seen Katherine
on horseback, and she looked to me more beautiful than ever. In her
dark-blue riding-habit, with her sparkling eyes and rosy cheeks,
her radiant youth and health, she made me think of the girl in the
equestrian portrait by Millais and Landseer, a coloured reproduction
of which I had cut out of a Christmas number and tacked up on the wall
in my bedroom. And straightway I saw in myself the page-boy who stands
by the gateway in that picture, his eyes fixed in rapt admiration upon
his mistress. They rode away, an amazingly handsome pair, telling me
they would see me later up at the field, and to this I answered, “Yes.”
Mrs. Carroll and Miss Dick had already gone on in the carriage, so I
was left quite alone. I decided immediately that I wouldn’t go to the
sports: if they chose to leave me like this I wasn’t going to run after
them. I mooned about, building a romance on the equestrian portrait
_motif_. I imagined myself as dying; some accident had happened to me,
and suddenly Katherine rode up and springing down from her horse threw
her arms round me, kneeling in the blood and dust of the road. She
kissed me passionately, careless of all the people who watched her,
repeating again and again, “I love you――I love you――I love you.”
I gloated over this imaginary scene till I had squeezed the last drop
of colour out of it, and it ceased, by dint of much repetition, to
thrill me even faintly: then I went into the house and nosed about for
a book. A dozen had just come down from the library in town, and, with
a couple of volumes of “Two on a Tower” under my arm, I made my way to
the shore.
Gradually, in the warmth of the sunlight, I grew drowsy, and the
beautiful, breaking sea, and the harsh crying of the gulls, soothed
me and seemed to build up an enchanted world about me, where I was
shut in with the romance of the tale I was reading. By and by, after
perhaps two hours, I closed my book, though still keeping my finger
in the place. I reflected that nobody up at the field had spent such
an afternoon as I had spent, and I compared my spiritual pleasure with
their rough commonplace pleasures, and the extraordinary superiority
of my soul became immediately apparent. Then my thoughts turned to
the story I had been reading. My sympathies were entirely enlisted by
Lady Constantine and her youthful astronomer, but particularly by Lady
Constantine. Even the fact that she was so much older than her lover
appealed to me. Her gentleness; her intense femininity; her dark eyes;
the softness of her skin; the perfume of her hair; and the delight of
her caresses――these were present to me vividly, almost physically, and
I rejoiced in the love-scenes in the tower with a frank and innocent
sensuality, filling in the picture, where it was blurred or vague, from
my own imaginings.
CHAPTER XVII
During that last week of August, after the Dales had left, “I wandered
lonely as a cloud.” Up to the eve of their departure I had been happier
than I had ever been in my life, but as soon as they were gone I became
a prey to sentimental regret. If Katherine had cared for me as I cared
for her I might have found more comfort; but she didn’t, and I was
perfectly aware of the fact. Mingled with it all was an increasing
dread of the new existence I already saw opening out before me. I
distrusted it: I had, indeed, that instinctive distrust of life itself,
which contemplates anything unknown with uneasiness, and clings with
passion to familiar faces and things.
When the day of my departure, a Saturday, came round, and I saw my
box all corded and ready in the hall, I felt extremely depressed. Now
that I had said good-bye to Mrs. Carroll it was as if I had cut myself
completely adrift from the past, and yet I believe I should have been
willing to go had I not been going to the McAllisters. The McAllisters
were our relations; the only ones I knew of. Aunt Margaret was my
father’s sister, and her husband kept a shop in a street called Cromac
Street. I had never been to their house, but they had been down a good
many times to visit us, and I did not care for them. There were four
children, and I disliked them all, except George, the eldest; and I
disliked Aunt Margaret in particular; while to Uncle George I was
indifferent, seeing that he did not very much count one way or the
other. But to live with them!...
Mrs. Carroll had wanted to send me to a school in England, but my
father would not permit this. He had an idea, and nothing would ever
shake it, that English public schools were dens of iniquity. This he
had gathered from some article that had appeared in a review, and from
the story “Eric.” I suppose he thought I should fall a particularly
easy victim to the temptations I might be submitted to; take, like the
boys in “Eric,” to drink, “little by little,” or even quite rapidly;
come home disgraced; at any rate he would not run the risk, when, by
sending me to the McAllisters, he could provide me with the “influence
of a religious home.” For Uncle George was religious, and so was Aunt
Margaret; and so, I supposed, were the children――George, at least, I
had been told, was a communicant――and it was the thought of all this
that now lay heavy on my soul.
I was not to go up to town till the afternoon, and as we sat down to
our early dinner I could not, though I knew it was absolutely useless,
refrain from again taking up the tabooed subject. I suggested how much
better it would be for me to go into lodgings of my own choosing. If
they were more expensive, Mrs. Carroll would not mind. “Whether she
would mind or not,” my father answered, “I should have thought you
would not have wanted to put her to any unnecessary expense.”
“But she wouldn’t mind doing it,” I repeated, obstinately. “She told
you she wanted to.”
“You know very well that is not the question,” my father said, more
coldly. “I have explained why I think it better that you should be
with those who will look after you. You are not old enough to be by
yourself.”
“I don’t like the McAllisters,” I answered, sullenly.
My father looked annoyed. “Perhaps you think they are not good enough
for you?”
“They certainly aren’t,” I replied.
It was a pity that our last meal together should have been somewhat
embittered by these remarks, but it was not altogether my fault. For
my father had been too extreme in his measures. Under the impression
that what I needed was to get into surroundings which would more or
less counteract the supposed relaxing influence of Mrs. Carroll’s
indulgence, he had arranged that I was not even to come home for
weekends, but was to submit myself during the entire term to the
bracing effect of the McAllister family.
No more was said upon the subject, and my father gave me after dinner
a little book, called “Daily Light,” which I promised to read every
night and morning. He came to the station to see me off, and, as we
were far too early, he was obliged to stand for a quarter of an hour
at the window of the carriage, while I longed for the train to start,
and we both tried hard to find something to say. I was tormented by an
uncertainty as to whether he would expect me to kiss him when I said
good-bye. At the sound of the guard’s whistle I thrust out my hand. We
shook hands; that was all; and, with the train beginning to move out of
the station, I sat back in the corner of the empty third-class carriage.
I had a sense of leaving everything behind me, as if I had been
starting for the world’s end; and, curiously enough, as much as, or
more than, by any human face, I was haunted by a vision of the house.
I had forsaken it, and I felt its low, faint call coming to me through
the rain. I could see the silent, closed rooms upstairs, the long
passage with its rows of brown portraits and the tall window at the
end, and it was as if a dust were dropping down upon these things,
covering them to sleep till I should return. The shadowy ghosts slipped
back into their picture-frames; gradually the life died out of their
eyes; and a cold, unbroken silence, like the chill of death, closed
over all that hidden under-world. Outside the apples had begun to
redden on the high brick walls of the fruit-garden, but within the
house all was frozen and lifeless. They were my spirits, my ghosts, and
could live only while I loved them. I loved them still, but I was too
far away, and I might not find them when I came back.
The landscape gliding past me showed through a fine, grayish mist. It
was cold, and I pulled up the windows, which almost immediately became
covered with the same mist that drifted in the air outside. I wondered
where Katherine was, and what she was doing. I had not heard from her,
though I had written twice. Then I lay back in my uncomfortable corner
and tried to think of nothing.
CHAPTER XVIII
At the other end I was met by my cousin George, a big, red-haired
hobbledehoy of seventeen, with a curiously small face, bright brown
eyes with a reddish light in them, and a freckled skin. George, I
remembered, used to be amusing, and when I saw him standing on the
platform my spirits rose a little. He proposed that I should send on my
luggage, and that we ourselves should walk, as he wanted to make a call
on the way. When we had arranged this we set out. I had not been so
frequently in Belfast that I did not take an interest in the streets.
Just now, it being Saturday afternoon, they were full of people, and
at the end of the Queen’s Bridge some kind of noisy meeting――religious
or political――was in full swing, but we did not stop to listen.
Presently we turned to our left into a long straight street lined with
unattractive, unprosperous-looking shops, and so narrow that in one
place there was not room for two trams to pass. There was a liberal
sprinkling of public-houses, of cheap clothiers and greengrocers, while
here and there the gilded sign of a pawnbroker hung out over the greasy
pavement. I was about to ask why we had chosen such a disagreeable
route, when George touched my arm and said cheerfully, “Here we are.”
“Here!” I echoed, with involuntary dismay. “But――――”
“We live over the shop,” George explained. He had noticed my surprise,
however, and had coloured.
I pretended to have been only astonished that we had reached our
journey’s end so quickly, but I don’t know that George was deceived.
Inwardly I was furious with my father for arranging for me to come to
live in such a place, with a public lavatory hardly ten yards away, and
facing the windows. The crowded street, the mean, dingy houses, the
mean, dingy people, the noise and rattle of innumerable trams: it was
all disgusting, even beyond my expectations! And I was to live here! I
simply wouldn’t do it.
“We haven’t been here very long,” George continued. “We used to be
round in Shaftesbury Square.” Then, as I stood motionless on the
pavement, “Aren’t you coming in?”
I followed him into the shop in silence. As he pushed open the door a
bell answered with a clear, decisive ping. There was a shop on either
side of the passage――one stocked with pipes, tobacco, cigarettes, and
sweets; the other with newspapers, stationery, and cheap editions of
books in hideous paper bindings. In the tobacco department there was
nobody; in the stationery department a girl was moving about, fixing
things. She turned round on our entrance and George introduced me: “My
cousin, Mr. Peter Waring, Miss Izzy.”
Miss Izzy and I shook hands. She smiled brightly upon me and hoped I
was in good health. She evidently knew all about me, and had no need of
George’s introduction. I observed that she had a lot of glossy, brown
hair, which she wore twisted up in a coil on the top of her head in a
way I had never seen hair arranged before, and which was kept in its
place by long things like skewers, with large coloured balls at their
ends. She wore a pince-nez, and was neatly dressed in dark blue, with
a white linen collar and white cuffs, rather mannish in type. It was
very plain to me that Miss Izzy had a great deal of style. She had
also good features, but her femininity had been slightly eclipsed by
a tremendous air of business efficiency, and by the severity of her
pince-nez. I had never yet seen anybody nearly so business-like as Miss
Izzy looked, and if I had been an employer of labour I should have
engaged her as manager at a large salary on the spot. Through the open
door there came the shrill angry voices of small boys playing football
in an alley at the side of the house. There was a squabble in progress,
a cross-fire of abusive language suddenly broken by cries of, “Start a
new match――Start a new match.”
George was standing against the counter, and had begun to pick his
teeth with a pin extracted from the bottom of his waistcoat. Miss Izzy
went back to her task of arranging a pile of new books, evidently
just come in. She was working out an elaborate pattern with their
pictured covers, and as she did so she read the titles aloud. “‘The
Hour of Vengeance,’” she proclaimed. “‘In Love’s Sweet Bondage,’”
she added, more dreamily. “‘The Clue of the Broken Ruby’; ‘Cynthia
Cyrilhurst’――it’s well for people that have names like that!”
“I don’t think much of it,” said George.
Miss Izzy sighed, “It’s better than some, any way.”
“Don’t you like your own name?” I ventured.
“My Christian name’s all right. But there’s no use being called Althea,
if it isn’t going to be backed up by anything! Althea Izzy is neither
one thing nor another.”
“You can easily remedy that!” declared George, gallantly, from the
midst of his dental experiments.
Miss Izzy scrutinised him. “It wouldn’t be McAllister that would do
it,” she said.
But George continued placidly to attend to his teeth. “I hear Miss
Johnson’s getting married at eight o’clock next Friday,” he remarked.
Miss Izzy bounced round, knocking over a box of note-paper. “How do
_you_ know?” she demanded, glaring at him.
“Oh, I just heard,” said George, calmly. He carefully inspected the pin
before returning it to his waistcoat.
“‘Just heard!’――through the key-hole, I suppose. It strikes me you
‘just hear’ a deal you’re not meant to. And they don’t want it talked
about――mind that!”
“Why don’t they want it talked about,” I asked.
“Because they want a quiet wedding. She’s in a bakery, and he’s a clerk
in Nicholl’s, and, if it got out, the church would be full.”
The conversation was at this point interrupted by the entrance of
Uncle George, who appeared in the doorway, coming in from the street.
He was a quiet, gray little man, and his movements always reminded me
of those of a small dog in a strange room, wandering about, sniffing
furtively at the legs of chairs and tables. He was timid, and when
he spoke to you he rubbed his hands together with an affectation of
cheerfulness that was directly contradicted by his dark, melancholy
eyes. He had always struck me as being kind in his intentions, and I
regretted that they had seemed to count for so little when opposed to
Aunt Margaret’s. Uncle George was afraid of Aunt Margaret. He had an
air of assuming that there was perfect harmony between them, but I had
noticed that he rarely made a remark in her presence without glancing
at her to see how she would take it. He reminded me of one of those old
photographs one discovers at the backs of frames, their features almost
obliterated from long exposure. His whole face, indeed, in its pale
irregularity, had a suggestion of vagueness, as if it had been softly
sponged over. His manner too――there was something in it which seemed to
blur, to rub out, the impression of everything he said. His mind was
lit by a kind of twilight in which the outlines of things were lost, in
which opposites ceased to be contradictory, and impossibilities found
a friendly shelter. And this twilight was reflected in his eyes, in
their vague credulity, in the mildness of his glance, which peeped
out innocently from under ridiculously fierce and bushy eyebrows. I
knew Uncle George had failed in his business some years ago, and it was
difficult to believe that he could ever be successful. His interest
was not primarily in such things, but in the church, where he was a
more perpetual figure than the minister, and in the church meetings,
which he never missed, and which he sometimes even got up. I rather
liked him; there was something about him that made it easy to talk to
him; and though he was desperately religious, and held the same severe
doctrines as my father, his nature was so little aggressive that in
practice he was the most kindly and human creature in the world.
“How are you?” he asked, shaking my hand. “We’re very glad to see you.
How’s your father?” His left eye twitched slightly while he talked,
giving him a comical appearance of winking very knowingly.
“Quite well, thank you,” I answered.
“Haven’t you been upstairs yet? Haven’t you seen your Aunt Margaret?
Why didn’t you take him to see mother, George? Well, come along now,
it’s time for tea. I think you might leave the shop, Miss Izzy, and
come too――a special occasion, you know, a special occasion!” he laughed
and patted me on the shoulder.
“Thanks, I’ve had my tea already,” Miss Izzy returned, without
enthusiasm. “And you’re having yours upstairs to-night,” she added,
somewhat tartly, seeing him move in the wrong direction.
“Oh! In the parlour; in honour of this young man; a special occasion,
a special occasion!” He repeated his pleasantry, chuckling softly and
rubbing his hands, while it was all I could do to keep from returning
his friendly and unconscious wink.
“I’d rather stay here than run up and down stairs every time the bell
rings,” Miss Izzy continued, the invitation to tea evidently rankling
in her mind. From behind his father’s back George blew a kiss to her.
Aunt Margaret welcomed me without effusion. She was an enormous woman,
dark, middle-aged, and with a peculiar smile that always made me feel
uneasy. Her lips parted and her teeth became visible, but otherwise
her face underwent no change, the expression in her hard, shining,
black eyes did not alter. It was, somehow, not a smile at all, but a
grimace, and disappeared with a startling suddenness, leaving no trace
behind it. When her face was at rest, her lips drew in, as if by some
mysterious suction. She wore a wig, and it was this I think that helped
to make her look peculiar, and even slightly uncanny. I had been told
that she suffered from some obscure, internal disease, which at times
caused her great pain, but though she was white and fat and puffy,
she presented no appearance of being an invalid. As she kissed me, a
ceremony I would gladly have dispensed with, I became conscious of a
vague, sickly odour, reminding me of the smell of a chemist’s shop.
Uncle George asked her if tea would soon be ready, but she gave him
no answer; she only smiled in her strange fashion, and began to
question me about my father and my journey――one would have thought I
had been travelling all day. Two small boys held her by her voluminous
skirts, my cousins, Gordon and Thomas. They were about six or seven,
I suppose, and singularly unattractive, the kind of children who have
perpetual colds and are never provided with an adequate supply of
pocket-handkerchiefs.
I shook hands with Gordon and Thomas; I really couldn’t do anything
more; but their mother noticed my omission, for they had raised damp,
red-nosed, little faces to be kissed, and though she only smiled again,
I was convinced that already she had taken a dislike to me. Possibly
her dislike dated back to an earlier period than our present meeting,
but, with a boy’s subtle instinct, I was certain of its existence.
Just then the door opened and another child entered the room. This was
Alice, a little girl of ten. She completed the family, though there
had been several others, who had died in infancy. Alice I did not kiss
either. Looking up, I saw my aunt’s hard black eyes fixed upon me. I
gave her back stare for stare, without flinching, and she turned away,
with that curious, grimacing smile I now hated.
Alice herself did not appear to resent my coldness; she hung on to my
arm and laughed up at me as if we were the oldest friends in the world.
She was a strange, elf-like child, with a pale face and big black eyes
that were not hard like her mother’s. She looked as if she had been
allowed all her life to sit up too late. She was small for her age, and
extraordinarily fragile; she was like a little figure cut out of a Sime
drawing.
Meanwhile Uncle George, who had been out in the rain, and had removed
his boots, was sitting before the gas-stove, presenting the soles of
two large, gray-socked feet to the red bars. A light steam began to
rise from them, and Uncle George declared that his new boots must
“let in,” and that he had a good mind to take them back to the man he
had bought them from, and that it was too bad. I sat down near him
and talked to him, while I watched the steam float up from his feet.
Aunt Margaret was getting tea ready in another room, and little Alice
hovered behind my chair. Every now and again she leaned over the back
of it and said something. She brought a book to show me, and while I
looked at it she put her arms round my neck and kissed my cheek.
“Run away, Alice, and quit bothering Peter,” said Uncle George. “It’s
queer the way she’s taken to you,” he added in a gratified whisper.
“She’s usually that shy you couldn’t coax her out of a corner!” Alice
retreated, but almost immediately came back, and again put her arms
round me. She held her small white face close to mine and looked at
me with her great black eyes and smiled. She gave me an impression of
a little house haunted by queer and not altogether pleasant ghosts,
and yet somehow I felt sorry for her, and I stroked her thin hand that
rested on my sleeve, delicate and light as a leaf.
“You’re a lovely big boy,” she whispered in my ear, rubbing her face up
and down against my jacket, as if it had been the fur of an animal.
I couldn’t help laughing, and she cuddled close against me, her chin
on my shoulder. “She must be awfully nervous,” I thought, for the
thunderous approach of one of those hideous traction-engines, that I
was soon to find were a feature of the town, made her tremble.
When we sat down to tea Alice insisted on sitting beside me. I had
an idea, possibly suggested by Miss Izzy’s words, that the room we
were in was not often used. I hoped it wasn’t, for it was stuffy and
uncomfortable, and so small that you felt everywhere beneath the table
the warm proximity of other people’s limbs. I hated being cramped in
this way; it seemed to me that all the time I was breathing other
people’s breaths, and once I got this notion into my head I couldn’t
forget it. The furniture was cheap, flimsy, and uncomfortable. The
curtains, the gaudy vases, the hideous wall-paper, were of the
brightest and least accordant colours, and I even preferred our parlour
at home, where, if the things were not less ugly, there were fewer of
them. Several pictures hung on the walls, and one hung directly in
front of me. It was an engraving, and represented a young man in armour
visibly torn between a desire for virtue, embodied in a flaxen-haired
lady in floating white drapery, and a deplorable weakness for all that
another lady might be taken as symbolising. This latter person was a
brunette, and rather more scantily, though quite decently, draped. She
held a glass of champagne in her hand, waving it triumphantly aloft,
like a torch. I confess that the work fascinated me, for it was my
first acquaintance with the type of art it represented.
“A fine picture,” murmured Uncle George, seeing me gazing at it. “It’s
a Royal Academy picture that!”
I said nothing. I did not know what a Royal Academy picture was, nor
did I admire this example. It was not so much that the figures looked
like unsuccessful waxworks, as that the banality of the moral irritated
me. It was the first time I had ever seen art of this extremely ethical
character, and in its spirit it reminded me of my old friends in the
“Golden Ladder Series.”
I hoped tea would not last much longer. In the small room, the large
yellow slices of an extremely odoriferous cheese made the atmosphere
heavy and unpleasant. Moreover, when this cheese was offered to me
with hard, pink, sugared biscuits, I didn’t quite know what to do. I
had refused several things already, and I knew Aunt Margaret thought
I was turning up my nose at the food provided for me, and provided
specially, I could guess, from the behaviour of the others, because it
was my first night. So I accepted the cheese and sugared biscuits, and
struggled through them.
After tea George asked if we were going to have “worship” now or later?
We had it “now,” and as soon as we rose from our knees he suggested
that we should “go out for a bit.”
“Where are you going to?” Aunt Margaret inquired.
“Oh, I don’t know: up the street just. We can’t sit in the house all
the evenin’. It’s quite fine now.”
I was nothing loath, and clattered down the stairs after him. As soon
as we were outside George’s uncertainty as to our destination appeared
to vanish. “Did you ever see a boxing match?” he asked.
“A boxing match?”
“A fight――a prize-fight――whatever you like to call it. Come on an’
we’ll go to the Comet, only for the Lord’s sake don’t say anythin’
about it at home!”
“Are you not allowed to go?”
“Allowed! Wait till you know them a bit better. The boss’s idea of an
enjoyable evenin’ is some Sankey and Moody touch.”
We turned down a side street, and then another and another, till I
completely lost my bearings; but very soon George said, “There it is,
Coxy. You’re goin’ to see a bit of life, eh?” and pointed to a small
theatre at the opposite side of the road. Above the entrance, a round
purplish globe threw down a pool of light on the dirty pavement. A
number of men and youths in caps, and with mufflers round their necks,
hung about the door, talking and spitting, and at the corner some small
boys looked on. George pushed boldly in and I followed. We took tickets
for the front seats from an extremely friendly and pock-marked person,
who wore a black patch over one eye. When we got inside we found there
were not many spectators in our part of the house, but the pit, at the
back, was already crowded.
“That’s the thunder and lightning over there,” said George, jocosely,
“in other words, the nuts. How would you like to be in among them?” But
the stragglers who kept dropping in and taking seats all round us did
not seem to me to be very different.
A branch of lights hung from the ceiling, and other lights fell from
the flies on to the curtainless stage. A kind of gray mist, doubtless
the accumulated smoke of many nights, floated in the air, and a
sickly-looking youth was hammering out music-hall tunes on a worn-out,
toneless piano. The stage was quite bare, save for three double rows
of yellow wooden chairs, that composed three sides of a parallelogram,
and within which was a space marked off by a thick rope stretched
about four stout posts clamped to the floor. Over this rope, at two
diagonally opposite corners, hung towels, and in each corner was a
chair, a heap of sawdust, a basin, a sponge, and a water-bottle. There
was no person on the stage, and these bare accessories, possibly
because I saw them now for the first time, had to my eyes a most
suggestive appearance. I began to feel excited: this unadorned stage
appeared to me to be distinctly thrilling.
By degrees the house filled up. The audience, though mixed, was on the
whole a very rough one, and there were no women.
“Twig the peelers,” said George, and I noticed half a dozen policemen
lounge in and take up positions in different parts of the auditorium.
At about five minutes to eight even the chairs on the stage were
filled, and, at eight sharp, an important person with a cigar stepped
into the ring, and made a short speech introducing the first pair of
boxers. He retired amid loud applause, but the boxers, to my surprise,
turned out to be a couple of half-grown, ill-nourished, ill-washed
lads, no older than myself. They were naked except for short linen
drawers, and it seemed to me that it would have been no harm had they
been put into a bath prior to their appearance. They grinned sheepishly
at the audience, amongst whom they evidently recognised “pals”; and
these “pals,” in turn, greeted them with cries of “Go it, Bob,” “Go
on, the wee lad,” “Go on, the stripes”――this last in allusion to Bob’s
unambitious costume, which had all the appearance of being simply a
pair of bathing-drawers. They shook hands in a nerveless way, without
looking at each other, and began to spar feebly. Bob was so thin you
could count his ribs, and the big gloves at the ends of his long skinny
arms looked like gigantic puff-balls. The “wee lad” was sturdier, but
he seemed to me to be slightly deformed. Even to my inexperienced eye
it was perfectly obvious that the main concern of both was not to get
hurt, and they hadn’t finished the first round before the audience
was shouting, “Take them off them! Take them off them!” This was in
allusion to the gloves, but they also shouted other things, most of
which I daresay I had heard before, though never so many at one time,
and I reflected that George had managed to steer fairly clear of the
“Sankey and Moody touch.”
The referee cautioned the unfortunate combatants, but the second round
was no better than the first, and in the middle of the third round the
fight was stopped. The sleek, well-fed persons occupying the chairs,
and the more impatient persons occupying the auditorium, had not paid
their money for stuff of that sort. There followed a fresh pair of
boxers, older, more experienced, and this time things were sufficiently
brisk. The battle was a hard, ding-dong struggle, and it was at least
exciting. At the sight of the first dark ugly streak of blood on one
of those white faces I felt a little queer, in fact my impulse was
to go away; but as round after round passed, and I watched the blood
from the same wound burst out afresh in each, it began to quicken a
sort of unsuspected lust of cruelty in me, and I took pleasure in it,
I wanted the fight to be a real one, the thud of a blow that got home
thrilled me. It was as if I had undergone some transformation. The
dirty theatre, the low faces, the foul language, ceased to matter. I
was carried out of myself. I longed at the same time for the fight to
continue, and for its climax. There would be only three more rounds,
and I wanted, before the last, to see somebody knocked out. The man
whose face was bleeding was the heavier of the two, but I thought he
had little chance. He was out-matched, he must have known it himself,
and yet he continued to come up with a kind of dogged stupidity. His
seconds spat water into his face, sponged him, rubbed him and fanned
him, slapped him with towels and massaged his muscles; but the
artificial invigoration this produced lasted only a few moments after
the beginning of each round, and, as I watched him weakening, I could
feel myself delivering the blows that dazed him, my muscles tightened
and slackened, I could hardly sit in my seat. “Now he’s got him,” I
said aloud, as he staggered into the ring for the last time. There was
a blow and a crash on the boards. The referee was counting over him,
one――two――three――four――five――six――seven――eight; and then this helpless
creature, out of whose swollen, hideous face all humanity had been
battered, staggered up almost blindly. He did not even lift his hands
to protect himself from the blow that smashed him down again, and with
that dull thud on the floor the fight came to an end. He lay on after
the counting had stopped, and as I watched him being supported, almost
carried, out of the ring, while the victor received congratulations, a
pang of misgiving assailed me. There was no doubt the whole thing was
absolutely brutal, and there was equally no doubt that when it had been
most brutal I had been most pleased.
I should like to be able to add that I got up and left the theatre. I
did not. I reflected that _the_ fight was still to come: I even waited
for it eagerly, and when it took place, I was disappointed because
nobody bled, and because the decision was given on points at the end of
the twelfth round.
As we walked home I proved to George that boxing matches were really
all right; that they were infinitely less dangerous than football
matches. Every one of my arguments convinced George, and after I
had finished he found some for himself, which I accepted as equally
incontrovertible. Considering that there was nobody to take up an
opposite point of view, our apologies might have appeared hardly
necessary, but George was able to give me, in addition, a list
of all the good qualities fighting brought out, or even brought
into existence. Most of these did not exactly fit in with my more
superficial impression of the audience, and there were others I could
not help feeling many of them would be better without――courage, for
instance. I had a dim idea that a little extra courage might result in
a majority of them figuring at the next Assizes.
But when we were three-quarters way home I said to George, “It was all
pretty beastly, and that’s why we liked it――eh?”
He got quite offended, telling me that if _he_ had thought it beastly
he wouldn’t have waited on to the end, as I did.
This was just possible, yet my opinion of George sank. “If you admire
it so much,” I said, “I’ll give you a turn any time you like.”
George was silent, and flushed slightly.
“Well?” I kept on, pugnaciously.
George mumbled something, I don’t know what, and I saw that I had
actually frightened him. We walked the rest of the way home in silence.
George was angry with me, but when we were in the house and had sat
down to supper he became friendly again. As I discovered later, company
was the one thing absolutely indispensable to him; he could have kept
on being angry with me, and, indeed, would have enjoyed doing so, had
he had anybody else to talk to, but solitude he could not bear. And I,
on my side, forgot his having sulked on the way home, just as, later
on, I was to forget more than one unpleasant thing, simply because he
amused me, because he could always make me laugh.
After supper I said good-night to the others, and George and I went
upstairs. George went in front of me and lit the gas in the bedroom.
“Is this my room?” I asked, noticing that there were two beds in it.
“Yours an’ mine,” George answered.
His reply was unexpected. I had never slept with anybody in my life,
and it had not occurred to me that I should not have a room to myself.
I said nothing, but George, who was far from stupid, saw I did not like
the arrangement. “There is no other room,” he admitted frankly. “I
thought you knew. I thought ma put it in her letter.”
“I didn’t see her letter,” I murmured.
“Oh, we’ll be all right together, won’t we?” George went on,
pacifically. “You can have your bed moved wherever you would like it
best.” He had already begun to undress, and, after hanging up his
jacket, he took a photograph from an inside pocket and handed it to
me. It was the photograph of a lady extremely lightly clad. “I’ve
better ones than that,” said George, with a peculiar smile. He went
to a corner near the window and raised a loose board. From the hollow
beneath he drew out a large fat envelope, but, as he looked at me, he
hesitated. “I’ll show them to you some other time,” he suddenly said,
and returned the envelope to its hiding-place. He undressed rapidly,
and got into bed.
I took longer, and all the time I felt George’s eyes fixed on me
curiously. I hated this lack of privacy. It wasn’t that I hadn’t
undressed hundreds of times before other boys, when we were going to
bathe; but this was different. I disliked the feeling of not being
alone. I hated to have somebody watch me all the time I was taking off
my clothes, or folding them. I determined to write to my father in the
morning.
When I was in bed and in the dark I wanted to think of Katherine. I did
this every night; I looked forward to it, because it seemed to me that
this was the hour when everything became clearer; besides, there was
always the chance that if I thought of her I might dream of her. But
now George began to talk.
“Do you know any girls?” he asked.
“No,” I answered, shortly.
“Don’t you like them?” George persisted.
“No.”
“What do you think of Miss Izzy? Not bad――eh?”
“I don’t know anything about her.”
George was silent a few minutes. Then, just as I was beginning to think
my own thoughts, he began again.
“She’s nothin’ compared to Miss Johnson――the girl we were talkin’ about
to-day――who’s gettin’ married. Miss Johnson was in the shop before Miss
Izzy came. Ma sacked her for givin’ lip. Ma sacks them all.”
George continued to talk until he grew sleepy, and I had no choice but
to listen.
CHAPTER XIX
Next morning I was awakened by somebody singing, and opening my eyes I
saw George, in his shirt and trousers, strutting up and down the middle
of the floor, a hair-brush in his hand. It took me half a minute to
realise where I was, but George, when he saw I was awake, proceeded to
give me imitations of various music-hall artists, until there was a
sharp rap at our door, and Aunt Margaret’s voice told him to remember
what day it was. With that I remembered myself, and simultaneously made
up my mind that I wasn’t going to church. I determined that now I was
away from home I would be my own master, and do just what seemed good
in my own eyes, and that I would begin this policy at once.
Our room was at the back of the house, and from where I lay I could
see through the window a strip of gray, desolate sky, broken here and
there by a chimney, and across which the dark branch of an unhealthy
tree waved. As I watched it, my mind strayed to a book of Japanese
decorations, and to the library at Derryaghy, and to other things I
cared for. I had already guessed from the little I had seen of the
McAllisters that their fortunes were drooping. It was not so much that
everything in the house was worn out and patched and on its last legs,
that the children were ill-clad and looked ill-nourished, as that I
seemed to scent that mysterious atmosphere of anxiety, worry, and
struggle, which invariably accompanies a decreasing ability to pay
one’s way. I hated it. I hated all that it implied――sordid economies
and cheap pleasures, a degrading and enchaining struggle to keep
things going. It did not awaken pity in me, but only disgust. It was
like a horrible monster that clung and squeezed with a thousand slimy
tentacles, sapping your strength, and sucking out your life-blood. I
could even sympathise with those who had freed themselves from it by
some bold decisive action, that might lie well outside the laws of
morality and society.
In the midst of these reflections George informed me that I had better
get up. He was tying his tie. His red hair was carefully plastered
down with water, and he was examining his small, freckled face in the
looking-glass. George had not yet begun to shave, but he had long,
silly-looking hairs growing out of his chin, and I thought he looked
extremely ugly and horribly common as he stood there.
When we went downstairs the others were just beginning breakfast. The
whole family was terribly _endimanchée_. Aunt Margaret was redolent
of cheap scent. Gordon and Thomas were dressed in green plush with
white mother-of-pearl buttons. Their little, damp, red, snub noses
seemed to have been set that very morning accidentally in the middle
of their round faces, which were of the complexion of fresh putty, and
their eyes were exactly like blue glass marbles. Uncle George, who was
breakfasting in his gray shirt sleeves, suggested that I might like to
go with George to the Bible-class, but I refused. I added, to prevent
all future trouble, that I preferred to take a walk on Sunday morning.
“Do you go for walks when you are at home?” Aunt Margaret asked me,
with her strange smile.
“No,” I answered.
“Doesn’t your father expect you to go to church?”
“I don’t know what he expects, I’m sure.”
“And don’t you think yourself you ought to go?”
“No.” I was quite certain about this at all events, and I added that,
once you were familiar with any particular ideas, no matter how
valuable, I couldn’t see that you gained very much by listening to them
being repeated ad infinitum.
This explanation, far from convincing, evidently annoyed, Aunt
Margaret, though she only said, “I would rather you didn’t talk like
that before the children. They have been brought up to look upon
religion with respect.”
I did not reply.
“I think I’ll go for a walk too,” George announced, with a wink at me.
“You’ll do nothing of the sort,” cried Aunt Margaret, flaring up
into a shrill rage. “You see what comes of such talk! I’ll have no
Sabbath-breaking in this house.”
“Ssh――ssh,” Uncle George mildly intervened. “To force people to do
things against their will isn’t the proper way to take.”
“You want your children to give up going to church, then?”
“Nobody is giving up going to church. George is coming of course.
Young people very often say things without meaning them. If Peter is
for taking a walk this morning, I expect he will come out with us this
evening to hear Dr. Russell, won’t you, Peter?”
But, altogether apart from Dr. Russell, that Sunday was a dreary day.
In the afternoon I accompanied George, and we loafed about in the
Ormeau Park, where he was evidently accustomed to meet his friends.
These friends of George’s were all in business, and all looked upon
themselves as young men. They smoked cheap cigarettes, wore their
handkerchiefs in their sleeves, and were tremendously knowing and
rakish, while the larger part of their conversation appeared to be
concerned with the merits of professional football players. I could
get on all right with George when he was by himself, but his friends,
among whom he was remarkably popular, did not improve him. It took no
great perspicacity to discover that they on their side regarded my
company as a very questionable acquisition. This feeling, far from
diminishing, obviously increased as the afternoon advanced. George
described our adventure of the night before with immense gusto, and
gave a burlesque imitation of the knock-out. To have an appreciative
audience was his greatest delight, and the others, for that matter,
left him a fairly free stage. Now that he had them he ignored me
utterly, so that, in the end, I was left practically alone. I fulfilled
a sort of highly disagreeable rôle of silent hanger-on. I did it most
reluctantly, yet I could not summon up sufficient moral courage to go
away.
CHAPTER XX
On Monday morning I went to school. I arrived half an hour before the
proper time, and as my classes had already been arranged, I had nothing
to do but loiter about and take stock of the place. It stood, a long,
low, unlovely building of soot-darkened brick, in its own grounds, not
far from the centre of the town. Just now, on this gray autumn morning,
it presented an appearance of singular, of almost jail-like dullness,
though in summer, as I was to learn, when the grass was green, and the
tall dusty elms waved against a blue sky, and the sun shone through
narrow, small-paned windows, and splashed on wooden floors, on hacked
wooden desks and forms, on faded maps, and bare, discoloured walls, it
could be pleasant enough, in spite of the complete absence of anything
save the sunlight and the trees that might appeal to a sense of beauty.
Beside the main building was a Preparatory School, and at the back,
separated from it by a yard, where a score or so of boys were at
present kicking about a football, were the Mathematical Schools, and
beyond these, the larger playing-field. It was really a day-school,
only two masters living on the premises, with about a couple of dozen
boarders: the rest of the scholars, numbering between a hundred and
fifty and two hundred, were day-boys.
As I hung about uneasily, not venturing to join the others, I was
painfully conscious of my isolation. Not one of those faces had I ever
seen before, nor had I the slightest knowledge of the school itself,
for George, who had been at a National School, could tell me nothing
about it. Nobody took any notice of me. Several masters passed, and
disappeared through mysterious doors, and when, at ten o’clock, a
white-haired, white-bearded patriarch rang a huge hand-bell in the
porch, and I watched the boys scattering with extraordinary rapidity in
various directions, it looked to me as if I might very easily spend my
whole day in the yard. I had no idea which door to try, yet at the same
time I was anxious not to be late. I was still hovering uncertainly
about the porch, like a soul strayed into the wrong Paradise, when a
boy, running past, glanced at me, stopped, and asked me where I wanted
to go to.
I told him I wanted to go to Mr. Lowden’s class.
“It’s the end door on the left over there,” he said, good-humouredly,
and I thanked him and hurried off.
Coming in, I found the whole class already in their places, but a boy
at the end of the third form moved up to make room for me, and I sat
down. Mr. Lowden, who was standing, with a piece of chalk in one hand
and a duster in the other, close by the black-board, asked me my name,
and then informed me I was late and that he objected to lateness. I
said nothing, but took down on the slate in front of me the sum he had
just written out.
I worked at it, and was struck by the animated conversations that were
going on all over the room, in spite of Mr. Lowden’s efforts to check
them.
“Has anybody finished yet?” Mr. Lowden asked, and the boy who had
moved up to make room for me held up his hand, cracking his fingers. I
glanced at him. He had a round, merry face, rosy cheeks, bright eyes
and dimples.
“How often have I told you not to crack your fingers, Knox?” asked Mr.
Lowden, discontentedly. “Well, what answer do you get?”
“Ten bob, a deuce an’ a make.”
“Come in to-day, Knox, at recess.”
He wrote down another sum, and I had begun to copy it, when something
went off with a sharp report under my feet. Mr. Lowden was gazing
straight at me, and he instantly told me to stay in at recess.
I knew well enough what had happened, that I had trodden on a wax match
softened and rolled up with the head inside. I told Mr. Lowden that I
hadn’t done it on purpose.
“I can’t help that: you must stay in.”
“But it wasn’t my fault if I didn’t know it was there,” I argued.
“You must stay in,” repeated Mr. Lowden, in a silly, obstinate kind of
voice, horribly irritating, “and, Knox, you stay in after school as
well as at recess.”
“I don’t see what _he_ has to do with it, any way,” I muttered.
The boy beside me laughed.
“Oh, yes: Knox put it there,” Mr. Lowden said monotonously.
I had taken a dislike to Mr. Lowden, and at the same time I thought him
a fool. A few days later something happened to make me dislike him even
more. He had read aloud a problem which we were to work out mentally,
putting down our answers when he gave us the word. My answer was right,
but, unfortunately, when he asked me how I got it, the problem itself
had gone out of my head. For the life of me I couldn’t remember it; yet
I was ashamed to say so, and simply sat silent while he repeated two or
three times, as if it were some kind of refrain, “Well, now, how did
you work the sum, Waring?”
As I was unable to tell him, he said, “You must have copied the answer
from Knox.”
“I didn’t,” I protested, angrily.
“Then why can’t you tell me how you got it?”
Again silence.
“You must be telling a lie, I’m afraid,” said Mr. Lowden, in his
apathetic voice, “and the silliest kind of lie, because it’s obvious to
everybody.”
“I’m not telling a lie.”
Mr. Lowden shrugged his shoulders; he never seemed to get angry, or
even moderately interested, no matter what the circumstances. “If
you’re not, then why can’t you tell me how you worked the sum? If you
had done it once, you could do it again.”
“I did do it.”
“Well, how?”
Renewed silence.
“You’d better stay in at recess.”
And I stayed in.
Yet Mr. Lowden was really only a mild and inoffensive young man, who
had been inspired with the unlucky idea that he could earn his living
by teaching boys, when he had neither the desire nor the capacity
to understand them. The aversion I felt for him was really founded
primarily upon grounds less rational than those I have mentioned.
The secret of the matter was that physically he was repulsive to me.
He suffered, I imagine, from some affection of the lungs or throat,
for he wore, winter and summer, a thick white muffler, fastened by
an opal pin. His face was pale, cadaverous, and hollow-cheeked; his
moustache scanty; his hair lank and damp; but what I disliked most was
his peculiar odour. Whether this emanated from his person, or from the
pastilles he was perpetually sucking, I don’t know. It was something
sickly and persistent, and for no reason that I know of I associated it
with death. When he sat down on the form beside me to work out a sum, I
used to edge gradually away from him, until he would notice it, and ask
me in a querulous voice what I was doing, and perhaps keep me in. This
physical repulsion I could never have conquered, even had it not been
backed up by that kind of mental sickliness which characterized him,
and which had made him punish me once at least unjustly. He left six
months later, and nobody among the boys ever knew or cared what became
of him. Perhaps he went to another school, perhaps the mysterious odour
which had sickened me had been really the odour of death....
* * * * *
When I think now of those who were in charge of my education, upon my
word I cannot help but be filled with wonder. What did they teach me?
What did I ever get from them that I could not have got, with less
trouble, for myself? Never once did any of my masters show the faintest
interest in me, or make even the most perfunctory attempt to get to
know me, to get to know what I was capable of, if I had any definite
tastes, if I were good or bad, moral or immoral, intelligent or a fool.
What they did instead was to ask me a couple of questions from a book,
and, if I failed to answer either of these satisfactorily, keep me in
to sit for twenty minutes with my lesson-book open on the desk before
me and my thoughts miles away. Of my masters only one, Mr. Johnson, had
any distinction, and he, unfortunately, was a mathematician. He had
written a “Euclid” so perfect in its expression that he had managed to
get a kind of æsthetic charm into the dry bones of geometry. He was an
Englishman, but was slightly Jewish in type. He wore a long, flowing
beard and moustache, like an early northern chief, and he had small,
sleepy, gray eyes, which during school hours were usually closed. Most
of his time he passed, either in reverie or slumber, in his chair
on a daïs at the end of the room; but when aroused he had, for the
unmathematical, a richly terrifying voice, and a disheartening manner
of slashing down a long black cane on the desk, within a few inches of
your nose. His classes were models of order. Never a faintest sound. In
dead silence you played your game of noughts and crosses, or did your
Latin composition, or wrote out cricket teams――but you never spoke,
and rarely moved. Of all those whose business it was to mould my mind
his figure remains the least spoiled by time. I remember the shock I
received when, some years after I left school, I came upon Dr. Melling,
the head English master, in the Campo Santo at Pisa, sucking an orange,
and dressed in garments that Moses or Ikey would have bid for but
languidly. When I spoke to him he seemed so narrow, so unimaginative,
so unintelligent, that I felt half-ashamed, as one might who has
learned by accident a secret he ought never to have known. Even in
stature he was curiously shrunken, though he neither stooped nor showed
signs of decrepitude or age. But Johnson I can see now, as I saw him so
often then, coming up the path between the two front cricket-fields,
a large black bag in his hand, which one had been told contained his
lunch. I can see him leaning back in his chair, his eyes closed, like
one of those beautiful owls that ignore from their cage in the Zoo the
staring stranger, his beard spread out over his waistcoat, his hands
folded on his stomach. Johnson was a gentleman, and, though he knew
nothing of, and cared little for, boys, if chance brought him into
temporary relation with one, even a very small and idle one, he took it
for granted that he was a gentleman too, and in his deep, slow, musical
voice, and in his sleepy eyes, there would come a curious charm.
CHAPTER XXI
I had formed no definite conception of what my new school would be
like, but there was a flatness about the reality for which I was
unprepared. I seemed to slip into my place at once, without attracting
the slightest attention either of boys or masters, and at a week’s end
any strangeness there might have been had completely worn off. I did
not play football, which was the only game played this term. I got to
know a good many boys, but I formed no friendships. I found my new
companions to be, on the whole, little, if at all, more congenial than
the boys at Newcastle, in spite of there being so many more to choose
from. I liked them well enough, and they were, with one exception,
perfectly decent to me, but it all ended there: that is to say, in
my relation with them I had invariably to approach them on their own
ground, I had to enter into _their_ world, they were incapable of
entering into mine, or even of meeting me halfway. There was a boy I
had felt attracted to, purely on account of his good-looks, and as our
ways home lay in the same direction I joined him one afternoon just as
he was going out at the gate. But the first words he uttered shattered
my illusions. He had a harsh, loud voice and spoke through his nose.
Almost at once he began to tell me what he imagined to be a funny
story, and before I had been with him five minutes I said good-bye
abruptly, and left him standing on the pavement, staring after me, nor
did I ever speak to him again.
Day by day I went to school, neither liking it nor disliking it. Yet
it was all rather dismal, for life without any kind of human sympathy,
either given or received, is a dreadful, almost an impossible, thing.
I thought a good deal of Katherine, and wrote to her, but got only an
occasional scrappy note in reply. I did not see much of George, for he
was kept in his business till nearly seven o’clock, and in the evenings
I had to prepare my work for the next day. George, moreover, had his
own circle of friends, none of whom, as I have said, were particularly
eager for my company, while George himself, when he was among them, was
the least eager of all. Sometimes when I was with him alone I would
remember this and resent it, but he could always make me forgive him
when he wanted to: he could be extraordinarily pleasant when he wanted
to, and it was impossible to be bored in his company.
We still shared the same bedroom, and at night he liked to talk before
going to sleep. He had obtained a considerable influence over me,
more than anybody else ever did or was to do, yet it is difficult
to describe what it consisted in, or why it should have come about.
I had an extremely poor opinion of him: I knew he had not even a
rudimentary conscience: frequently he repelled, and even disgusted,
me: but always, by some instinct, he seemed to know when he had
done so, and he had a special gift for recovering lost ground. His
influence was bad――absolutely――and yet what was so harmful to me did
not, so far as I know, have any particularly disastrous effect upon
George himself. He had an amazingly licentious imagination, and,
in this direction, a power of vivid suggestion. As I became more
accustomed to him, things that had at first jarred upon me ceased to
do so; but it was doubly unfortunate that I should have been thrown so
intimately into his society just at this particular time. Had I been
either older or younger, or had I had any other friends, the effect
would not have been so injurious. It was not that I had not heard
my share of Rabelaisian talk before. This was, somehow, different.
At all events, the other had passed off me easily, awakening no
after-thoughts, leaving my senses untroubled. It was not so now. My
mind became disturbed, and, above all, my dreams were coloured by
certain obsessions which George took a delight in evoking. In my dreams
his suggestions became realities, and his imagination seemed to brood
over them like an evil angel. I do not think he was himself conscious
of it, conscious, that is, that what for him appeared to be no more
than a sort of intellectual pastime, which he could shake from him as
easily as one might turn off a tap, assumed with me a darker form. His
words appeared to touch me physically, and with an appalling directness
and persistency. He had a trick of re-telling stories he had read,
twisting them and altering them with an astonishing ingenuity, so as
to introduce the element he revelled in, and he never became crude
or brutal till he had carefully prepared his ground. And it was all
transformed by a curious gift of humour, which was in itself something
quite inimitable, consisting, as it did, largely in his personality and
manner, in an unquenchable liveliness, and a faculty of mimicry.
CHAPTER XXII
Two months went by in this fashion, and I had begun to look forward to
Christmas and to count the weeks that separated me from the holidays,
when an incident occurred which was the means of my forming an
acquaintance that was to develop into the most intimate friendship of
my life. It befell in this way.
A series of thefts had been committed, thefts of school-books. A boy
would leave his books down on a window-sill, or even in a class-room,
and when he came to get them again, one would perhaps be missing. I had
never lost anything myself, and knew nothing of what was going on till
the afternoon when the matter was divulged to the entire school.
It was not far from three o’clock, I remember, the hour when we broke
up for the day, and I was in one of the English class-rooms, where,
every Monday, if you liked to pay half-a-crown a term extra, you had
the advantage of a lesson in elocution from Mr. (or was it Professor?)
Lennox. Professor Lennox was a fat, pale, absurd little man, with a
high-pitched tenor voice that struck against the drum of your ear like
the blow of a stick. He waxed his moustache, and greased his hair
into carefully arranged, solid-looking locks, while his skin, by some
natural process, greased itself. Professor Lennox was an amateur of
fancy trousers, of coloured waistcoats, of large breast-pins, of spats
with pearl buttons, and of rings more striking than precious. To-day
the whole class――some fifty or sixty boys――was reading after him, line
by line, a poem from Bell’s “Elocution.”
“In arms, / the Aust / rian phal / anx stood,
A liv / ing wall, / a hum / an wood.
Impreg / nable / their front / appears,
All hor / rent with / project / ing spears.”
Or, as it sounded according to local pronunciation, shared impartially
by the professor and the majority of his pupils:
“In arms, / the Orst / rian phah / lanx stude,
Ah liv / ing wall, / ah hue / man wude.
Imprag / nable / their front / appears,
All hoar / rent with / projact / ing spears.”
We had just reached “projacting spears,” when Dr. Melling, better known
by the name of Limpet, came in, followed by an old woman, who paused on
the threshold. Limpet turned round and waved her forward impatiently,
but a couple of yards from the door she stopped again, and all the time
she stared hard at us with small, sharp, gray eyes. Her bright little
eyes and hooked nose, taken with her air of timidity, gave her the
appearance of an innocent and frightened witch who has been dragged
out of her lair very much against her will. I wondered who she was,
but Limpet did not leave us long in doubt. It appeared that some boy
had stolen a number of school-books, the property of various other
boys, and had sold them to this woman, who was now here to identify
him. Limpet explained the situation with an air of wishing to get a
disagreeable duty over as quickly as possible, but to us it was quite
exciting. Each of us in turn stood up to undergo the witch’s scrutiny.
She had already, as I afterwards learned, been round the other classes,
and Limpet, who had accompanied her on this voyage of discovery, was
by now in rather a bad temper. Evidently he found the whole business
singularly distasteful, and as one boy after another received her
head-shake, he fidgeted and frowned nervously. She herself looked
frightened and bewildered; I expect she was secretly worried about her
own share in the matter, and considering how she could make the best
of it. As for me, I felt for the first time as if school-life really
bore some faint resemblance to the tales of the _Boy’s Own Paper_. Here
was one of the pet adventures actually taking place, except that the
old woman should have been a man with a small fur cap. When it came to
my turn to stand up, I had an extraordinary wish that she would pick
me out as the culprit. Sure of my innocence, I had a mind to be the
hero of this adventure, and I stood so long, waiting to be identified,
that Limpet told me sharply to sit down, and I could see had it on the
tip of his tongue to give me an imposition. My neighbour tugged me by
the jacket, and I resumed my seat abruptly amid suppressed laughter.
One by one each boy rose in his place and sat down again, and then,
in the back row of all, a boy stood up who _was_ identified. This boy
I did not know except by name, though he was in all my classes. He
was called Gill, and I had always looked upon him as rather odd and
unapproachable. When his turn came, he stood up indifferently, glancing
out through the window at the clock, which could only be seen when you
were on your feet. But next moment I saw the old woman say something to
Limpet, and the latter instantly told Gill to stand out.
Gill stood out, his indifference gone, his face flushed and angry.
“Is that the boy?” Limpet asked, as if daring her to say “Yes,” but the
old woman mumbled out an affirmative.
“Do you know anything of this, Gill?”
“No.”
I was somehow pleased that he had not added the customary “Sir.” He
stood with his head up and gazed straight at Limpet and the old woman,
with a kind of contemptuous wrath, his gray eyes dark and very bright,
a frown on his face.
The old woman was so obviously uncertain and uncomfortable that the
whole thing appeared to me ridiculous, and I impulsively gave voice to
this impression. “She doesn’t know anything about it,” I called out.
“Anybody could see she’s only trying it on.”
Limpet on the spot gave me two hundred of Sir Walter Scott’s bad verses
to write out. My remark had the effect, nevertheless, of drawing a
wavering expression of uncertainty from the old woman herself, which,
in his now undisguised irritability, Limpet pounced on, as a cat
pounces on a mouse. “Why did you point to him, if you don’t know?”
he whipped out, frightening her nearly out of her wits. “Don’t you
understand that it’s a serious thing to bring an accusation of theft
against a boy? Sit down, Gill. I want to see you after school.”
He was so angry that he forgot all about the half-dozen remaining boys,
and conducted his companion unceremoniously from the room.
Gill sat staring straight in front of him. Certainly he did not look
guilty. He had a dark, narrow face, with a bright complexion. His
thick, rough, black hair grew low on an oval, narrow forehead, and
between his clear gray eyes there started a high-bridged, somewhat
aggressive-looking nose, the most striking feature of his rather
striking face. He had the reputation of being a peculiar kind of
chap, and he was sometimes made fun of――mildly, for he was extremely
quick-tempered and very strong――but anybody could see that he was a
fine fellow, and that an accusation such as had just been brought
against him would require a great deal of proof.
When the bell rang he remained on in his seat while the rest of us
went out, I hung about the porch watching two little fellows playing
chestnuts, and when they stopped playing I still hung about with
nothing to watch, and with, indeed, no very definite purpose in view.
Presently Gill emerged, but whether he saw me or not, he took no
notice, as he walked on swiftly down toward the gate.
Since I had flung about him the mantle of my protection, however, I had
begun to take a lively interest in him, and before he had gone fifty
yards I made up my mind and hurried in pursuit. He looked round at the
sound of my footsteps and waited, but without smiling. I had an idea
he had passed me deliberately in the porch, and now he received me
coldly enough. As we walked along together he made no attempt to defend
himself against the charge that had been brought against him; he did
not even refer to it, nor to what had taken place during his subsequent
interview with Limpet, from whom, nevertheless, he received next
morning a public apology. Though I was simply dying to hear what had
happened I couldn’t very well ask, and as we proceeded I had to talk
about other things. Then, quite suddenly, some change seemed to take
place within him, and he inquired abruptly if I had read any of the
writings of Count Tolstoy. I had never even heard of Count Tolstoy, but
I was not to remain much longer in ignorance. I like enthusiasm, and I
got it now. Gill had just finished “Anna Karénine,” and offered to lend
it to me, adding that it was in French. I had been learning French in
the way one did in those days, and perhaps does still; that is to say,
I had been learning it for six or seven years, and was now obliged to
confess I couldn’t read it.
“Aren’t you coming out of your way?” he demanded with the queer
abruptness that characterized him.
“Oh, no.”
“Do you live up the Malone way?”
“No; I live in the town.”
“Then why isn’t it out of your way?”
“That is only my fashion of telling you I want to come with you,” I
answered meekly. “Pure politeness.”
He did not smile. “You haven’t been at school long?” he asked. His
manner was the oddest mixture of stiffness and shyness, and sometimes
he frowned portentously, while at the slightest thing he blushed.
“No,” I answered. “Have you?”
“Yes――all my life――ever since I was a kid.” He spoke quickly, one would
have imagined impatiently.
“Have you? I thought, somehow, you hadn’t.”
I don’t know why I should have made this wise remark, nor, apparently,
did Gill.
“Why?” he asked me at once.
I laughed. “You don’t seem to have very many friends.”
He coloured, and I realized that my remark had been lacking in tact.
“I have as many friends as I want,” he answered shortly.
I saw I had touched him on a tender spot. “Does that mean you don’t
want any new ones?” I ventured, half-laughing, though I was serious
enough.
His answer was startling. “Perhaps you think you are doing me a favour
by walking home with me?”
I did not say anything, but I looked at him with some astonishment. He
was so odd that his manner had the effect of divesting me of all the
shyness I usually suffered from myself on making a new acquaintance,
nor did I even feel angry at his rebuff.
“I came with you,” I said at length, “to please myself.”
He turned crimson, began to speak, was silent, and then apologized.
At the garden gate I would have left him, but he insisted on my coming
up to the door. “I will get you ‘Anna Karénine’; then we can talk about
it together――if we’re going to be friends.” He spoke the last words
shyly, and I knew that he had found a difficulty in saying them at all.
“But I told you I couldn’t read French.”
“You can if you like. Don’t try to translate it; read straight ahead.”
He came back with two books bound in gray-blue paper, which he handed
to me. “It doesn’t matter if the covers get torn or the books come to
pieces. My father gets them all rebound in any case. By the way,” once
more he blushed, “you needn’t bother about those lines Limpet gave you.”
“Why?”
“Because I’ll be doing them.”
“Oh, rot.”
He frowned. “You can do them if you like, but it will be a waste of
time.”
“I know that.”
“I mean, I’m going to do them in any case, whether you do or not.”
I laughed. “Couldn’t we each do half?”
“I’m going to do them all.”
“All right.”
He strolled back down the garden path with me. “What’s your name?” he
asked.
“Waring.”
“I know that. I mean your first name.”
“Peter.”
“Mine is Owen. I’ll come part of the way back with you: I told them
inside.”
“Shall I call you Owen?”
“I don’t care,” he answered quickly, without looking at me. But before
we had gone another hundred yards he said: “That isn’t the truth. I
told you my name because I wanted you to call me by it.”
“All right,” I said, smiling.
CHAPTER XXIII
That night, for the first time, I felt George’s fascination falter,
and it is a fact rather melancholy in its significance that this
consciousness came to me in the form of a sense of freedom, of relief.
He began to talk to me, just as usual, as soon as he had turned out
the light, but I told him brusquely to shut up, that I wanted to go to
sleep, and when he tried to begin again I let him see I was in earnest.
As I lay there I determined that at Christmas I would make another
effort to get into rooms of my own choosing. If I wanted to ask Owen
Gill, for instance, to come to see me, how could I do so? For one
thing, his people would not like him to come here; for another, I
should not myself care to ask him. I was by this time firmly convinced
that my aunt was frequently more or less under the influence of drugs.
It may have been on account of her illness; I could not say; but there
were times when she seemed hardly to know what she was doing, and
at such moments her dislike for me, which she usually more or less
successfully concealed, jumped to the surface. I had no idea how long
she had been in this condition; I was quite sure my father knew nothing
about it; yet she appeared to me to have already lost something of her
hold upon reality. I had heard her make statements so obviously untrue
that they could have deceived nobody but Uncle George. I had heard her
repeat a harmless remark made by Miss Izzy, and, by altering it ever
so slightly, give it a quite new and highly disagreeable meaning. But
Uncle George never dreamed of contradicting her, whether it was that he
was afraid of her, or whether he was simply blind, I could not tell.
On the Sunday after my becoming acquainted with Owen I was alone in the
house with little Alice, who had been unwell and had not gone out with
the others to morning church. As usual, she had climbed up on my knee,
and was sitting with her thin brown arms round my neck, and her queer
little face close to mine.
“Ma looked through all your pockets yesterday morning, when you were at
school,” she said.
“What pockets?” I asked quietly.
“The pockets of your clothes――every one.”
“Well, did she find anything?” I murmured, in as indifferent a tone as
I could manage.
“She found a letter――and some other things.”
“And did she read the letter?”
“Yes.”
“How do you know? Where were you?”
“I saw her.”
“How did you see her?”
“I saw her through the key-hole.”
“Oh; I didn’t think you would look through key-holes.”
“Didn’t you? I do――often.”
“You shouldn’t. It isn’t nice, you know. You must never do it again.”
“Why?”
“Because it’s not a nice thing to do. It’s spying.”
“I’ve often done it,” said Alice, with perfect detachment. “I’ve looked
at you through the key-hole.”
“You must never do it again. Promise, or I won’t be friends with you
any more.”
“If I promise, will you be friends?”
“Yes. But you must keep your promise, remember.”
I returned to “Anna Karénine.” “I must buy a desk,” I thought, “or some
kind of box I can lock up.” Presently little Alice began again. “I’ve
got a secret.”
I had lugubrious forebodings in regard to this secret. “Have you?” I
answered dismally.
“Don’t take any soup to-day,” the child said, softly.
I laid down my book. There was something arresting about this
injunction, something even startling. I looked into the strange dark
eyes that seemed almost to fill the small elf-like face, and I knew
that a confidence of a highly unpleasant character was imminent.
“I put a dead mouse into the soup,” little Alice whispered.
“Oh;” I exclaimed feebly. I felt inclined to put her down very abruptly
from my knee, and it was with difficulty that I controlled this
impulse. “What made you do such a thing? Now it will all be wasted.”
“Nobody knows about it,” the child continued artlessly, rubbing her
cheek against mine. “Once I put something in before, when people were
coming for dinner. It was fun to watch them all looking so stiff and
solemn, and eating away, and not knowing what was there all the time. I
laughed so much that ma sent me out of the room. But I wouldn’t do that
with you, because I love you.”
Her strange little face turned to mine, and her eyes were fixed on me.
She must have seen the disgust I felt, for she began to tremble and her
eyes filled with tears. Then she hid her face against my shoulder and
clung to me. I was frightened to scold her. Even without my having said
anything she seemed to shrivel up like some bruised and broken plant. I
patted her head gently, and at once she brightened. She got down from
my knee and began to dance about the floor.
Meanwhile I was left with the problem of the soup. If the soup were
strained the mouse, I supposed, would be discovered; but if it were,
as it was practically certain to be, simply turned out into a tureen,
the revelation might come too late. On the other hand, were I to turn
informer, little Alice would most surely be whipped, and, whether she
deserved it or not, the idea of that was as revolting to me as would
be the ill-treatment of a sick monkey. There was a young girl in the
kitchen who looked after the rougher work, and I thought of explaining
the matter to her, after swearing her to secrecy, but before I had made
up my mind I heard the others downstairs.
They had evidently got back from church, and now I didn’t know what to
do. Uncle George, preceded by Gordon and Thomas in their green plush
suits, came into the parlour. Uncle George began to warm himself before
the gas-stove. “You should have come out this morning, Peter,” he said,
in his gentle voice. “You missed a treat.”
I listened to his comments on the sermon, feeling all the time most
uncomfortable. Gordon and Thomas tried to climb about my chair, but I
kept them off with a firm hand. The parlour door was open, probably
the kitchen door too, for all at once there came a scream from that
department, not very loud, yet distinctly audible. I glanced at Alice.
The others hadn’t heard it. Uncle George was still in the midst of his
mild enthusiasm, and Gordon and Thomas, flattening their little round
red noses with a finger, were practising squinting with remarkable
success. Alice had become perfectly still, her big black eyes fixed on
mine: and, as for me, I knew the mouse had been discovered and felt
vastly relieved. Conceive of my amazement, therefore, when the soup
after all appeared at table. Alice and I did not take any, and Aunt
Margaret did not either, so that there was enough left to do Monday’s
dinner; but of the mouse I never heard again.
CHAPTER XXIV
My friendship with Owen was at present the one quite satisfactory
thing in my life. Neither at school nor at home was I particularly
successful. I worked very little, merely sufficiently to prevent myself
from getting into trouble; I did not play games. I had gone to the
School of Art for a few weeks, but as I was never put to draw anything
except curves and squares and geometrical flowers, I got sick of this
and gave it up.
I saw a good deal of Owen, though not so much as I should have liked.
Of course I saw him every day at school, but I had never been inside
his house, and I could not ask him to mine. I did not want to let him
see the kind of people I had sprung from. I was ashamed of them. On
Saturdays and Sundays we usually went for long walks together, during
which we threshed out the affairs of the universe, and built it over
again. It was all quite new to me, just as was the peculiar type of
Owen’s mind, its extraordinary eagerness in the pursuit of ideas. My
head already swarmed with an amazing mass of unsettled notions which
buzzed in it like bees in a shaken hive. It seemed to me we never
discussed anything less serious than the immortality of the soul. Owen
was not sure of the existence of God, and I, so far as Christianity
was concerned, was an Agnostic also. But to Owen it appeared to make
an enormous difference, he was positively unhappy about it; while to
me, though I did not let him suspect this, it was a matter of supreme
indifference. Levine’s acceptance of Christianity, at the end of “Anna
Karénine,” was for Owen an endless source of dissatisfaction and query.
We discussed it by the hour. Yet, when actually reading the book, I had
been far more struck by the appearance in Wronsky’s and Anna’s dreams
of the strange little man, who seems to pass out of vision into reality
just before the suicide. What did _that_ mean? Why was he there? Had
he, like some added flick of colour in the work of a master, been put
in, not because he was there in Nature, but because he was needed for
the picture? For me, at any rate, he had the effect of making all the
rest more convincing, and, while he appeared to be purely fantastic,
of corresponding to some esoteric reality. Or was the apparition at
the railway station also only a vision, in that case the vision of a
vision? To Owen such a question was of no interest whatever, and it was
Owen’s questions that we principally discussed.
Very often I walked home with him and hung swinging on the iron
gate while we finished an argument. At such moments he exhibited an
exhilarating eagerness, and he was never anxious to get the better
of me in merely verbal dispute, as I frequently was of him. It was
the thing in itself he saw, and he went at it like a terrier at a
rabbit-hole, sending up showers of sand into the air, but never getting
to the bottom. Sometimes, when we were talking, he would catch me by my
arms and swing me slowly back and forward. Sometimes he would draw me
close up to him till my face almost touched his, and his eyes seemed to
look straight into my spirit, and then he would suddenly release me. He
had a very quick and passionate temper, and was ridiculously sensitive,
so that, though I employed infinitely more tact with him than I had
ever done with anybody else, I occasionally offended him. Then he would
leave me, his face as red as a turkey-cock, and his grey eyes dark and
bright. Possibly for the rest of that day he would ignore me utterly;
indeed, the first time it happened, I was sure we had quarrelled for
ever. But the next morning he came up to me with a shy and shamefaced
smile, saying he was sorry. At such times there would come into his
voice so charming a gentleness that it was impossible to remain angry
with him.
* * * * *
“Will you come to the opera to-night?” he asked me one morning, looking
up from an old, ink-stained Virgil. We were sitting in the window-seat,
where we always sat together, and which just held two. As Dr. Gwynn,
the head Classical-master, was very old, very blind, and rather deaf,
it was possible to pass the time quite pleasantly in this retreat.
I had not yet been inside a theatre, and Owen had been but seldom.
“What is on?” I asked.
“‘Faust.’”
“‘Faust’? All right.”
“I’ll meet you outside the theatre at a quarter to seven.”
“Very well; I’ll be there.”
I went home straight from school, in order to get my work done for the
next day, but when I pushed open the door I became conscious that an
altercation between Aunt Margaret and Miss Izzy was in progress in the
other shop. They were so busy that they did not even hear me enter,
though the shop-bell had rung, and, as I lingered on the threshold, I
gathered that the dispute was about a young man, and I guessed who he
was. I had seen him; his name was Moore; he travelled in the stationery
line, and he admired Miss Izzy.
I heard Aunt Margaret’s familiar “_some_ people,” with an accent on the
“some.” It was in this indirect manner that she invariably produced
her most disagreeable remarks, and it was very much in the air just
now. Miss Izzy displayed an icy dignity by stiff elbows, an erect head,
and an elaborate preoccupation with the business of the shop. She
seemed all collar and cuffs and freezing silence, which she could not
quite keep up, for every now and again she threw out a retort. Aunt
Margaret’s ponderous black form filled up the inner doorway. Her large
face, her drawn-in mouth, her black, shining eyes, her wig, gave her
an alarming and bizarre appearance, but Miss Izzy was not in the least
alarmed.
I came in, not wishing to be caught listening. Miss Izzy just cast a
glance at me, and tossed her head.
I brushed past Aunt Margaret and went upstairs to my dinner, leaving
the parlour door open, however, so that I might still hear the conflict
going on below. When the shop-bell rang Aunt Margaret’s voice would
cease; then, when the customer had departed, it would begin again.
Presently I heard Uncle George shuffling downstairs, and his entrance
on the scene was followed by an outburst of both feminine voices
together. The noise was becoming exciting, but I could no longer make
out the words, though I hung over the balusters to listen. Then I heard
Aunt Margaret coming upstairs, and Uncle George following her. She was
in a violent passion. “Fool――fool――fool,” she screamed at him all along
the passage. Then came confused remonstrances in Uncle George’s quiet
voice, but they were interrupted by the banging of a door that shook
the whole house. I came out into the lobby once more. I heard Uncle
George trying to get into the room, but the door must have been locked
from the inside, and through it came a shrill torrent of abuse. Uncle
George’s face was white and strange as he turned round and caught me
staring at him. He told me to go away, but almost immediately he came
after me into the parlour, where I had sat down again to my dinner. He
told me Aunt Margaret was not well, that she had had a very bad attack
last night, and been kept awake and in pain all night long. I could see
that he would have liked to know if I had grasped the nature of several
of those words that had come out to him through the closed door, but I
continued stolidly to eat my dinner, without giving any sign. When I
had finished, I got out my books, but as soon as the coast was clear I
slipped downstairs to the shop. Miss Izzy was there alone, and affected
not to see me.
“What’s the matter with Aunt Margaret?” I asked; at which ingenuous
question Miss Izzy gave a short contemptuous laugh.
A blowzy girl, sucking a sweet, came in to buy a novelette, and when
she had gone I informed Miss Izzy that I was going that night to hear
“Faust.” Miss Izzy expressed not the faintest interest in this project.
I turned over a book of views in melancholy silence――views of the
Linen Hall Library, and of Donegall Place; of the Cave Hill, and the
Albert Memorial; and I wondered if it would please Katherine were I to
send her a complete set. I looked at the price, written in Miss Izzy’s
secret code, on the back, and could not make up my mind.
“When people can’t control themselves there are places where they can
have people to look after them,” Miss Izzy announced to a bundle of
“Horner’s Penny Stories,” which she next moment swept viciously into a
corner.
This cryptic remark I took as referring to Aunt Margaret, but, seeing
my expectant face, Miss Izzy unkindly refused to follow it up.
I was disheartened, and began to read aloud advertisements of art books
from the back of a magazine I had bought on my way home. The third of
these bore the simple title “Michael Angelo,” and Miss Izzy astonished
me by saying, “That’s one of Marie Corelli’s.”
I ventured to tell her that Michael Angelo was a great painter and
sculptor, but the information was lost on Miss Izzy, who in the midst
of it said sharply, “Oh, don’t bother.”
I waited for a while, digesting this snub. Then, “Was she talking about
Mr. Moore?” I asked, indiscreetly.
Miss Izzy regarded me at first mildly and absently, but as the
sense of my question slowly forced its way through the meshes of
her cogitations, suddenly in extreme wrath: “If you’d mind your own
business,” she snapped, “you’d hear fewer lies. I don’t know what
you’re doing down here at all!”
“I’m doing nothing,” I answered, crestfallen.
“People talk about girls being curious and gossiping,” Miss Izzy went
on, scornfully, “but if other boys are like you――――”
I retired upstairs without waiting for the conclusion of the parallel.
I worked for an hour and a half, and by then it was tea-time. Aunt
Margaret did not appear, and we were told she was lying down. George,
who had come home earlier than usual, inquired where I was going to,
and when I informed him, asked if he might come too. I did not like to
refuse, though I did not want him, and knew he and Owen would not get
on together. I told him I was going with Owen.
“Is that the chap you’re so thick with? I don’t suppose he’ll mind me,
will he?”
I introduced them to each other at the theatre door. We were early,
and had nearly three-quarters of an hour to wait. Owen and I began to
talk, but our conversation evidently bored George, who, in the midst of
it, introduced a characteristic remark of his own, at which I laughed,
though I did not want to. Owen, who did not always see a joke, and
who would have detested the best joke in the world of the particular
kind George most affected, instantly relapsed into silence. He looked
at George for a moment; then he took a copy of the “Golden Treasury”
translation of Plato’s “Republic” from his pocket and began to read. I
had known well enough something of this sort was bound to happen, and I
made no attempt to bridge it over. George nudged me with his elbow and
closed his left eye. Owen’s disapproval did not put him about in the
least, and he continued to chatter quite unabashed.
Presently the fire-proof curtain went up, the lights were raised, and
the band straggled in and began to tune their fiddles. The conductor
followed, a fat little German with a bald head which shone like a large
ostrich egg. He faced the audience and bowed two or three times to
their applause; then, turning round, he tapped the music stand sharply
with his baton, and the first phrase was drawn slowly out on the
’cellos.
With the end of the overture the lights were turned down, and the
curtain rose on the lonely Faust, seated before a skull, an hour-glass,
and a large book, in his study. I had already forgotten Owen, George,
and everything but what I saw before me. I was surprised to find that
this old, grey-bearded man, who looked, in the dimness, like an Albert
Durer print, had a fresh, strong, tenor voice. Outside I heard the
singing of the peasants; then followed the rage and despair of Faust,
and, in a flaming red light, the apparition of Mephistopheles. Faust
pleaded for his lost youth, and Mephistopheles tempted him; the wall of
the study suddenly dissolved like a mist, and the vision of Margaret,
seated at her spinning-wheel, rose before the unhappy philosopher;
and the swinging, sensual phrase, repeated again and again in the
orchestra, lulled me to a dreamy languor.
_Faust._――“Heavenly vision!”
_Mephistopheles._――“Shall she love thee?”
There could be but one answer, and I saw Faust yield to the tempter; I
saw his rejuvenescence; and a triumphant duet between them brought the
act to a close.
I had become lost in this appealing melodrama, and though my mood was
broken in the next act, in the third act, in the celebrated garden
scene, it was revived and intensified. The sugary sweetness of the
music had an almost hypnotic effect upon me, for I had never heard it
till now, and the ecstatic sensuality of the duet rapt me into a world
of love, where everything else was forgotten. It was all utterly new
to me; it thrilled me; it drowned me in erotic dreams that swept me
onward like the waves of the sea; and through all, subconsciously, as
I listened and watched, I was carrying on another love-making of my
own, with which Faust and Margaret had nothing to do. Through the next
two acts I followed more closely the fortunes of the unhappy heroine,
not without a naïve wonder why so much tragedy, so much remorse,
should attend on what appeared to me――but for the intervention of
the devil――a quite natural and straightforward courtship. For some
reason, possibly the fault of the libretto, more probably because I
could only catch about half the words, I could not discover wherein
lay the secret of the trouble, nor why the lovers did not get married.
I accepted the situation however: I accepted, I think, everything but
the absurd “Soldiers’ Chorus,” and the death-scene of Valentine. This
latter nearly made me sick at the time, though I forgot all about it
when the curtain rose to reveal the wretched Margaret in prison. With
enthusiasm I watched her reject her lover and the demon, and fling
herself on her knees to pour out her soul in a prayer which finished on
the high B. At last I saw her released from all the ills of life, her
body stretched on the miserable straw bed. And with that the walls of
the prison rolled back, and I had a vision of her soul being borne to
heaven by angels. It is true those white-clad, flaxen-haired creatures,
with glistening wings and golden crowns, bore a not remote resemblance
to several of the livelier persons I had seen mingling with the
soldiers and students at an earlier stage of the drama; nevertheless I
beheld them, in this pause on their way to heaven, with respect, if not
exactly veneration.
“I doubt they’re as near it now as they’ll ever be,” said George,
cynically, pulling his cap from his jacket pocket.
And out in the street, under the gas-lamp at the corner, I had to
submit to a deluge of criticism from both my companions. I don’t know
which I liked least, the scorn of Owen, who revealed the tangible
source of Margaret’s woes, and would have had it adopted by the State,
or, after Owen had left, the ribald jibes of George, who found Faust a
poor creature, requiring a moon, a garden, a casket of jewels, a devil,
and several incantations, before he could beguile an innocent rustic
maiden who was already in love with him. I resolved that I would go to
the opera every night that week, but that I would go alone. Between
the acts I had eagerly studied my programme, and the delightful,
unfamiliar, romantic names, “Tannhäuser,” “Il Trovatore,” “Aida,”
“Lohengrin,” were like syrens singing to me through the darkness, with
an irresistible and passionate sweetness.
CHAPTER XXV
I went to the opera every night that week, as I had planned to do,
but the edge of my appetite was blunted, and, save in the case of
“Tannhäuser,” and of “Lohengrin,” I was disappointed. I had already
become more critical, and I now doubted if “Faust” were the admirable
work I had fancied it.
One evening there came a letter for me, and, when I opened the
envelope, I found inside a card which told me that Miss L. Gill and
Master E. Gill would be “at home” on Friday, the 23rd of December. My
own name was written at the top of the card. In the bottom left-hand
corner was the word “Dancing,” followed by the numerals 8–12; and in
the corner opposite were four mysterious letters――“R.S.V.P.”
I knew it to be an invitation to a party, but “R.S.V.P.” was puzzling.
Neither Uncle George nor Aunt Margaret could throw any light upon these
symbols, though Uncle George pondered over the card half the evening,
as if it had been a kind of magazine competition. Miss Izzy probably
would have known, but Miss Izzy had gone, and would not be back till
to-morrow morning, whereas I had a keen conviction that action should
be taken to-night.
“Who are they?” Uncle George asked, referring to the Gills.
“Mr. Gill is a solicitor. Owen Gill is in my classes at school.”
Uncle George examined the card anew, bringing this fresh light to bear
on it. He held it at arm’s length, and then put on his glasses and
peered at it through them. “Miss L. Gill and Master E. Gill,” he read
aloud slowly and solemnly.
I laughed. “They’re Owen’s young sister and brother,” I explained.
“A solicitor. I suppose he will have some letters after his name,” said
Uncle George, weakly.
“Oh, they’re not those,” I answered, impatiently. It seemed to me that
everybody was very stupid.
“R.S.V.P.” Uncle George threw out thoughtfully. He turned the card
round and examined the back.
“Reply soon: very pressing,” suggested George.
His father looked at him doubtfully, and laid the card on the table.
“It can’t be so pressing,” he said, glancing at the calendar, “when
it’s a fortnight off.”
“You see they have to make sure he’s coming before they ask anybody
else,” George explained. “Rippin’ spread: veal pie.”
“I suppose you think that funny,” I broke in; whereupon George, seeing
I was inclined to be cross, kept it up.
“Royal spree: von’t you partake? Refined soirée: veather permittin’.
That’s it, da, right enough; you can leave the card by.”
But Uncle George continued to regard it searchingly, glancing at me
every now and again over his spectacles.
Nothing was done that night, and in the morning, before school, I
approached Miss Izzy on the subject; though when I saw her examine the
card almost as carefully as the others had done, my faith in her sank.
“You’ll have to answer on a card,” said Miss Izzy, loftily, having at
any rate settled the first point, and waving aside the sheet of note
paper I held in my hand.
“I haven’t got one.”
“There’s a box of them in the shop somewhere. They’ve been there since
the dear knows when. Nobody ever asks for cards.” She hunted about in a
drawer under the counter, and at length succeeded in finding the box.
Without breaking the pink paper band that held the cards together she
carefully extracted one from the bundle. I took it and dipped my pen in
the ink and waited.
“Just answer it in the usual way,” said Miss Izzy, offhandedly, with
the air of one who dashes off at least half a dozen such communications
every day.
“I don’t know the usual way,” I confessed.
Miss Izzy aggravatingly paused to shake out a paper lamp-shade. Then
she attended to a little boy who came in to buy a “Deadwood Dick” tale.
“Tell me what to say,” I begged, humbly.
“Mr. Peter Waring,” dictated Miss Izzy, with much dignity; and I wrote
“Mr. Peter Waring,” in terror all the time of making a blot.
Miss Izzy glanced over my shoulder. “You’ve begun too high up,” she
said, reassuringly. Then, as I made a movement to tear the card, “Oh,
it’ll do.”
“Mr. Peter Waring begs to thank Miss L. Gill and Master E. Gill for
their very kind invitation.”
The shop-bell had rung again. It was the little boy back to change his
story for another he had discovered in the window, and which it took
Miss Izzy hours to extract. “Corduroy Charlie,” she murmured, as she
handed it across the counter. It was the title of the work.
“Yes?” I said, trying not to appear impatient.
Miss Izzy came back to my affairs. “Oh! what have you got?”
“Mr. Peter Waring begs to thank Miss L. Gill and Master E. Gill for
their very kind invitation――――”
“Invitation.... And will be very pleased to accept same for the date
mentioned.”
“Yes?”
“That’s all. Don’t be signing your name, stupid!”
I hastily checked myself.
“What do those letters in the corner mean?” I asked timidly. “I suppose
I oughtn’t to put them on mine?”
“Of course not. They’re French, and mean they want an answer.”
I read over what I had written and thanked Miss Izzy, but secretly I
was not satisfied. I felt sure there was something wrong somewhere. It
did not read well. I put it in an envelope, however, and posted it,
though immediately afterwards I became more unhappy about it than ever.
I made a mental note to ask Mrs. Carroll for information when I was at
home at Christmas.
CHAPTER XXVI
I had been asked to the Gills’ for eight o’clock, and at half-past
six I began to dress. After posting my acceptance my next care had
been in regard to the clothes I should wear. There is no doubt greatly
increased opportunities had tended to develop in me a latent dandyism.
At all events I took the matter of my dress quite seriously, and had
very definite ideas in regard to it. I went to the best tailor in
town, my bills were sent on to Mrs. Carroll, and that was all I knew
about them. I tried to get the soft greys and blacks and whites I
admired in old Spanish and Dutch portraits, with perhaps a colour-note
of olive green in my neck-tie, but always with the tones kept low
and harmonious. Dandyism certainly, but it was in its way merely an
expression of those same sensibilities that enabled me to see the charm
of the pictures I have mentioned; that is to say, it was not based on
any feeling of personal vanity, for I had no illusions in regard to my
beauty. So, in this particular instance, I took immense pains to see
that everything should be exactly right, and at the same time pleasing
to myself. The cloth I had chosen was of the very blackest and finest
and softest. Each garment had to be fitted on me till I could find no
fault in it. The broad braid down the sides of my trousers seemed to
me perfectly decorative. It was really in its use of linen that modern
dress most conspicuously failed: what would Franz Hals or Velasquez
have thought of the stiff, glazed collar convention obliged me to wear?
When I had finished dressing I looked at myself critically in the
inadequate glass, beside which I had set two or three candles, standing
in pools of their own grease. It seemed to me that the peculiar, sullen
expression of my face, caused by the formation of my forehead and the
shape of my mouth, must always create an unfavourable impression. If
I could recognise it myself, it would probably be a great deal more
striking to other people. It disappeared when I smiled, but as soon as
I stopped smiling it came back again.
I went downstairs and strutted about before Miss Izzy and little Alice,
that they might admire my fine feathers, and it was only when I reached
the Gills that every other feeling was swallowed up in a horrible
shyness.
The whole house was brilliantly lit up, and I was shown to a room
already half-filled with boys, who were removing their overcoats,
putting on their dancing shoes, talking and laughing perfectly easily,
just as if the most frightful ordeal were not staring them in the
face. Evidently they all knew each other quite well, whereas I knew
nobody. Owen came up, indeed, and spoke to me, but forsook me almost
immediately, as people were arriving every minute, two or three of
them, I observed, quite grown-up. I wished Owen would come back. When I
saw a boy I knew slightly and heartily disliked, I was ready to welcome
him as the oldest and dearest of friends, but, not being in my solitary
condition, he merely nodded to me, and went over to join a group at
the other side of the room. I was left standing by myself, not knowing
what to do; and all the time fresh guests were arriving, and I felt I
was in the way, but could not summon up courage to make a movement. I
now bitterly regretted having been such a fool as to come. I noticed
several other boys with whom I had a casual acquaintance at school, but
beyond nodding they paid no attention to me, and I became filled with
rage against them and against Owen himself. Then I heard a voice saying
over my shoulder, “If you’re ready you may as well come upstairs.”
It was Owen, and I followed him obediently. I passed a group of boys
loitering outside an open door, and found myself all at once in a
large room. The light at first half-dazzled me. With a heart furiously
beating I was led up to a tall, slight lady in black, who was standing
near the fireplace. This was Owen’s mother. I shook hands with her,
and with his father, and with one of his elder sisters. But when this
was accomplished I was again in that horrible position of not knowing
what to do and being afraid to move. Owen had once more deserted me.
All about me were a crowd of brightly-dressed girls, chattering and
laughing among themselves, and pretending not to look at me. The boys,
with whom I would have liked now to be back again, were hovering near
the door, and I tried to screw up my courage to the point of crossing
the room. Then somebody――I think it was Owen’s sister――gave me a
programme. I stood clasping it tightly in my hand. It seemed to me
now unthinkably idiotic that I should voluntarily have placed myself
in this position of torture, when all I had had to do was to refuse
the invitation and stay at home. At that moment a lady to whom I had
not been introduced spoke to me, though I was too much upset to hear
what she said. She had a pleasant smile, a voice soft and attractive,
and she asked me my name, and told me I must get some partners. Many
of the other boys, I noticed, had begun to ask for dances, and were
scribbling down names in their programmes. My new friend bore me off to
a fair-haired, fair-skinned, demure-looking maiden in a pink, fleecy
dress, and introduced me. Unfortunately, at this point, one of the
grown-up persons, a tall young man, called out, “Annie, half a mo,”
and my protectress turned away, leaving me to make my own advances.
I could do nothing. How could I ask this wretched girl to dance with
me when I had never danced in my life? For an agonizing moment I stood
there; then I stammered out something, turned on my heel abruptly, and
walked away.
It was dreadful. Before me I saw a conservatory, the door of which
was open, and I escaped into it as my only refuge. I felt utterly
miserable. It occurred to me to slip out quietly and go home, but to
do that I should have to cross the room, and somebody would be sure to
pounce upon me. Besides, what would the McAllisters think? The first
dance had commenced, and I saw that my golden-haired maiden had found
another partner. He happened to be one of the boys I knew, and I was
certain she would tell him what I had done, and that everybody at
school would get to know about it.
In the midst of the dance the lady called Annie bore straight down upon
me, having detected my hiding-place. But she did not seem angry; on the
contrary, she was laughing. She threaded her way among the palms, while
I felt my face becoming purple.
“What do you mean by running away like that from the partners I choose
for you?” she asked gaily. “Elsie told me you wouldn’t ask her to
dance, and she says it’s my fault, that I made you come when you didn’t
want to.”
“I can’t dance,” I answered huskily. Nevertheless, Elsie’s explanation
of my conduct, in spite of the fact that it redoubled its rudeness,
gave me relief.
The “Annie” lady looked at me, still laughing. Then she said very
kindly, “Oh, don’t mind; it really doesn’t matter in the least. Come
and dance with me.”
“But I can’t,” I muttered, “I never tried in my life.”
“Well, come and talk to me then, and we can watch the others.”
She led me back into the room. She asked me all kinds of questions
about myself, and very soon I was chattering away as if I had known her
all my life. I had forgotten what an extremely small boy I had been
only ten minutes ago, as I looked about me boldly, and gave “Annie” my
opinion on all kinds of things.
We talked of the opera, and when she told me she preferred the
“Trovatore” to “Lohengrin” I thought her taste very crude. All the
same I liked her. She laughed in a nice way, and was interested in
everything you said to her. I pulled up my trousers a little so that
my delicate silk socks should be more visible. As I glanced round the
room I decided that I was much better dressed than anybody there, and
this conviction increased my confidence. I would have liked to ask
“Annie” what she thought of me from this point of view, but instead,
she inquired if I was fond of reading. I replied in the affirmative,
and she asked me if I had read “Tom Brown’s School-days.” I again said,
“Yes,” and asked her if she had read “Anna Karénine.”
“What a curious book for you to get hold of! I should have thought you
would have preferred ‘The Coral Island,’ or ‘Midshipman Easy.’ Those
are the kind of books _my_ brothers like. That is one of my brothers
there, that fat ugly boy with red hair, dancing with the little girl in
white.”
I inspected the brother. “‘Anna Karénine’ is a fine book,” I answered.
“Why didn’t she ask for the divorce at once, do you think? I mean as
soon as she went away with Wronsky?”
Out of the tail of my eye I saw the young man who had before interfered
between us again approaching. She saw him too, and immediately called
out, “Bertie, we’re discussing ‘Anna Karénine.’ I’m sure you haven’t
read it.”
We didn’t really discuss it, for she changed the subject directly
afterwards, without even having answered my question, and Bertie,
who I heard later was a football player of great renown, asked me
if my school was going to win the cup this year. The first square
dance “Annie” insisted on my dancing with her, and, so far as I could
judge, I shuffled through it all right. After that she left me to my
own resources, and I returned to Bertie. There was something between
Bertie and her, I believed. I was sure he had only come because she
had told him she was going to be there to help to look after the kids.
Bertie had danced all the dances up to this one, but he now told me
that if he didn’t have a smoke he should die, and asked me to come to
the billiard-room with him. We played a hundred up, Bertie going two
to my one, but I beat him, for I had often knocked the balls about
on the table at Derryaghy, though there was rarely anybody to have a
game with. Bertie said I should make a good player if I practised,
and he showed me a lot of strokes. He was very jolly and I liked
him. Presently he asked me if I didn’t want some supper, and we went
downstairs. Refreshments had been going on all the evening, but the
room happened to be empty when we came in. There was a great deal of
lemonade and stuff, but Bertie secured some champagne, and by the time
I had had two glasses I began to feel extremely comfortable and jolly.
Bertie’s jokes were twice as good as they had been before, and my own
conversation suddenly acquired an interest and brilliancy that made me
want to talk as much as possible. After my third glass Bertie suggested
I should try Apollinaris, but I refused. The room had somehow by this
time got full of people. Bertie told me to keep quiet, but just then he
was called away, and I was left to finish my supper alone.
CHAPTER XXVII
When I got to my feet to go back to the dancing-room, everything swayed
before my eyes, and I held on to the back of my chair till I had
steadied myself. I felt now as bold as a lion, and as soon as I clapped
eyes on Elsie, my golden-haired maiden whom I had insulted earlier
in the evening, I determined to apologize. I went up to her, looking
neither to right nor left, and placing myself in front of her asked her
to give me the next dance.
She looked at me somewhat timidly, and said she was engaged already,
showing me her programme. I at once stroked the name out.
“Now,” I said, “let’s go and sit down somewhere. He’ll never find us.”
She hesitated, but only for a second or two. Then she rose and put her
hand lightly on my arm.
“Don’t you think it’s awfully hot in here?” I went on, with amazing
aplomb. “Besides, we have to hide any way, haven’t we?”
But outside, the landing was full of people. I glanced at the staircase
before us, seeming to lead up into regions of dim coolness and
solitude, and proposed we should try to find some place on the next
floor.
There was indeed a seat there, in the dusk, but Elsie looked at it with
misgiving. “I don’t think we should have come so high up,” she said.
“I’m sure we’re not meant to. I think we’d better go down: nobody else
is coming up here.”
“But isn’t that just the reason we came? It’s all right. If anybody
else does come we won’t be the only ones, and if they don’t who’s to
know anything about us?”
I don’t know whether Elsie was convinced by this sophistry, but at any
rate she sat down. “I want to apologize to you,” I began softly. “Are
you very angry with me?” I was surprised at the amount of expression I
was able to throw into my voice, and I had a delightful feeling of not
caring a straw what I said or did. It was fairly evident that Elsie
rather admired the mood I was displaying, though I could see she was
slightly puzzled by it.
“No,” she answered simply. “I knew you were shy.” She lifted her
innocent grey eyes to mine, and it came over me, very intensely, that
she was extremely pretty. She looked very soft and demure in her fleecy
pink dress, and with her hands folded in her lap.
“Do you think I’m shy now?” I asked, smiling.
“No,” she answered sweetly.
I couldn’t help laughing. At the same time I felt a sudden tenderness
for her, which it seemed most essential that I should put into words.
“You’ve forgiven me then?” I went on.
She laughed. “What nonsense you talk. As if it mattered.”
“It matters to me. Say you forgive me.”
“I won’t. There’s nothing to forgive.” She blushed and looked down.
“Say it,” I persisted, bending towards her. “If you don’t I’ll think
you dislike me.”
She kept her eyes downcast, and I drew closer still.
“Well?”
“I don’t dislike you,” she whispered.
I kissed her. She blushed a deep delightful blush, but did not move
away. The swinging melody of a waltz rose up to us through the dim cool
light.
“Are you angry now?” I asked.
She shook her head. I put my arms round her, and as I felt her yielding
I had a strong strange pleasure. I held her close to me, kissing her
again and again, while she closed her eyes like a cat that is being
stroked. For a moment I felt her lips touch mine, then she struggled
away from me, and without looking back hurried downstairs.
I followed, but before I could rejoin her Owen caught me by the arm.
“I’ve been looking for you everywhere. I’ve hardly seen you all the
evening. What have you been up to?”
I laughed.
He looked at me, slightly perplexed. “What is there so amusing?” he
inquired.
But I didn’t try to explain.
“What is the matter?” Owen went on, gazing at me.
“Nothing,” I answered.
“Come on upstairs: it’s cooler there. There’s a seat on the next lobby.”
“Is there?” I replied, as I followed him.
CHAPTER XXVIII
“I hope you haven’t been awfully bored?” was Owen’s first remark after
we sat down.
“No; I think it’s a lovely party.”
There was a silence.
“What _is_ the matter, Peter?” Owen asked again.
“Nothing, Owen, except natural excitement. Don’t be suspicious.”
Owen looked unconvinced, but he decided to change the subject. “Do you
know the part of the book that I really like best? It is where Levine
mows the meadows with the peasants.”
I knew we were back again at “Anna Karénine,” but I couldn’t bring my
mind to bear upon it.
“That is the real kind of life,” Owen pursued, “where all is simple,
and natural; where there are no balls and clubs and lies and all the
rest. I hate towns. I shall always live somewhere in the country.”
“It doesn’t suit everybody,” I brilliantly observed.
“It doesn’t suit people like Anna and Wronsky.”
“You’re always down on poor Anna.”
“She’s not poor. She had every chance to be happy. Why couldn’t she
have been content to be friends with Wronsky? All the rest was pure
selfishness.”
“You don’t understand,” I replied.
Owen hated to be told this. “Understand what?” he demanded, impatiently.
“The kind of love Anna and Wronsky had for each other.”
“Why, then, as soon as she goes to live with Wronsky, does she begin to
talk so much of her love for her son? I don’t like her. It seems to me
that she deliberately spoiled the lives of her husband and her son for
her own gratification.”
“She didn’t spoil her son’s life. He was only a little boy.”
“But she forsook him.”
“You don’t understand,” I was obliged to repeat. “You never _will_
understand.”
“Do you want to stick up for that sort of thing?”
“I’m not sticking up for it; but I don’t think it’s the kind of thing
a person can accept or refuse just as if it were an invitation to a
party. If you knew anything about it you wouldn’t say they might have
been content to be friends.”
“And do you like the way she makes fun of her husband to her lover?”
“What has that to do with it?”
“Even when she is making her confession to her husband she thinks only
of herself. She tells him that she hates him. It does not occur to her
that he can have any feelings, because his manner is stiff and he has a
habit of cracking his finger-joints.”
“It didn’t much matter how she made her confession.”
“It did. She needn’t have been brutal.”
“Oh, she wasn’t brutal.”
“And all the lies?”
“But you never seem to think of her situation!”
“I do. She deliberately brought about her own situation, after having
been warned by her husband. You admire her simply because she loves
Wronsky; but there is nothing very wonderful about that kind of love.”
“I never said I admired her; I said I understood her. If she sacrificed
her husband, she sacrificed herself too.”
“Yes――and her lover, and her friend Kitty, and her son, and everything.
Levine’s brother, who drinks himself to death, also sacrifices himself.
And Yavshine, who gambles away all his fortune.”
“You don’t see any difference?”
“I don’t see anything fine in the kind of love Anna felt. And when she
says she won’t have any more children, it seems to me that it becomes
simply disgusting. Have you thought what it means?”
“Oh, I know what it means,” I answered sulkily. Owen had managed to
completely alter my mood, and I no longer felt pleased with myself or
pleased with him. I was irritated because he seemed, now as always, to
try to judge what was a matter of emotion by reasoning about it.
“If you had ever loved anybody,” I said, “it would make you look at
such things differently.”
“Perhaps I mightn’t see them any clearer for that.”
“Perhaps not. But to judge human beings you require first of all to
understand something about human nature.”
“Understand! You’re always harping on that! It’s a very cheap way of
arguing. Why should I think _you_ understand?”
“Because I have felt what we are talking about, and you haven’t.” I
suddenly grew violently excited. “You don’t know what it is to care
for a person so that nothing else in the world matters, so that it is
like a kind of sickness, preventing you even from sleeping. You know
nothing, have felt nothing, and yet you bring out your miserable little
catechism arguments and pretend to pronounce judgment. I’d rather have
a man who had committed all the crimes on the earth than one of those
cold, fishy, reasonable creatures you admire, who never did anything
wrong, and never made anybody happy.”
Owen looked at me in amazement, which is indeed hardly surprising.
But suddenly my excitement passed, and I felt only a passion of
home-sickness and regret. It swept over me like a heavy, resistless
rush of water. All that was here around me grew black as night. I
longed to get away from everything that could even remind me of my
life of the past few months. I seemed to have a sudden bright light in
which I saw myself clearly. In these few months I had deteriorated, the
quality even of my love for Katherine had deteriorated; it had become
less of the spirit, more of an obsession. And now, as I stood there
before Owen, I seemed to hear the soft breaking of waves, infinitely
peaceful, and I had a vision of my own bedroom, where I went to sleep,
and wakened up, with the low sound of the sea in my ears. I said
good-night hurriedly to the astonished Owen. I told him I was sorry for
speaking as I had done, but that I would explain it all to him another
time; only now I must go. I ran downstairs to the cloak-room, and a few
minutes later left the house, without having said good-night to Mrs.
Gill.
* * * * *
When I reached home I let myself in quietly with a latch-key, but as I
was undressing George wakened up and began to ask me about the party. I
did not feel in the least like going to sleep, and after I had got into
bed we lay talking. Presently George got up and lit the gas, which I
had turned out. I saw him go to the hiding-place he had shown me on the
night of my arrival, and again take from it that mysterious bundle of
photographs. He came over and sat down on the side of my bed.
“I don’t want to see them,” I said, pushing him away; but he may have
detected a note of weakness in my voice, for he only laughed.
“Don’t be a fool,” he answered brutally. “I’m not going to do you any
harm.”
He drew them from the envelope and showed them to me, one by one, while
the gas flamed and flared above our heads.
CHAPTER XXIX
Owen stepped back off the foot-board on to the platform.
“Good-bye,” I said, leaning out of the carriage window. “There’s no use
your waiting till the train starts. I hope you’ll have decent holidays.”
He smiled. “I’m sure I will. I wish, all the same, you were going to be
with me. I thought of it, but then I thought you would rather go home.”
“Yes,” I said.
“Wouldn’t you really? Don’t you want to go home?”
“Yes, of course. Why do you ask?”
“I don’t know. You don’t seem, perhaps, quite so keen as you were――――”
Owen still waited, but I had taken my seat.
“Well, I’ll see you again in a fortnight,” he went on, cheerfully.
“Write to me, won’t you, if you aren’t too busy?”
“Yes.”
Another pause followed, while Owen looked up and down the platform. He
seemed to me extraordinarily happy.
“Well, good-bye again,” he said.
“Good-bye.”
And this time the guard’s whistle blew, the train jolted forward with
a clatter of coupling-irons, and then glided steadily on. I waved my
hand to Owen, catching a last glimpse of his bright, animated face
before I settled down to the indifferent contemplation of the staler,
and coarser-looking persons who shared my compartment. What I had
been looking forward to for many weeks had come to pass; I was on my
way home; outwardly nothing was wanting; yet not even the thought of
seeing Mrs. Carroll again seemed to have power to awaken that joy I
had anticipated, though she had written to ask me to spend part of my
holidays with her, and I tried now to think of some scheme by which to
make this part as large as possible.
I looked at the people opposite; I looked out of the window; I turned
the pages of _Punch’s Almanac_, which Owen had bought for me at the
bookstall. Then I shut my eyes and tried to doze.
When the train drew in at the station I saw my father standing on the
platform. Somehow, I had not expected him to be there, and he upset my
calculations. I opened the carriage door, and as I shook hands with him
I realized how much easier it is to make plans than to carry them out,
and hoped Mrs. Carroll herself had approached him on the matter of my
going to Derryaghy. His careworn, anxious face was lit by a smile as
he asked me how I was. A porter meanwhile had secured my box and was
wheeling it on a truck along the platform. But, as we walked behind
him, that old stupid feeling of constraint had already begun to take
possession of me, and my replies to my father’s questions sounded, for
all I could do to the contrary, stiff, and even reluctant.
It was after one o’clock and dinner was ready when we reached the house.
“The train must have been late,” I remarked, indifferently, as we sat
down; and then I could think of nothing further to say.
It struck me that my father was older and dimmer and shabbier than
I had remembered him. He presented the picture, drab and dreary, of
perfectly achieved failure, and I found myself looking out for all
his old habits, the peculiar noises he made with his nose, his fashion
of smacking his lips. I noticed that his hands were not very clean,
and that his coat looked as if he had brushed his hair over it. These
things struck me all the more forcibly, somehow, because I tried to
think how superficial and unimportant they were. I had a vision of
the solitary meals he must have taken for the past four months, and
I was sorry for him, though subconsciously, at the same time, I was
considering how soon it would do for me to mention my proposed visit to
Derryaghy.
After dinner he asked me what I wanted to do. “It is nice and dry for
walking,” he said. “We have had quite a hard frost.”
It sounded as if he intended coming with me, a thing he seldom or never
did.
“I was thinking of going up to Derryaghy,” I answered, with an
assumption of carelessness that did not prevent my noting the immediate
change that came into his face.
“Had you planned anything?” I asked hastily.
“No, no.”
“Perhaps you would like to go for a walk?”
“No, no. Please yourself,” he replied.
So I went up to Derryaghy, with a guilty sense that I had hurt his
feelings. It was a pity that I should have begun in this fashion;
that I could not, for once, have been cheerfully and spontaneously
unselfish, but my longing to get back to my old haunts was intense, and
I yielded to it.
After all, when I reached Derryaghy, Mrs. Carroll was not there. She
had left a message for me to say that she had been obliged to go up
to town, but that she hoped I should be able to dine with her at the
usual hour. I wandered out into the winter woods, beautiful with the
strange and delicate beauty of naked trees. I loved this place really
with a kind of passion, and I was glad my father was not here, glad
that I was alone. Dark slender branches traced fantastic arabesques
against the grey sky above my head. The black- and silver-stemmed
birches gave the note that was carried out through all the colouring.
Only the fir-trees, laurels, and an occasional holly-tree, were green.
I loved the woods in winter; they seemed to me to have then a peculiar
grace they did not possess at any other season. And the wind whistled
so hollowly in the leafless trees, and the darting birds were so black
against the sky, and all was so silent and solitary, with a sort of
frozen loveliness, that I could conceive of nothing more beautiful even
in the green pomp and splendour of summer. And behind everything was
a vision of long, lamp-lit, fire-lit evenings, with dreamy, delicious
books. The leaves of the laurels and holly were coated with frost;
the dead fronds of the bracken were a dull brown; here and there the
sombre colouring was splashed with the red leaves of brambles. There
was a hint of approaching snow in the air, there was almost a silence
of snow, and I seemed to feel it drawing closer to me through the cold,
remote sky. The ground was hard as iron. Sometimes a single leaf,
pallid and faded, trembled still at the end of a twig, but almost all
the leaves that were going to fall had fallen long ago. I saw the flash
of fur, brown and white, in the frozen grass, but Tony, who followed at
my heels, was indifferent to rabbits.
It was dusk when I returned. A servant preceded me into the
drawing-room, and lit the lamps, and made up the fire, throwing on
another log or two. I sat down in one of the big, soft armchairs and
began to turn over Christmas numbers――the _Graphic_, the _London News_,
_Holly Leaves_――looking at Caldecott’s, Sambourne’s, and Fred Barnard’s
drawings. I began to read a story by Bret Harte. It was extraordinarily
nice to be here again. This dear old house, how I loved it! The huge
wood fire, the roomy depth of my armchair, the soft, thick carpet,
all the surroundings of pleasantness and comfort, appealed to me
after my prolonged and reluctant experience of the McAllisters. The
fragrant China tea that was brought in to me tasted more deliciously
than anything I had ever tasted before, and when I had finished my
story (“The Chatelaine of Burnt Ridge,” I think it was called) and the
servant had cleared away the tea-things, I sat and dozed.
I had asked after Miss Dick, but of course she had gone home for
Christmas. I was really to be alone this time――just myself and Mrs.
Carroll.
As I sat there, looking into the fire, I felt that it would have been
nicer of me to have gone home on this, the evening of my arrival,
but six o’clock, our tea hour, had struck ten minutes ago, and still
I had not budged from my chair. Curious thoughts, thoughts I should
have been ashamed to tell anybody, came to me unbidden, and for the
first time. It made a tremendous difference just who happened to be
one’s father, I reflected; and I thought of how the Dales were Mrs.
Carroll’s nearest relatives. “She likes me better than anybody else,” I
said to myself. “If I were by myself she would adopt me. All this――the
house――everything will belong one day to somebody else; but to whom?...
The house?” ... And I remembered she did not care for Gerald, and
that Gerald did not in the least try to make her alter her opinion.
Probably he had only come over last summer because his people had
insisted on it. All at once I realized that these speculations were not
particularly charming, and tried to put them from me. At the same time
I heard the sharp sound of a horse’s hoofs on the frozen ground, then
the crunch of gravel under carriage wheels, and I knew Mrs. Carroll had
returned.
She opened the door and came straight to me, smiling and holding out
her hand. “You’ve grown so big,” she said, lifting her thick veil, “I
don’t know whether you want to be kissed or not, but I think I’ll risk
it.” She kissed me, and then held me at arm’s length to look at me.
She moved me a little so that the lamp-light fell on my face. “My dear
child,” she asked, with a sudden anxiety, “aren’t you well? How did
you get those black lines under your eyes? You can’t be getting enough
sleep. Have you been working too hard?”
“No,” I answered, “but I was up late last night.”
“You must be more careful: your health is infinitely more important
than any wretched examination. Well, at all events, I’m very glad to
see you.”
* * * * *
A couple of hours later, after dinner, she again took up the subject of
my appearance, which evidently did not satisfy her, though I assured
her there was nothing the matter.
“You’ve altered,” she said, thoughtfully. “It isn’t only that you’ve
grown, but you, somehow, look older. Do you get your meals properly?
I expect you stop to play after school instead of coming home to your
dinner!”
I changed the subject as soon as I could by asking after the Dales.
“Will they be here next summer?”
“If you would like it I daresay we can manage it. In fact I invited
Katherine for Christmas, but she couldn’t come.”
“I hope they will come in the summer.”
I inquired after all the other people I could think of: I felt
interested in everything that had happened since I had gone away. Then
I sat quiet, and quite suddenly, when I thought she had forgotten all
about it, Mrs. Carroll said, “I wish you would tell me, Peter, just
what is troubling you.”
“But there is nothing,” I answered, smiling. “I was only thinking how
nice it was to be back here again.”
“Remember you are to come to stay for a few days, before the end of
your holidays. You must stay at least a week. When have you to go
back?”
“On the eighth.”
“And those people you are with――the What-do-you-call-ems――how do you
like them?”
“The McAllisters?” I hesitated. “Not very much.”
“Do they look after you properly?”
“Oh yes.”
“I think I’ll come and see you there. I would have gone before this,
only your father didn’t want it.”
“I’d rather you didn’t,” I said.
“Why?”
I had no answer and she went on: “I must call and have a talk with your
father before you go back.”
“It won’t do any good so far as that is concerned. He wants me to be
there. Aunt Margaret is his sister.”
“I know that, but you’d rather be by yourself, wouldn’t you? I can see
there is something you don’t like.”
“My father wouldn’t let me. He has some idea about a home
influence――but I told you before, and of course he told you himself.”
“Home fiddlesticks! You’d have been far better at a good
boarding-school. This, it seems to me, is neither one thing nor
another. I must speak to him.”
“There is no use really,” I said, for I knew that if she were to take
the matter up again it might end in my not even being allowed to come
to stay at Derryaghy next week.
“Your father is far too anxious about you. If there had been two or
three more of you it would have been much better.”
“It isn’t that.” I waited a while before I brought it out: “He doesn’t
trust me.”
“Doesn’t trust you? In what way doesn’t he trust you?”
“In every way. He thinks I’m inclined naturally to――to do things――”
“To do things? What sort of things?”
“To be bad,” I said abruptly.
Mrs. Carroll stared at me. “Nonsense, child,” she answered. “I don’t
know what can have put such an idea into your head!”
“_He_ did,” I muttered. “There are times when I think he may be right,”
I went on dejectedly, “that he must surely have some reason. I don’t
know.... He is always thinking about my mother.”
Mrs. Carroll had been on the point of speaking, but at this she paused.
“I know nothing about her,” I pursued. “I can’t remember her at all,
and there is not even a photograph at home. What _is_ there? Do _you_
know nothing?”
Mrs. Carroll hesitated. “Nothing,” she then said. “Nothing more than
you know yourself, Peter dear,” she added.
“You have never heard? I should like to go to see her.”
“Yes?” There was a note of doubt in this monosyllable which made me
look up.
“I should like to judge for myself,” I continued, impetuously. But the
question was, or to Mrs. Carroll appeared to be, an impossible one for
us to discuss together, and she made no reply.
“And how do you like your school?” she asked presently, holding up a
magazine between her face and the blazing fire. “Tell me all about
it――about all your friends and everything you do.”
I began to tell her, giving, as I went along a kind of rough, rambling
account of my ordinary day. I told of how I had come to know Owen; how
the real thief had never been discovered. I described Owen to her; I
said he was the only friend I had made. I told her of the party last
night, leaving out the episode of Elsie.
“It makes such a difference when you find somebody who is more or less
like yourself.”
“I don’t think he is very like me,” I answered. “I don’t think we’re
a bit alike, but――” I tried to puzzle it out: “I suppose we must have
some things in common.”
“Tell me about him,” she encouraged me.
“He’s a very good chap,” I said lamely. Then, as this didn’t in the
least express my meaning: “I mean he’s very straight, and decent, and
all that. He’s not like anybody else.”
“What is the difference?”
“Well, for one thing, he’s awfully serious. I don’t mean dull――but
serious about what things really mean and that sort of thing.”
“Is he clever?”
“I don’t know. He’s very simple.”
“And George――isn’t that his name? the name of your cousin?――what is
_he_ like? Are you friends with him?”
“Oh, yes.”
“Tell me about George too.”
“There’s nothing to tell. He’s in business. You wouldn’t much care for
him.”
“Why not? Don’t you?”
“Yes, very well.” And it suddenly struck me as strange that I did so,
that I did not positively detest him.
“You do not seem enthusiastic. Is he not nice?”
“Oh, he’s all right. He’s nice enough, I daresay――just as nice as I am.”
“Why won’t you tell me what is the matter, Peter?”
“There is nothing.”
“You haven’t done anything wrong, have you?”
“I don’t know.”
I closed my eyes for a minute as I leaned back in my chair. A
silence had fallen on the room with my last words. Then suddenly my
self-control deserted me, and I hid my face against the arm of the
chair, just as if I had been a child.
CHAPTER XXX
It was a beautiful, clear, winter night when I walked home. Over the
low wall I looked out at the dark, smooth sea, stretching away, almost
black, save where the moonlight touched it. I trailed my right hand
on the wall as I walked, heedless of the cold, though it was freezing
keenly. The tide was in, and the chill, listless splash of the small
waves, running through my thoughts, seemed to increase their sadness.
On the verge of the distant golf-links a ruddy light from the big hotel
shone out into the night.
As I turned up the Bryansford Road, I saw, in the moonlight, my father
standing leaning over the garden gate, and behind him the house door
was open. Unconsciously I slackened my pace. He was looking for me,
perhaps. He must have already heard me, for the sound of my footsteps
rang out sharply on the hard road.
“Where have you been all this time?” he asked abruptly, as I came up.
There was a hardness in his voice that, in my present mood, I shrank
from more than I should have from physical violence. I knew he knew
where I had been, and I thought he might have let the matter pass.
“I didn’t intend to stay so late,” I said, apologetically, “but Mrs.
Carroll had gone up to town and left a message for me, asking me to
wait. After dinner she wanted me to tell her all I had been doing since
I left home.”
“I hope you were more communicative than you were to me. You hadn’t
time, I suppose, to come back and say you were staying. I waited tea
for you for nearly an hour.”
“I didn’t think it mattered,” I mumbled. “I’m very sorry. I thought you
would understand.”
I had already climbed half a dozen stairs on my way to bed, when my
father called me back.
“Why are you rushing off like that, now?”
I hastily returned. “I was going to bed: I didn’t know you wanted to
sit up.” I went on into the parlour, where there was a smoky fire in
the grate, just large enough to make you realize how cold it was, and
on the table some bread and butter, a jug of milk and a tumbler. I sat
down beside the fire.
“I’m not going to sit up; but I don’t want you to treat your home as if
it were an hotel, a place where you come merely to sleep. I’ve no doubt
things are more to your taste at Derryaghy, but while this _is_ your
home, you must try to make the best of it.”
I looked at my father helplessly, but I said nothing. I had an
uncomfortable vision of his sitting here all evening by himself. If he
would only make friends with somebody! I wondered if he had been happy
before mamma went away.
“Seeing that it was your first day at home,” he went on, putting down
my silence to sulkiness, “you might at least have been content to be
out all the afternoon. Now that we are on the subject, I had better
let you know that Mrs. Carroll asked me to allow you to spend part of
your holidays at Derryaghy, but I told her you must decide that for
yourself.” He paused, with the intention of letting me say I didn’t
want to go.
“She told me to-night,” I murmured.
“Well?”
“I think I’d like to go.”
There was a silence, and I wondered how long we were going to sit
shivering here.
“I had a letter to-night from your Aunt Margaret. She says you have
made friends with some people called Gill, and have been to a party at
their house.”
“Yes: it was last night.”
“Why do you never tell me of any of these things yourself? One would
think I was a total stranger to you!”
“I didn’t know it would interest you.”
All at once I remembered my visits to the opera, and I couldn’t
understand how my father had not heard of them. He had not mentioned my
laxity in regard to church either, and both these omissions puzzled me
greatly, seeing Aunt Margaret had made such a fuss about them at the
time.
CHAPTER XXXI
After breakfast I screwed up my courage to the point of broaching
the subject I had most on my mind. “There is something I want to say
to you,” I began, and my father instantly adopted an attitude of
motionless attention, so excessively attentive that it had the effect
of putting me out, and I forgot the phrases I had prepared beforehand,
and could only stammer awkwardly that it was my desire to leave the
McAllisters and choose some lodging for myself.
A return to this question I saw was not pleasing to him, and I had
hardly expected it to be so.
“You are very self-willed,” he said, slowly.
I knew from the tone in which this opinion was uttered that he had
already made up his mind about my request, yet some obscure instinct
of self-preservation still kept me from giving in. I don’t suppose I
could have satisfactorily explained that instinct to my father, even
had I become perfectly confidential, and certainly no such thought ever
crossed my mind. The result was that he looked upon my wish as a mere
caprice.
“It seems to me we have already fully discussed the question,” he
remarked unsympathetically.
“I didn’t know then.... I mean I don’t like sleeping with George.”
“Why? You have your own bed, haven’t you?”
“Yes.”
“George is your cousin.”
“I know he is my cousin,” I answered wearily. “What difference does
that make?” Already I felt the whole thing was hopeless.
“It is just this sort of nonsense which makes me object to your going
to stay at Derryaghy,” my father began impatiently. “You are pampered
with every luxury there, till you begin to dislike and look down upon
everybody who hasn’t had your advantages.”
“I’m not thinking of advantages,” I muttered, with a sort of irony.
“I didn’t know when I arranged for you to stay with them that they
would not be able to give you a room to yourself. On the other hand, I
don’t see that it is at all a sufficient reason for your leaving now
you are there. I told you so when I wrote to you. It is only an excuse
to get your own way. You have always been like that; though I should
have thought you would hardly have considered it worth while to bring
the matter up again after all these months.”
I accepted my father’s decision without further protest. As a matter
of fact, a kind of listlessness had come upon me, an apathetic
indifference to whatever might happen.
It was Christmas Eve. A heavy fall of snow had occurred during the
night, and on the hard, frozen ground it lay unmelted to the dark
border of the sea. All the morning I spent beside the fire reading
“Richard Feverel,” but about half-past three I went out for a walk
over the golf-links. The snow was several inches deep, but being
perfectly hard was not unpleasant for walking. I had slept badly last
night, a sleep broken by wretched dreams, and I had a mind to go for
a really long walk and tire myself out. In spite of being at home
again, in spite of this beautiful, bright, exhilarating weather, in
spite of the fact that I would be getting a Christmas-box from Mrs.
Carroll to-morrow, and a letter from Katherine, and another from
Owen, my spirits were of the gloomiest. Never before had I looked
so closely into my own soul, and never before had I found so little
there to comfort me. I knew that for months past my mind had been
gradually submitted to a poisonous influence that had filtered through
my blood, like a vapour from some fever-breeding marsh. Yet certain
seeds, I thought, could perhaps only have taken root within me, could
perhaps only so quickly have sprung to tall dark flower, because they
had found a soil already apt to receive them: and I remembered my
father’s suspicions in the past. I thought of a book I had been reading
lately――a book written for boys, and all about boys――and I compared
myself with its heroes. I compared the gloom that weighed upon me now
with the troubles they had experienced, and it seemed to me I must be
different, not in degree but in kind, from every boy in that book, from
the bad just as much as from the good. I remembered hours, whole days,
when I had been like them, like the decent ones I mean, for with the
others I had nothing in common――I had never wanted to shirk games; and
bullying, gambling, dishonesty, and “pubs,” had no attraction for me.
But it was just because there were bits of the book in which I could
see a part of myself that I was troubled by the absence of other parts,
of so many other feelings that none of these boys shared. I wondered
if I were quite abnormal, but how could I ever find out even that;
for just as nobody knew what I was, I knew nothing really of anybody
else, save what they cared to show me or took no trouble to hide. I was
hopelessly shut in to the little circle of my own sensations, desires,
and emotions. Owen, whom I knew better than any other boy,――what, after
all, did I know of him? I knew no one but myself, and of myself I knew
much that filled me with shame.
A deep silence overshadowed all things, the silence of the fallen
snow. I had come to a stand-still. Around me was an infinite stretch of
whiteness, almost unbroken, save where the sea was dark and restless
under the whip of the rising wind. Dusk had crept up imperceptibly,
and more light now rose from the ground than fell from the leaden
sky overhead. Snow had again begun to fall. A few flakes turned and
fluttered down out of the darkness, but I knew this was only the
beginning. I walked to the edge of the black, desolate sea, and watched
the waves rolling in to break at my feet, and at that moment I felt
infinitely alone, and indeed for miles round there was probably no
other human being. But it was as if I were alone in a dead world. The
whirling flakes of snow fell ever faster out of the winter sky; the
barren, frozen land was wrapped in a stillness that was more like the
stillness of death than of sleep; the only sounds there were came from
the waves breaking at my feet, and from an occasional sweep of wind
forlorn as though no ears were there to listen. The creeping on of
night seemed to be the shutting out for ever of all life, and one could
imagine there would never be anything more, that the end had at last
been reached.
And the thought of death came to me, without terror, came, rather, as a
solution. All that bound me to existence seemed now attenuated to the
thinnest cobweb. If I just lay down here and waited....
Tony, who had grown restless at my long delay, suddenly broke into
my consciousness. He began to urge me to come on, with a peculiar,
eager, discontented note in his voice. He jumped up with his large
paws against me. I knelt in the snow and hugged him in my arms, while
his warm red tongue passed rapidly over my face. I held him close, and
his black nose was pressed into my cheek, and he wagged his tail and
nibbled at my ears.
CHAPTER XXXII
Two or three days before, I had sent off a small picture to Katherine
as a Christmas-box. It had taken me a long time to choose something I
thought she might care for, and which at the same time pleased myself.
In the end I had got her a photograph of Francia’s portrait of the
boy Federigo Gonzaga, the son of Isabella d’Este――the Miserden Park
picture. I had had it framed in a flat, dull, dark frame, and very
carefully packed; and over and over again I had pictured her opening
the parcel, her surprise. It was two days after Christmas when the
postman brought me a letter from her, but instead of reading it, I
put it in my pocket. It was a fairly thick packet, so, though her
writing was very large, I knew it must be a long letter. I could feel
it as it lay in the inner pocket of my jacket, and a dozen times that
day I drew it out and inspected it, but no more than that, for I had
determined not to read it till I went to bed. All day long I thought of
the pleasure I should have, and in the end I became so impatient that I
went to bed about nine o’clock.
I put the letter on my pillow, and placed a lighted candle on the
painted, deal chest-of-drawers beside my bed. I undressed, got into
bed, and only then, with eager fingers, tore open the envelope and drew
out its contents.
I looked at them as they lay upon the bright, patch-work counterpane,
a single sheet of note-paper, and a New Year card in the form of a
pocket calendar. My disappointment was so great that for a little I did
not even read the letter, but lay on my back and stared dismally at the
iron rail at the foot of my bed. My thoughts were bitter. I recalled
the many letters I had written to her, undiscouraged by her brief
replies. Some of these had been pages long; the one I had sent with
my present, for instance, I had given a whole evening to. I glanced
at what she had written――three sides of a sheet of note-paper hastily
scrawled over in huge characters, about two words to a line. She
thanked me for my picture, which was very pretty. She would have liked
to write me a really long letter, but there were some people staying in
the house, and she had to look after them, and had only been able to
snatch a moment to wish me a happy New Year. That was all.
I blew out the candle and lay with my eyes wide open staring into the
darkness. The few, conventional phrases of her letter were vivid in
my mind. To begin with, the picture was not pretty; if it had been,
I shouldn’t have bought it. If she had wanted me to have a happy New
Year it would have been very easy for her to make it so. But it had
been too much trouble. I thought of how I had sat up far into the night
to finish my Christmas letter to her. I heard my father’s step on the
stairs, the shutting of his bedroom door. I pulled the bed-clothes
up to my chin, and as I did so my hand touched something――the
pocket-calendar. I tore it in two and flung the pieces at the opposite
wall.
My mind was divided between despondency and anger. I pictured her
enjoying herself with a houseful of her own and Gerald’s friends,
while I was forgotten. Of course there was no particular reason why
she should remember me. Still, the irony of those foolish New Year’s
wishes might almost have been intentional had the whole letter not been
so thoughtless. She knew well enough how happy I must be now, stuck
in this wretched hole by myself; and I asked myself how anybody could
be so completely devoid of imagination, of sympathy, even of tact? I
began to compose a letter to be written to-morrow, a letter expressing
what I felt. I imagined her reading it in the midst of her friends, and
realizing how she had wounded me. I tossed and turned till I was almost
in a fever. Sleep was out of the question, for I knew it must be nearly
morning already, and I had half a mind to get up and dress....
When I opened my eyes it was broad daylight. I sprang out of bed and
hurried into my clothes. The first thing after breakfast I sat down
to write my letter of reproach, and wrote it at furious speed, a fire
burning in my soul. Yet when I came to read it over, it seemed childish
and stilted, and in my haste I had left out so many words and mis-spelt
so many others that I was obliged to make a fair copy of the whole.
This I posted, but had two days more of impatience before a reply
reached me. When it came, it had the effect of turning away my anger.
Katherine seemed really sorry; at any rate she said she was. She told
me that she cared far more for me than for any of the people I imagined
she found so delightful, and that I might have known this by now, even
if her letters _had_ been short. She said it had been horrid of her to
write such a miserable scrawl, but that, if she had guessed I should
mind it so much, she would have written me a whole book.
I sat down to reply at once, but I cannot account for the unfortunate
tone my letter took. It was morbid and self-conscious, without being
in the least frank. I begged her forgiveness; I made a parade of a
melancholy that bore no resemblance to the kind of melancholy I really
felt; I talked vaguely about not being as good as she believed me to
be, and the whole production was a little sickening. I don’t know, or
rather I do know, what she made of it. She replied that she had never
for a moment thought me good, and that she should prefer not to hear
from me at all to getting letters like the last I had written.
It was not, perhaps, extremely sympathetic, but I knew well enough
myself I had done the wrong thing. My letter had been odiously
self-conscious. I had accused myself of not being good, but what on
earth did that mean? It might mean that I went into the pantry at night
and stole the jam!
CHAPTER XXXIII
About this time, influenced by Amiel, whom I had come across in Mrs.
Humphry Ward’s translation, I had begun to keep a diary, or journal,
of my “sensations and ideas.” I unearthed it the other day, with the
paper time-staled as the sensations, and the ink faded as the ideas.
On reading it over I found it so unbalanced, so one-sided, that I can
scarce quote a passage as really expressive of what I actually was.
It expresses only what I was when I sat down to write my journal, and
I never appear to have done this except when I was in a particularly
unhealthy mood. Some of this journal is descriptive, some of it merely
notes certain thoughts that came to me and that I evidently, the
Lord knows why, imagined worthy of preservation. A single entry, the
description of a dream, will, I fancy, give an idea of the whole.
“Last night I went out and wandered about the streets for a while, and
when I came home I went straight to bed. I did not go to sleep for a
long time. I remember hearing the clock strike two, and when I awoke
it was just four, but of course I cannot really tell how long my dream
lasted.
“I was in a room with some people I knew very well. My father was
there, and Aunt Margaret and Uncle George. I was laughing at something,
I cannot remember what, only that it had to do with a question of
religion, when suddenly the figure of Christ appeared, in a long,
purple, velvet robe――a slight figure, with narrow effeminate face,
pointed beard, and a soft treacherous expression in the slanting eyes.
Everybody in the room except myself fell on their knees in fear, but
I stood still. He watched me and then came closer, holding out his
pierced hands and making the sign of the cross. He did not speak, but
I knew what he meant, and I detested him. He drew still nearer and
still I would not kneel. My defiance filled me with a mingled fear and
exultation, and, as he was about to touch me, I cried out, invoking
Satan, offering myself to him. A horrible look of baffled rage and
malice distorted the face of the Christ. Outside a storm was raging and
the wide window was a black square. With a shrill scream the Christ
vanished, and a man, naked, superb, the colour of dark, greenish
bronze, shot through the window as though propelled by some invisible
force. (From this on, an undertone of strange music floated through my
dream, rising and falling with the rise and fall of my emotions.)
“The face of this dark angel was beautiful and proud. His forehead was
broad and low and slightly overhanging, giving him a stern and brooding
expression, but although I was afraid of him I loved him, and felt an
irresistible longing to put myself in his power. We were now alone
together in the room, which had suddenly grown dark, and he seized me.
I struggled, but in his grasp I was helpless as a young bird in the
clutches of a boy. He stripped me naked and rubbed my body over with
some kind of ointment that left no mark. And somehow I knew he was
going to send me down into hell, and that after a while I should return
again to earth, but that I should be his for ever.
“‘I shall not be tortured?’ I asked him, and he answered in a deep
voice, ‘There are no tortures such as you are thinking of.’
“‘When I come back,’ I said, ‘I shall have forgotten all I saw there;
I shall think I have been only dreaming. Can you not mark me in some
way?’
“He placed me in front of the mirror that was at one end of the room,
and which seemed to shine in the dark as with fire. And in the glass
I saw over my right breast a red flush, and upon this a white streak,
broad and long as his fore-finger. He took my hand, and suddenly the
room I was in seemed to be dropping. Down and down it rushed, so
rapidly that the walls glowed red hot, but because of the ointment with
which I had been covered I felt nothing. And we seemed to be sinking
down through a bottomless sea that hissed in steam against the walls.
Then the speed increased a thousandfold and I lost consciousness.
“I do not know what interval had elapsed, but it was evening and I was
back again in the room, our parlour at home. My father was kneeling
down and calling upon me in desperation to pray to God before it was
too late――to pray――to pray. But I would not pray. Mrs. Carroll was
there and she was crying. Then a voice said aloud above our heads, ‘It
was all only a dream,’ and for a little we believed this; and then all
at once I knew the voice was lying. My father read in my face what was
passing in my mind, and his own face grew white as paper. But I knew;
and I exulted and wept at the same moment. I tore away my shirt from my
breast. ‘Look――look! It is his mark!’
“A loud cry rang through the room, and I awoke, bathed in perspiration,
to the silence and darkness of night. I could hear George breathing
quietly in his sleep. Then I got up and lit the gas and looked to see
if the mark were indeed there upon my breast, but there was nothing.”
* * * * *
Could I have been mentally, morally, even physically, well when I
had this dream? Childish and foolish, perhaps, it had at the time an
intensity the effect of which lingered on long after I had awakened.
There is something disquieting in the thought that so slender a
veil should separate the world of order and sanity from a world of
disorder and delirium such as my eyes were opened to then. Yet that
other world is always there, waiting, and the veil may be torn at any
moment, letting tongues of the dreadful, flaming light shoot through.
The Christ of my dream was not a blasphemous creation of my own mind,
but a sort of distorted memory of one or two pictures in a book about
Byzantine wall-paintings I had looked at years before. The main fact,
however, psychologically, is, I suppose, the fact that I kept a journal
at all. Probably what was at the bottom of it was an idea of confession
which now haunted me. It came to me in several relations. I thought of
Owen, thought it was my duty to tell him everything about myself, and
that in this way we might make our friendship perfect. At other times
I feared that instead of doing this it might do just the opposite. I
was not sure, either, what my motive really was――whether it really
proceeded from a sense of duty, or only from a desire of personal
relief. It was strange that while in many respects I continued to have
an exaggerated opinion of myself, I should yet have been so frequently
visited just now by hours of despondency, when I imagined my life as
already irretrievably doomed to failure. I did not look upon myself
as an ordinary person, or the crisis through which I was passing as
an ordinary crisis. I began to ponder over the meaning of sin and
damnation, and I figured this latter quality as a condition of mind
which attracts evil, and from which no evil can be hidden. When I was
with Owen my troubles grew fainter, and even disappeared. Mentally,
morally, he had upon me much the same effect as, physically, a draught
of fresh air would have had, after long confinement in a stifling
atmosphere. I admired him; I envied him his freedom from all that made
my own life just now so difficult. I discussed the question of free
will with him, but I no more believed in it than did my Arabian Nights
heroes. I was as closely imprisoned in my own physical temperament as a
rat in a trap. And if I were to die? For the first time it dawned upon
me that one might pass into a spiritual world as dark and dreadful as
any I had ever seen in a dream. With this appalling thought it occurred
to me that a priest might be the best person to confess to, and I began
to consider to whom I could go.
CHAPTER XXXIV
The matter, as I soon perceived, was not at all so simple as in the
first flush of discovery it appeared to be. But one excellent effect it
had, and that was to make Sunday, which had been the dullest, the most
interesting, day of the week, while I went from church to church in
search of my confessor. In almost every case I could tell at once that
I had not found him, and I was on the point of giving up the whole idea
as hopeless, when one Sunday evening I went to St. Mary Magdalene’s.
The clergyman who took the service was already well past middle-age.
He was delicate and ascetic-looking, with a peculiar expression
on his worn face, as of one who had had to make a fight against
something――possibly it had only been ill-health――and who had come out
of the struggle victorious if not unscarred. He preached a sermon which
may have been slightly vague, but which appealed to my imagination.
Even the weakness of his voice and the almost colourlessness of his
manner had the curious effect of making what he said to me more real.
Listening to him was like listening to a spirit, to a disembodied
voice; and through all there flickered a kind of nervous exaltation,
like a tremulous, uncertain flame. There were no signs of that mental
and imaginative poverty which had so frequently discouraged me. But he
struck me, above all, as a man who had been unhappy, and therefore,
if he had found peace, there must be some reason for it. I returned
to hear him several times, and although my first impression was not
strengthened, it was not effaced. I persuaded Owen to come with me to
hear him, but Owen did not like him at all.
Far from shaking me in my view, this unfavourable opinion helped to
confirm me. Not through any perversity, but simply because I knew the
person I was in search of would not particularly appeal to Owen. I
did not want a purely reasonable being, I did not perhaps even want
one whom Owen would consider quite healthy――I wanted one who would
understand. That night I wrote a letter to Henry Applin, asking if I
might come to him, and, if I might, would he tell me when.
CHAPTER XXXV
As I walked home with Owen next day after school I wanted to tell him
what I had done, but it was somehow difficult to do so quite abruptly.
I turned the conversation to Roman Catholicism, and from that to the
general subject of confession to a priest, but to Owen this idea
appeared to be so distasteful that I did not attempt to introduce my
own particular case.
On our way we met his mother, who told me to go on in and get something
to eat now, and to stay and dine with them at seven. I refused, having
an idea Owen didn’t particularly want me. I knew it was only because he
wished to finish an epitome he was making of Herbert Spencer’s “First
Principles” (he had told me he had reached the last chapter) and as I
had a strong desire to stay I felt annoyed. I came to the door with him.
“You’d better come in,” he said.
“What’s the use of my coming in when you don’t want me?” I replied.
He laughed. “Of course I want you; don’t be an ass.”
I came in. While we were having tea I looked over the epitome. It
represented a good deal of work, and I remembered having asked him to
read Blake’s “Songs,” and his refusing because he hadn’t time. It was
the same with nearly everything I recommended to him, though I was
always reading books to please him. He offered now to lend me the
“First Principles” as soon as he should have finished it.
“I don’t want it,” I answered, discontentedly. “I’m sick of all that
stodgy stuff. You’re always complaining about not being able to be
religious, yet you’re never happy unless you’re reading something
against religion.”
“I’m not anxious for a religion that won’t bear examination,” replied
Owen, coldly.
“No religion _will_ bear it,” I said, and both speeches had that
infinite priggishness which not infrequently characterized our
conversation.
“People who have read a hundred times more philosophy than I have have
been able to remain Christians,” Owen continued, with a naïveté that
was quite lost on me. He was particularly fond just now of talking
about people who had or had not read philosophy.
“You’re thinking of Levine in ‘A.K.,’” I answered disrespectfully, a
decreasing enthusiasm having led me to abbreviate the title of this
work.
“I’m not,” said Owen.
“You are. And Levine doesn’t remain a Christian. He drops it and then
takes it up again, and, as he hasn’t any more reason for doing one than
the other, I don’t see what it proves.”
“Why do you say he has no reason?”
“I don’t call half a dozen words spoken by an ignorant peasant a
reason. If you claim religion to be the most valuable thing in life, it
oughtn’t to be at the mercy of a chance phrase. At any rate the words
that affected Levine seem far from wonderful to me.”
“I don’t know that they aren’t wonderful,” Owen declared.
“‘One man lives for his stomach,’” I jeeringly quoted, “‘another for
his soul, for God, in truth.’ You’d find the same thing in any tract.
And why should it turn you to Christianity particularly? A man who
believed in Pan could live just as much for his soul as a Christian.”
“I don’t believe anybody ever believed in Pan,” said Owen, “any more
than they believe in Father Christmas. Because certain words happened
to help Levine, Tolstoy does not mean that they will help everyone.”
“He does. Only you’re nearly as bad as Levine yourself.”
Owen was not listening; he was working out an argument he would produce
as soon as I had done; but I was beginning to be tired of Tolstoy, and
I wanted to express my own point of view. “If one were to see a ghost,
it would make an enormous difference,” I admitted. “It would open your
eyes to a new world, to a deeper, finer world.”
“Isn’t this one deep enough for you? And I don’t see that it
would necessarily be any finer. It might very well be extremely
objectionable. All that would happen if you saw a ghost is that it
would frighten you very much at the time, and afterwards you wouldn’t
believe in it.”
“I don’t think it would frighten me. I don’t think it would frighten
anybody, if it were the ghost of somebody they had cared for a great
deal.”
Owen considered this. “I don’t suppose the ghost of your mother would
frighten you. _Your_ mother is dead, isn’t she?” he added, and then
stopped short. “I’m awfully sorry,” he stammered, “I wasn’t thinking of
what I was saying.”
I laughed. “It’s all right. My mother isn’t dead. Shall we go out
before dinner?”
Owen got up.
We walked by the road as far as Shaw’s Bridge, where we branched off
on to the river bank. It was already well on in April. The brilliant
tender green of the opening leaves had spread like a delicate green
flame over the black branches of the trees. The sky was clear, and
there was a sharpness in the air that made us walk quickly. Owen’s
dogs, two rough-haired Irish terriers, ran along the bank, sniffing
among the coarse grass, alert, eager to hunt anything, whether a rat or
a stick.
Owen’s remark about my mother had reminded me that I had told him
singularly little about myself, or rather, about my people. He did not
know anything beyond the fact that we lived at Newcastle, and, from the
way I had spoken of it, he might easily have imagined that Derryaghy
was my home. I’m afraid an unconscious snobbery had kept me from
revealing the obscurity of my origin, and I was suddenly struck by the
stupidity and odiousness of this, especially with Owen, for whom such
things meant nothing.
“Why did you think my mother was dead?” I asked him.
“I don’t know. I suppose because you never――I don’t know, I’m sure.”
“I want to tell you about my people.”
Curiously enough, though I had been so reluctant to mention that my
father was a National schoolmaster, it did not trouble me in the least
to talk about my mother. I even had some dim notion that it made me
rather interesting; so I told him all I knew. “I have not seen her
since,” I wound up, “and perhaps my father is not my real father.” Why
I should have thrown in this after-touch I cannot conceive, as I had
never in my life had the faintest doubts concerning my legitimacy; but
I suppose it was to heighten the romance.
“Do you think I ought to try to find out something more?” I asked.
“You never did try!” exclaimed Owen.
“Never very much. I don’t know who to ask. I can’t very well ask my
father.”
“Why?”
“I can’t.”
“There must be somebody else who knows. Your friend, Mrs. Carroll.”
“She won’t tell me.”
“Have you asked her?”
“I asked her the last time I was at home.”
“And what did she say?”
“She doesn’t like her.”
“She said she didn’t like her?”
“No, of course not; but I know it all the same.”
“The whole thing,” Owen began, but tailed off abruptly “――it seems
rather queer.”
We walked on for a long time in silence. I was determined to tell him
about Mr. Applin, but it was not till we were coming home that I began
my explanation.
“And you’re really going to him!” Owen marvelled.
“I’ll have to go now. That is, if he does not tell me not to.”
“He can hardly do that. You’re not making fun?”
“Fun?”
Owen was silent.
“I didn’t know whether you meant it,” he said. “What are you going
_for_?” he suddenly asked. “Just to talk to him?”
“Yes, I suppose so.”
“But what about?”
“About?... Do you remember talking of confession?”
“But it’s not that, is it?” said Owen, very seriously. “You’re not――――”
“Why not?” I smiled dimly.
“But what is the matter? Why should you? What have you done? And if you
have done anything, what is it to him?”
We had come to a standstill on the lonely river bank. Owen’s eyes were
fixed upon me questioningly. I had nothing to say, or, rather, I could
not say it. I stood before him, looking on the ground, my hands in my
trouser pockets.
Owen hesitated. He put his hands on my shoulders, but I did not look up.
Presently I raised my head, but I looked away from him, and across the
fields. “Come along,” I said, quietly. “It’s getting late, and we must
hurry.”
* * * * *
When I reached home at about half-past nine little Alice came running
to meet me. Her white face, her bright black eyes, and long straight
black hair, brushed back from her forehead and spreading out on either
side of her face in the shape of a fan, were vivid in the gas-light,
under which she stood looking up at me while I opened the letter she
had brought me. It was from Mr. Applin, asking me to call on Wednesday
evening between nine and ten, or on Friday between the same hours, if
Wednesday did not suit me.
CHAPTER XXXVI
Since Christmas I had been working harder than I had ever done in my
life. The Intermediate examinations would be coming on in June, but
it was not any particular anxiety to shine in them that had goaded me
to this unprecedented industry; merely I had discovered that on the
plea of work I could sit in my bedroom in the evenings, and that the
work itself kept me from thinking of other things. To-night I went
straight upstairs as usual, but after writing to Mr. Applin to say I
would come on Wednesday, I sat idle. So it was all the next day, and
the next night: I had an open book in front of me, but I read without
comprehending what I read: I was intensely excited: a kind of emotional
cloud had descended upon my mind, and I could think of nothing but my
approaching interview.
Ideas, words, shot across this mental haze like meteors, but I could
not follow them in their swift flight. On Wednesday afternoon when I
got home from school and had had my dinner I went out into the streets
and wandered aimlessly about. I had said to myself that I would not
think about the matter any more, but, needless to say, I thought of
nothing else, and so it was that when I came to a Roman Catholic church
and saw the door was open, I could not help going inside and sitting
down before one of the confessionals. The name of the priest, Father
Dempsey, was printed in large letters above it. I had a faint hope of
seeing somebody come out or go in, but in this I was disappointed.
Three little girls were busy with their beads, but they suspended their
acts of devotion to cast glances at me, and whisper, and even giggle. A
woman was kneeling before an altar that shone with ornaments suggestive
of decorations from a Christmas tree. Her eyes were fixed on a bright
oleograph of the Virgin, and her lips never ceased moving. A couple
of lighted candles seemed to sweat ugly yellow tears, which ran down
over dirty candlesticks. And then I saw a fat little sallow priest, his
chin, upper lip, and cheeks, blue from much shaving, come waddling down
the aisle, and I wondered if this were Father Dempsey. As he passed
he stared at me, and I saw in his dull little eyes that expression of
invulnerable stupidity I had noticed in the faces of so many of his
brothers when I met them in the street.
The fascination that had drawn me into the church had disappeared.
Everything――the smell of stale incense, the cheap decorations, the bad
pictures, the kneeling woman, the girls with their beads――had become
almost nauseating. The appalling unintelligence of it all shocked me,
much as the display of a diseased body had now and then shocked me. It
was wrong, it was gross, anything less spiritual I could not imagine.
And my idea of confessing to a priest was wrong. I got up and left the
church, the last thing I saw being the thick sediment of dirt at the
bottom of the stoup.
After tea I went up to my bedroom, George’s and mine, and got out my
books to do some work. At first I thought I would not go to Mr. Applin,
but as time passed this decision grew weaker, and presently, instead
of reading, I tried to make up my mind on the point. Then when it
drew near to nine o’clock I was no longer even uncertain. What had my
impressions of this afternoon to do with the step I was about to take?
Besides, they had been very superficial, and to be influenced by them
would be as stupid as to refuse to read a book because its binding
happened to be soiled.
I walked quickly to Mr. Applin’s house and knocked boldly at the door.
It opened with a startling promptitude; evidently the servant had been
in the hall.
“Is Mr. Applin at home?” I asked, my stammer suddenly beginning to
manifest itself.
“He is. Who shall I say wants him?”
“It doesn’t matter. He expects me.” I felt reluctant to give my name.
The servant did not press me to, but disappeared upstairs. She came
back very soon and asked me to “step this way,” and I obeyed her
nervously.
I entered a room and heard the door close behind me, as a man rose from
a table near the window, removing a green shade from his forehead.
I was conscious of tired eyes that looked at me out of a pale, dim,
emaciated face, but the flickering light that had seemed to shine
through them when he was preaching was not there, and his manner of
greeting me struck me as a little distant, a little chilly. I sat down
on the extreme edge of a chair and my impressions grew clearer.
“You are Peter Waring, are you not?”
“Yes,” I answered.
He had taken the chair opposite mine, and he leaned a little forward,
the tips of his fingers joined, and blue veins showing under the loose
yellow skin of his hands. He was much older than I had imagined. He
was wearing a threadbare jacket which I did not like, and I noticed
that one of the buttons near the top was not the same as the others.
My confidence had suddenly drooped. I glanced round at the unfamiliar
room, at the book-shelves which made but a poor show, and maintained
an idiotic silence. It struck me that he might think I had come for a
subscription towards a cricket club.
“I got your letter,” he said. “You want to speak to me? You are not a
member of my congregation, I think?”
“No――I come sometimes in the evening.”
I was glad I had said nothing in my letter but that I wanted to speak
to him, and he evidently hadn’t the least suspicion of the truth.
“Yes――yes――I understand. Well, don’t be afraid. If I can do anything
for you I shall be very glad, very glad.”
I thanked him and again became silent. It would have been absolutely
impossible for me to have said what I had come to say. He was too old,
too far away. It would have been like stretching out one’s hands to
warm them at the ashes in an early morning grate. I knew he wanted to
be kind, but I felt, somehow, that if I sat very still he would, in a
minute or two, forget I was in the room.
“I think I had better write,” I murmured.
“Write? But why? What is it about?” he spoke almost testily.
There was a tap at the door, and a thin, middle-aged lady, possibly a
daughter, came in with a little tray on which were some biscuits and
a tumbler of hot milk. She bowed to me and wished me good-evening. I
wanted nothing now but to get away as quickly as possible, and I envied
her as she went out, closing the door softly behind her. Suppose I
had been in the middle of my confession when the hot milk came in, I
thought. The whole thing was somehow becoming lugubriously comic.
“Are you in business or at school?” Mr. Applin asked, between two sips
of milk. “I hope you’ll excuse me taking this while it is hot, but I
had a funeral this afternoon, and I’m afraid I caught a slight chill.”
“Certainly,” I answered hastily. “I’m sorry for disturbing you. I have
really nothing to say. It is only that I liked your sermons so much,
and that I wanted to tell you so. I hope you’ll forgive me.” I got up.
“Sit down――sit down,” he murmured. “It was a very kind and charming
impulse, and I’m glad you yielded to it.”
I resumed my seat and he continued to drink his milk. He was quite
pleased with me. He asked me to what church I belonged; where I went to
school; all kinds of questions. I told him that I thought he must be
lonely sitting here by himself, and that he should have a dog, or even
a cat. I told him about Tony, and all the wonderful things he could do.
Before I came away he made me promise I would come to see him again.
Yet just as I was going out a sort of vague suspicion of other things
appeared to float into his consciousness. He detained me, with his hand
on my shoulder. “When you first came in,” he said, “I thought something
perhaps was worrying you, that you had something on your mind.” He
paused. For an instant I had seen in him what I had seen when I had
listened to him preach; for an instant I was on the point of resuming
my seat, and telling him all I had come to tell him, but he himself
broke the charm next moment by saying good-night. “And when you come
again you won’t be shy?” he added, smiling wanly.
He did not accompany me downstairs, but stood on the landing till I had
opened the hall-door. And as I pulled it after me, and ran down the
steps, I knew I should never go back.
CHAPTER XXXVII
Spring gave place to summer, and still I kept studiously to my books. I
saw less of Owen, for in the afternoons I played cricket, and Owen did
not. On the thirteenth of June my examination commenced, and from the
first I did well, having good luck with the papers. On Tuesday evening
when I went home I had only one more exam. in front of me, and it would
take place the following afternoon. After that I should be free for the
summer.
It was a hot, breathless kind of night, and I did not intend to work
too much. I loafed about the shop after tea, talking to Miss Izzy. She
had asked me to go to the Free Library to get her a book, but nothing
on the list she had given me, though it was a fairly long one, was in,
and I had come back with a tale of my own selecting.
“You might have got one of Annie Swan’s,” Miss Izzy said, eyeing the
work I had chosen, dubiously, “but of course you couldn’t tell what
ones I’d read.”
“Annie Swan’s?”
“Yes; they’re all good. Mr. Spicer mentioned ‘Carlowrie’ from the
pulpit on Sunday, and you don’t often hear _him_ praise a novel.”
“When he does it’s a spicy one,” said George, who was going out.
Miss Izzy took no notice.
“I’ve got to meet the girl at a quarter-to-eight, so I can’t stop,”
George threw back gaily from the door, which next moment swung after
him, as he stepped into the street, fixing a flower in his button-hole.
“You get ‘Aldersyde’ and read it,” said Miss Izzy, “or ‘Across Her
Path.’”
“I thought you said Carl-something-or-other.”
“You’ll maybe like the others better. If George McAllister would join
the literary society instead of running about the streets at nights it
would answer him better. Who’s this girl he’s going to meet?”
“I don’t know.”
“It’s only talk, I suppose. Girls have more sense than to bother with
the likes of him.”
“Do you think so?” I murmured sceptically. “The kind that George cares
for I don’t imagine have very much.”
“You know nothing about them. If you’d any sisters you’d know more.”
“I’m very glad I haven’t,” I replied.
Miss Izzy bounced round. “Why?” she demanded sharply. “Girls can do
everything as well as men can; only they never get the chance.”
“That’s all rot,” I said ungallantly. “They’re quite different. You
might as well compare cats and dogs.”
“And we’re the cats, I suppose? It’s well you’re still a puppy.”
“I didn’t mean you, Miss Izzy. I know there are exceptions. But most
girls don’t think; or if they do, it’s only about who’s going to marry
them.”
“Don’t think! Well, of all!――And you and George McAllister and the
others――you think a lot, don’t you?”
“George doesn’t,” I admitted.
“But _you_ do――especially about yourself. Do you know this, Peter
Waring, you’re about as conceited and full of yourself as a monkey
that’s been taught a few tricks!”
“Well, I’m going away to-morrow, and you’ll not see me again for a long
time.”
This was not fair, as I knew it would soften Miss Izzy, and it had
indeed this result. “I don’t mind seeing you,” she confessed, with
a sigh, “if that’s all. It’s hearing you talk. You may give me your
photograph if you like.”
I had had my photograph taken quite recently for Mrs. Carroll’s
birthday, and I ran upstairs and brought one down. Miss Izzy examined
it critically. “I’ve got a red plush frame at home that’s about your
mark.”
“Don’t put me in red plush,” I begged.
Miss Izzy looked up from the photograph to the original. “Is red plush
not good enough for you? You’d like a gold frame, maybe?”
“It’s not that,” I said hastily. “It’s only that I don’t care much for
red plush. Can’t you get a plain frame? I will get one for you.”
“No, thanks. I always put a plain person in an ornamental frame: it
gives them a better chance.”
“All right.”
There was never any use trying to get an advantage over Miss Izzy
in verbal skirmishes, so I gave in, and, as the shop appeared to be
comparatively deserted to-night, I sat down on an empty wooden box, and
read aloud to her the first two chapters of the novel I had brought
from the library. It was Hardy’s “Two on a Tower,” and as I turned the
pages, the circumstances, so different, under which I had read them
before, kept floating into my mind. When I had finished the second
chapter, and drummed for a while with my heels against the box, I went
upstairs, and got out my notes on French composition to look them over
before to-morrow’s examination. The room, although the window was wide
open, seemed to me unbearably stuffy, and moreover I had a slight
headache and felt tired and irritable. I put up with the heat for half
an hour, and then undressed and sat down in my nightshirt close to the
window, which looked out on to a dirty strip of back garden, threaded
with clothes-lines, and forming, after dark, a kind of debased Paradise
for dissipated cats.
At half-past ten or so George stepped jauntily in. “Hello! Not done
yet?” He took the now withered flower from his button-hole and flung it
out among the cats; then he began to turn over some papers I had laid
down on the table in the exact order I required them.
“You’ll mix those up,” I said crossly. “Leave them alone.”
George threw the papers down. “All right. Keep your wool on!” Two or
three of the sheets fluttered to the floor.
I picked them up in a very bad temper, and George began to whistle――the
same few bars over and over again. “Oh, shut up,” I cried. “Can’t you
see I’m working?”
“Temper! Temper!” said George, cheerfully. “I’ll have to tell Katherine
about this!”
He was standing before the looking-glass, and had begun to remove
his dickey; but at the very moment of speaking he knew he had made a
mistake. He looked round with a sort of foolish, apologetic grin. I,
too, knew that his words had slipped out unintentionally, for I had
never mentioned Katherine’s name to him. There were, in fact, only
two ways in which he could have come by his information: either Aunt
Margaret had managed to get hold of some of my letters again, or else
he had read one of them himself.
“What do you mean?” I asked coldly, looking steadily into his eyes as
they were reflected in the glass.
George tried to laugh it off. “I was only joking,” he said, nervously.
But I wanted a better explanation than this.
“Who told you about Katherine?” I asked, getting up from my chair
deliberately, and walking over to him, while he spun round to meet me
with bright eyes and a forced smile.
“What’s the matter? What are you losin’ your rag about? I don’t want to
annoy you.”
“The matter is this: I want to know if you have been reading my
letters? If you have, you must have unlocked the box I keep them in.”
“I never unlocked any box.” George backed away from me, his eyes not
leaving mine.
“You’d better tell me,” I said, but George would say nothing further.
He stood with his back now against the wall. I struck him on the cheek
with my open hand. “Answer,” I said.
I saw his eyes turn to the door, and anticipated the spring he made
to get past me. The next moment I had him by the throat and we were
struggling together. Suddenly I released my hold, flinging him from me.
He struck out at me as I came toward him again, but it was the feeble,
half-hearted blow of a coward, and I felt my fist in contact with his
face, almost as if he had run up against it. He staggered back, and a
crimson stream poured down over his chin and on to his shirt, making
a horrible mess, while he stood blubbering like a baby. I did not hit
him again, but simply watched him. I knew he was really more frightened
than hurt, for though his nose was bleeding profusely, I had seen it
do that on several occasions before, quite spontaneously. We must, all
the same, have kicked up a considerable racket, for I heard the sound
of quick footsteps in the passage, and then our door was flung open
and a wild figure rushed in. It was Aunt Margaret, in a stained, red
dressing-gown, her black eyes blazing in her big, puffy face. Her huge
loose body shook and panted with rage as she turned from George to
me. I stepped quickly out of her way, for there was something rather
fearful in the great white mask of hate she turned on me. She said not
a word, but shooting out an arm, like a shoulder of mutton, gripped
me by the collar of my nightshirt, and began to rain down a torrent of
heavy blows on my head and uplifted arms. I protected myself as well
as I could, and at last, with a violent wrench, tore myself out of her
grasp, my nightshirt ripping down to the hem, a considerable portion of
it remaining in Aunt Margaret’s hand. “Stop that!” I shouted furiously,
but she came at me again, her fat body panting yet displaying an
incredible activity, her eyes shining with madness.
I knew there would be mischief done, for I saw her catch up an iron rod
that was part of George’s trouser-stretcher. I was really frightened
now, and made a dive to get past her and out of the door. I felt her
nails tear my naked shoulder; at the same moment I flung up my arm and,
it may be, saved my life, for something crashed down over my elbow,
striking on the back of my head with a sickening jar that I seemed to
hear as the floor swept up to meet me.
CHAPTER XXXVIII
When I opened my eyes I was lying in bed, with a hot jar at my feet,
and the pungent irritation of smelling-salts in my nostrils. Uncle
George was in the room, and there was a stranger there also. I knew
what had taken place, and, if I hadn’t remembered, there was an
atrocious pain in my head to remind me. I put up my hand and discovered
my head was bandaged.
“Well,” said the stranger, drawing closer. “How do you feel now?”
“My head’s pretty sore,” I answered.
He mixed me something in a glass and I drank it. Uncle George came over
and began to ask questions, but the doctor pulled him away. “Leave him
to go to sleep now: he’ll be better able to talk in the morning. It
might have been a nasty thing. I’ll look in to-morrow.”
I had closed my eyes, and when I opened them again I was alone and
in the dark. A ray of moonlight floated through the window and lay
across the floor where George’s bed had been, but the bed itself was
gone, and I wondered languidly how they had been able to take it away
without my hearing anything. In spite of an abominable headache I felt
drowsy――perhaps it was the effect of whatever drug I had taken――and I
must very soon have lost consciousness.
The first person I saw in the morning was Uncle George, who carried me
in my breakfast. My head still ached, though not nearly so violently.
While I drank a cup of tea Uncle George sat in silence, his eyes fixed
on me, with an expression of anxiety that was almost comic. As for me,
I felt better, and, when Uncle George had removed the tray, I allowed
him to tell me how sorry he was, but without replying or giving him any
encouragement. I could see he was dying for me to say something, but I
thought a little suspense would not do him any harm, so I maintained a
discreet quiet. Secretly I was glad, for this disagreeable adventure
gave me just what I had needed, but I was far from letting Uncle George
know that.
“She wasn’t responsible,” said Uncle George, dejectedly, and plunging
straight to the heart of the subject. “You know she has to take drugs
sometimes on account of the pain she suffers, and they have an effect
upon her. I tell you this in confidence, and that last night she had
taken more than she intended to, and didn’t really know what she
was doin’. But you must forgive her, Peter. And then she is jealous
of you――I may as well tell you everything――she is jealous when she
thinks of the difference between you and George, and that you will be
a gentleman, while George and the others’ll have to get along as best
they can――and times are so bad, and there’s so few openings for lads
nowadays. This drug she had taken――――” He stopped and his eyes fastened
on mine appealingly.
“What do you want me to do?” I asked, smoothing down the sheet.
Uncle George moved nervously in his chair, but did not reply.
“I’m going home to-day,” I went on.
“Home? You’ll be waiting for a day or two――till you get quit of this
pain in your head, won’t you? And then there’s your examination! Will
they take marks off if you get a doctor’s certificate?”
“A certificate for what?”
“That you can’t go in for the examination.”
“I’m going in for the exam. And I’m certainly going home.”
Uncle George, who had never ventured to remonstrate with me on any
subject whatever since my arrival, and who treated me as, if anything,
slightly older than himself, did not begin now. “And what will you tell
them?” was all he asked.
“Would you like me to say I fell downstairs?” I suggested innocently.
Uncle George fidgeted. “I don’t want you to tell a lie,” he made
answer, which was a pretty big one for him.
“Oh, I don’t mind,” I observed, pleasantly.
Uncle George considered this. “I suppose there’s times, maybe, when
it’s best not to tell all the truth,” he brought out lamely.
“This is one when I should think it would be best not to tell any of
it,” I replied.
Uncle George was silent. I was not letting him off particularly easily.
“There must, however, be two lies told,” I pursued. “The first by me,
and the second by you, in a letter saying you can’t take me back after
the holidays――that you haven’t room――any reason you like.”
“But won’t you come back?” asked Uncle George, dolefully. “You were
always quite comfortable, quite happy till――till this accident. And
it wouldn’t have happened if you hadn’t been knocking George about. I
don’t know what he had done on you.”
“I was never happy,” I said impatiently. “Either you or Aunt Margaret
will have to write as I say, or I’ll tell my father exactly what
happened. This accident, as you call it, very nearly did for me: and
it’s only one thing out of a lot.”
“Your poor aunt wants to come and tell you how sorry she is.”
“My poor aunt needn’t bother. I know exactly how sorry she is. If it
had been the ceiling that had fallen on me and killed me outright, I
don’t fancy she’d have minded much――except for the mess.”
Uncle George regarded me mournfully. “You’re very unforgiving,” he
said. “I know you’ve a right to say hard things, but――――”
It seemed to me that this was going a bit too far. “What do you mean by
unforgiving?” I asked. “Haven’t I promised not to tell?”
“It’s not that,” said Uncle George.
“What is it then? Do you want me to sacrifice myself simply that
you may make so much a week out of me? Don’t you know that Aunt
Margaret has always hated me like poison? Don’t you know she is pretty
constantly under the influence of whatever it is she takes, though you
speak as if this were the first time? I’m not such a fool that I can’t
see what’s going on. She’s always prying about my things and reading my
letters. Besides, in the very beginning, you know as well as I do that
I came to live here expecting to have a room to myself and not to be
stuck with George.”
Uncle George did not reply, but he looked as he sat there, with his
gray head bent, the picture of dejection.
“I’m sorry if I’ve hurt your feelings, Uncle George, for you’ve been
always very kind and decent to me, and if there was no one here but you
and Alice I would come back certainly. But as it is, I can’t; I really
can’t. I wanted to leave at Christmas, only my father wouldn’t let me.”
As I watched him lift his mild, sheep-like face, and go out, I pitied
him――almost enough to have promised to do what he wanted, which would
have been idiotic. “If he’d had any sense,” I told myself, “he’d have
clapped Aunt Margaret into a ‘home’ or an asylum, or whatever it is,
long ago. But he’s too soft-hearted to do anything but make himself
miserable.”
During the morning little Alice came in several times to see me. The
doctor also called and examined my head, into which he had put a couple
of stitches last night. It was only a scalp wound, he said, and thought
I might go back to Newcastle that afternoon if I felt up to it.
At dinner-time George appeared, looking very sheepish, and shuffling
his feet. “How are you?” he asked. “Ma says you’re goin’ home this
afternoon, so I thought I’d drop in an’ say good-bye. I’m sorry about
this. It’s my fault, an’ it’s rotten for your exam. I only read one
letter. I went to ma’s work-basket for the scissors, an’ I saw it there
lying open, an’ I read it without thinking. That’s the God’s truth,
whether you believe it or not, an’ there was nothin’ in it you need
mind.”
“Oh, it’s all right,” I answered.
“All the same it’s damned putrid luck about the exam.”
“It can’t be helped. Besides, I’m going to have a shot at it.”
“Well, I’ll have to cut on. So long, Peter.” He grinned as he held out
a big hand, which, like his face, was covered with freckles.
CHAPTER XXXIX
My examination was at three, and at two o’clock I got up. If I hadn’t
done so well on the other papers, probably I should have let it go,
but it seemed, in the circumstances, a pity to spoil my results if I
could possibly avoid it. Yet when I lifted my head from the pillow it
throbbed so violently that I thought I should have to lie down again. I
steadied myself, holding on to the bed-post, but presently I was able
to finish dressing and go downstairs. Miss Izzy was in the shop, alone,
and she gazed at me with keen curiosity. I smiled, though I was really
feeling fairly bad.
“Are you better?” Miss Izzy asked, for some reason speaking in a kind
of hoarse whisper.
“I’ve a beastly headache, that’s all.”
“Not much wonder. _She_ did it, didn’t she?” Miss Izzy was all eyes and
secrecy.
I nodded.
“She’s getting worse,” Miss Izzy announced in an awed tone. “She’s
really not in her right senses. I don’t know what she’ll be doing next.
You’re going to-day, aren’t you?”
“Yes――after the exam. I wish you would ask Alice to pack my things for
me; she can do it all right.”
“I’ll help her. I’ll tell you this, I’ve been looking out for another
job this while back, and I think I’ve got one. That’s between
ourselves; but I can’t put up with her any longer. I’ll drop you a
postcard; give me your address.”
I scribbled it on a bit of paper she handed me.
Miss Izzy glanced at it and stuffed it in her pocket. “Right oh! Here’s
somebody coming in; they never give you a minute’s peace―――― Are you
away?”
“Yes. I think I’ll take a cab.”
The customer had entered, but Miss Izzy only glared at her. “I’m sure
you shouldn’t be going at all. It may just give you brain fever or
something!”
“Oh, I don’t think so,” I smiled.
Miss Izzy nodded at me as she advanced reluctantly to her duty. “I’ll
see you later.”
“Yes. You’ll not forget to tell Alice?”
“No; that’ll be all right.”
At the stand by the gas-works I got into a hansom and drove off. I
kept my cap on the seat beside me, for any pressure on my head was
painful. Fortunately I had only a short distance to go, and once in the
cool airy hall I felt better. But my bandaged appearance created quite
a sensation. Everybody stared at me, and one of the superintendents
came to ask me if I had met with an accident. I told him I had fallen
downstairs, at which he indulged in a somewhat obvious jest.
The paper suited me and did not require any great effort, but when I
had finished I was glad. Outside, I had to repeat my fiction of falling
downstairs, and listen to various versions of the superintendent’s
joke, before I was able to get Owen by himself. We went into the
Botanic Gardens and sat down on the first vacant bench, where I told
him what had actually happened. He did not appear to realize that
I might have been killed, and, in spite of his sympathy and the
questions he asked, I knew his thoughts were really hovering round
the examination, and that he was weighing the chances of his having
retained his last year’s exhibition. We talked of my adventure, but,
as we did so, unconsciously, he drew the examination paper from his
pocket and unfolded it. Owen had not been doing so well as I had, and
a good deal depended on the marks he got this afternoon. “I wouldn’t
mind,” he said, “only there’s something I’m doing which the pater will
make me give up if I don’t keep my ‘ex.’”
“If I’d been killed,” I said, “I wonder if you’d have gone over the
questions with Grimshaw or O’Brian!”
Owen glanced at me to see if I were serious. He had by this time spread
out the blue sheet on his knees. “What did you put for ‘cane-bottomed
chair?’” he asked, anxiously.
But my interest in the exam. had vanished. “Oh, I don’t know――‘chaise
cannée,’ or something. Look here, Owen, will you come and see me off
at the station? I have to go back to the house, of course, to get my
things, but I’d rather have somebody with me.”
“‘Chaise cannée?’ How did you think of it? I wonder if it’s right? I
put ‘au fond de jonc,’ but I’m sure that’s rot. ‘Chaise cannée.’ You
know, it’s not fair giving things like that! What do you think?”
“Of ‘au fond de jonc’? I don’t think much of it.”
Owen was depressed. “It doesn’t sound right, does it? What did you put
for ‘fire-dogs?’ O’Brian put ‘chiens de feu.’”
“O’Brian’s a fool,” I answered, truthfully.
Owen laughed, but without merriment, and I was pretty sure he had put
‘chiens de feu’ himself. “You might drop that beastly paper,” I said,
“and tell me if you’ll come or not.”
“Of course I’ll come. But tell me just this one thing.”
“What? ‘Fire-dogs?’――‘chenets.’”
“‘Chenets?’ Are you sure? You’re awfully clever at those out-of-the-way
words!”
“It’s not an out-of-the-way word. ‘Chiens de feu’ are the sort of
things that’ll be chasing you and O’Brian in the next world.”
Owen laughed ruefully, but another question, in spite of his promise,
was already hovering on his lips.
“Come along,” I said, getting up. “What good does it do worrying over
the rotten thing now?” And I tore my paper in two, and let the pieces
go fluttering down the path on the wind.
CHAPTER XL
In the morning Tony’s familiar scratching at my door reminded me that
I was home again, and this time for two long, idle months. I was very
sleepy, but I struggled out of bed with half-open eyes, and let him
in. As I closed the door again, I trod on one of his paws. He gave a
sharp yelp, and then a great wagging of his tail to show that he knew
it had been an accident. Jumping on to the bed he scrambled between the
sheets, and I followed, taking what room he would give me. I lay trying
to go to sleep, while he sprawled over me. Then when he had thoroughly
wakened me up he went to sleep himself.
I lay listening to the sea and thinking of what I should do that
day. I would bathe after breakfast; I would take Tony with me, which
would mean bathing off the sand, for Tony could not dive, and had a
foolish habit, when on the rocks, of trying to lap the sea up to the
level he wanted it at. But I had forgotten my plastered head; bathing,
I supposed, would be out of the question for at least a week. So,
when breakfast was over, I stuffed a book into my jacket pocket, and
strolled in the direction of Derryaghy woods. I had the long June day
before me, and perfect freedom to do just as I pleased with it. The
book I had chosen was “Twelfth Night,” the influence of Count Tolstoy,
so far as I was concerned, having suffered an eclipse. I had read no
second work by him, and the questionings stirred up by “Anna Karénine”
had sunk quietly to sleep. Owen, a day or two ago, had got hold of
“Katia,” and “The Kreutzer Sonata,” but I, I regret to say, had not a
line of the master’s in my possession.
In truth, I was but a degenerate disciple, and moreover unfaithful. For
Owen and I had sent the great man a letter for the New Year, protesting
allegiance, and had actually received a reply, which, considering
it had almost moved Owen to tears, I had allowed him to keep. He
regarded it with the kind of veneration that, in earlier days, a devout
pilgrim may have regarded some relic of a saint. I shouldn’t have been
surprised to learn that he wore it, tied up in a little bag, somewhere
beneath his clothes. Really it had been quite decent; though that a
man of world-wide fame, who must have been besieged by communications
of all kinds and from all sorts of persons, should have found time to
understand and reply kindly to the epistle of a couple of youngsters,
far away in a benighted island, I’m afraid did not strike me then as
quite the wonderful thing it was. The letter, however, was not to me,
and Owen, at all events, had found it wonderful enough. In spite of
my share in the matter, the spirit of our enterprise had been Owen’s.
The epistle we had concocted had expressed Owen, and Owen alone, and
it was delightfully intelligent of the master to have seen behind its
crudity something worth encouraging. He had actually asked us――that is
Owen――to write again――not at once and under the immediate influence
of his letter, but in a month or two. And Owen had written again. By
that time I had had the sense to recognize that I was only a shadow in
this matter, and to give him a free field. He had waited the full two
months, which I, had I felt his enthusiasm, could never have done, and
had then written the second letter. This letter I had insisted must be
private. I had refused to take any part in its composition, or even to
read it when it was finished, though Owen had told me all that was in
it――a complete account of himself, of his father’s position, of his own
acquirements and abilities, his prospects, his ideals, ending up with a
petition for advice as to the direction his studies ought to take, and
as to what career lay open to him. The reply to this effusion had not
yet come or I should have heard of it, but I hadn’t the slightest doubt
that when it did turn up Owen would follow its instructions minutely,
down to the smallest particulars, even were that to entail the wearing
of peas in his shoes. It was the sort of thing that was completely
beyond me. I could not have borne to admit, even to myself, that
anybody was so much my superior as all that. And then, very softly, at
the bottom of my soul, I preferred “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” to “Anna
Karénine.” I not only preferred it, but I was sure it was a work of far
finer genius. Of course I was always sure that the things I happened
to prefer were far finer, but in this particular instance I have not
altered my opinion.
* * * * *
As I wandered up into the woods, followed by the lagging Tony, I knew
it was going to be a very hot day, though it was not nearly so hot at
present as Tony pretended. I hunted about till I had found a pleasant
place――where the rising ground formed a kind of natural couch, covered
with golden moss and bracken, and where the sun at noon would not be
too strong as it dropped down through thick green beech branches.
I took my book from my pocket, but it was only to make myself more
comfortable, not with any intention of reading. I lay there and let
the green summer morning steal into my soul, staining my mind to its
own deep cool colour, while Tony gnawed at the trunk of a fallen tree,
stripping off the bark in sheets, till he was tired and hot, when he
came over beside me and stretched himself on the bracken, with his red
tongue hanging out and his eyes nearly closed. And I lay on in the
enchanted morning, my hands under my head, gazing up through the flat,
shady branches, and thinking “long, long thoughts.” Already I seemed to
have cast from me, as a snake his old skin, the weight and grime of a
year of town life; already I felt better, cleaner, felt the sap of my
youth fresh and strong within me.
After an hour or two I opened my book and began to read:――
“If music be the food of love, play on;
Give me excess of it, that, surfeiting,
The appetite may sicken, and so die.
That strain again! it had a dying fall;
O! it came o’er my ear like the sweet sound
That breathes upon a bank of violets,
Stealing and giving odour....”
I was lost in that world of poetry and music, of lingering melodies and
songs, dreamy and happy and sad. Romance! romance! I felt it stirring
in my blood, singing within me! This play of passion, where passion is
never stormy, but a kind of dreaming of love, exactly suited my present
mood. Love was the world I lived in, love was in the rustling of the
beech-leaves, love was in the breaking of the invisible sea, love was
even in the snores of Tony.
I closed the book, my mind filled with laughter and love and poetry.
Beautiful figures glided before me through the sun-washed, leaf-green
air――Viola in her boy’s clothes――Olivia――moving in an atmosphere of
sensuous sweetness. I imagined myself a page, visiting Olivia in her
palace; I imagined her falling in love with me; I began to weave a
romance of my own, in which scenes from other romances lingered, the
music of their words....
The sunlight splashed through the beech-leaves on to the green moss,
and where it fell the green took a hue of gold. Green arcades opened
out into the heart of the summer woods. Rarely came the note of a
bird, but the woods were full of life; the flashing whites and grays
of rabbits appeared on the clearing nearer the house; there were
mysterious movements in the brushwood. I roused reluctant Tony and we
went down to the stream. We were out in the broad sunshine here, and
the rocks were quite hot. The dark green silky waterweed spread out,
seeming to flow with the rapid, shallow water, and sleepy summer noon
held me spell-bound. In the shadow of the rocks were deep pools, where
the water looked almost black. Tony waded out into mid-stream and began
to lap up the water. Then he lifted his head, his red, dripping tongue
still hanging out, his dark, beautiful eyes half-closed, and looked at
me while he panted. The woods on either side were full of green shadow
and mystery. We walked home over soft turf and across a blazing field
dotted with fly-tormented cows. Tony was too hot even to give them a
passing bark. On the right the ground sloped down gently, forming a
vast meadow, with scattered trees and flaming gorse-bushes; and beyond,
under the deep blue sky, the great glorious sea danced and gleamed,
blue also, with a long white line where the surf curled up over the
flat, sun-drenched sand.
I felt lazy and contented, conscious only of the warmth of the sun
and the beauty of this world, wrapped in a kind of sleepy happiness.
In the afternoon I would go in search of some of my old friends; go
out, perhaps, with Willie Breen in his boat, though as a rule boating
in any form bored me to death. Trivial and bizarre thoughts passed
through my mind. I wished the world was the way it is in old romances
and fairy-tales. I was sure that this was the very day on which some
wonderful thing would happen; when one might find a magic door leading
into a strange world that was yet quite close at hand; for all my life
long I had had the feeling that such a world was there.
CHAPTER XLI
During the next three weeks I led a solitary enough life, in the
woods and by the sea. I read a good deal, and dreamed still more. In
the mornings, and often in the afternoons as well, I went for long
swims, and, coming back, lay in the sun on the rocks, sometimes for
hours at a time, so that the skin all over my body had been tanned to
a deep golden brown. And I was growing stronger. I could feel it; I
could even see it in my limbs, which were becoming more muscular. And
with my increasing physical strength I suppose other alterations took
place――alterations in my outward appearance, marking the passage from
boyhood to adolescence. Annie Breen, for instance, had spoken to me
several times of late in a way that betokened a consciousness of this
change; and more than one girl whom I met on the road in the evenings,
when wishing me good-night, had put something into her greetings
which made it quite different from what it would have been last year.
Several of the village boys, no older than I, had already sweethearts,
and I knew I had but to give a sign to any of these girls to have a
sweetheart also; and while I held myself aloof, and responded with the
barest politeness, I none the less felt flattered.
I received news of my examination. I had done better than I had
expected, getting first place in the school and third in Ireland. Owen,
too, had not done badly; at all events he had retained his exhibition.
CHAPTER XLII
I met Owen at the station, and, as he jumped out of the carriage, he
cried, “I’ve got the letter. It was waiting for me when I reached
home.” He waved it triumphantly in my face, beaming with the delight of
it and with the pleasure of showing it to me.
“I can’t possibly read it here,” I said, grasping his bag.
“And I say, you know, you did rippingly in the exams. I knew you would.”
He had come down by the first train, and I wanted to take him for a
bathe, but he was so excited that he could hardly listen to me. I had
brought our towels, and I delivered Owen’s bag to a carman outside to
take up to the house.
“Where are we going now? It was jolly decent of him writing, wasn’t it?”
“Who? Tolstoy? Not bad. But we’re going to bathe: I waited for you.
It’s some distance away, unless you would rather wade in off the shore;
there’s plenty of time, however.”
“I’ll do whatever you like.”
“Then I think we’ll go round to Maggie’s Leap.”
As we went we talked of his precious letter. “You won’t like it, I
daresay,” he said. “It’s not much in your line.”
“I wish you would tell me what my line is. I’ve been trying to discover
during the last fortnight.”
“I know very well.... There’s one thing he says that I can’t quite――――”
“Well?”
“Well, it’s this: He says everything is in the Gospels. What people
have got to do is to read over the words of Christ, and mark with a red
pencil everything that is perfectly clear to them.”
“A red pencil?”
Owen was too eager to notice anything. “Yes. What are you amused at?
Then you cut those bits out, and never bother about the rest. In what
you cut out you’ll find everything that it is necessary to know in
order to map out your life and your work. The whole teaching of Christ,
all that is essential, will be in those bits. Later on you may read
over the other things, that were obscure, and perhaps some of them
will by then be plain. I am to consider what kind of work I have a
taste for, and at the same time the work I devote myself to must fulfil
certain tests or I am to have nothing to do with it. Work you do with
your hands is best of all. I haven’t shown the letter at home yet. I
thought I’d think it quietly over down here and talk about it with you.
We’ll read the Gospels together. My father wants me to be a solicitor
and go into his place, but I don’t want that. On the other hand, I must
make up my mind soon, I suppose. I’m seventeen, you know.”
I took the letter from him, and read it slowly and with some difficulty
as we walked along. After that, I thought over it for a while.
“Will you have to earn your living?”
“Yes, naturally. There are a good many of us, you know.”
“Then I don’t see how the Gospels are going to help you, no matter what
way you mark them.”
“Why not?”
“Because you’ll have to live as other people do, unless you can afford
to be different; and other people don’t live according to the Gospels.”
Owen was silent.
“A carpenter, a gardener, for instance,” he began, “couldn’t they live
in accordance with the teaching of Christ? Tolstoy says I will never be
happy unless I do.”
“It’s all very well for Tolstoy talking: he is his own master and has
plenty of money. But how can you be a carpenter or a gardener? Your
father would never allow you to, and the first thing would be a quarrel
with him. We go down here, over this wall.”
Owen scrambled after me.
“A man must leave his father and his mother.”
“Yes, Owen dear, but you’re not a bit the kind of man who does, to say
nothing of leaving your brother and your sisters. At any rate, while
you are learning to be a gardener your father will have to keep you.”
“I only mentioned those trades because they happened to occur to me;
there are plenty of others.”
“There are not plenty: that’s just the difficulty I’ve been finding.”
We clambered down on to the rocks, from which the sea stretched away,
deep and clear and blue, glittering in the hot sunshine, moving with a
low, smooth swell, like some huge, splendid, living creature.
“You will require a profession in which you can be your own master from
the very beginning. It wouldn’t do to be subordinate to anybody who
hadn’t had a letter from Tolstoy, or perhaps even read ‘Anna Karénine.’
If you go in for the Church, for example, you will have to do what you
are told until you get a church of your own, when you’ll be always
having rows with your parishioners and elders, for, of course, you’ll
have to preach the Tolstoy gospel or the tests will get in the way. If
you become a doctor you won’t make a living, because you will want to
doctor the widows and the fatherless, who are no use in the matter of
fees. I admit the lawyer idea is absurd――even without Tolstoy and the
Gospels it wouldn’t have done――and no doubt your father only thought
of it because he’s a solicitor himself. You’ll have to be content with
something that fulfils perhaps one or two of the tests. Then, when you
get married and have a swarm of children, your wife will rise in revolt
against them _all_.”
“I can choose a suitable wife, and there’s no need to have a swarm
of children. I shall have just as many as I can afford to bring up
properly.... That reminds me, I brought you down the ‘Kreutzer Sonata.’
It’s in my bag.”
“That’s all right; but it’s always people like you, frightfully earnest
and moral and all the rest of it, who have families of twelve or
thirteen.”
“I tell you I won’t have them,” said Owen, impatiently.
“But Tolstoy himself――――”
“I don’t care a hang about Tolstoy.”
“Oh――h! Owen!”
“Tolstoy could give his children a decent start in life; and if he can
do that, the more such a man has the better.”
During the latter part of this conversation, all of which Owen was
taking in dead seriousness, we were undressing, and I now dived into
the deep, green, glittering water. I turned on my back and lay watching
Owen, distinctly uneasy, stand hesitating on the edge of the rock.
“Is it cold?” he asked.
“No; come along.”
He pulled his shirt slowly off. “I brought you down some of the short
stories too.”
I laughed. “All right; I’ll read them when I come out.”
But Owen was really anxious now only about the temperature of the
water. He floundered in and came up spluttering. I was a much better
swimmer than he, and circled about him, showing off, delighting in the
power I felt. We swam out for fifty yards or so, and I timed my stroke
with Owen’s. He looked very funny. His eyes stared straight before
him as if he were set on some desperate adventure. On our way back I
splashed him a little and he got angry, swallowing a lot of water. I
told him how contrary to the teaching of the Gospels this was; when
I asked him to drink a pint of salt water he should swallow a quart;
etc., etc.
When we got to the rocks and he had scrambled out, scraping his knees
and one of his elbows in doing so, for it was not easy to get out
unless you knew the way, he was quite offended, and would hardly speak
to me. I was shaking with laughter, but I said I was sorry and gave
him some sticking-plaster. He took the sticking-plaster, but would
have none of my sympathy, and on the way home I had to soothe him into
a better temper. Then, as usual, the cloud passed quite suddenly, and
he was all right. As we drew near the house I wondered, uneasily,
what he would think of my father, and what he would think of my home.
Before coming to us he had been staying in Scotland with people who
had evidently possessed yachts and motor-cars and all kinds of things,
whereas we could not even boast a spare bed, and he would have to sleep
with me.
When we came in, I introduced him to my father, who was working in the
garden, and before dinner was over I was delighted to see that they
were going to get on well together. Owen seemed to notice none of his
peculiar habits, or, if he did, he was perfectly indifferent to them.
He displayed an extraordinary interest in the school, asking all kinds
of questions, and bringing out his own theories of education, which
may or may not have emanated from the sage in Russia. I let them talk
together without interfering much. I could see that my father was very
favourably impressed, though the fact that such an admirable youth
happened to be a particular friend of mine was naturally perplexing.
Owen was frightfully polite. He called my father “Sir,” and listened
deferentially to everything he had to say, never offering his own
opinion as of any particular value. They talked almost exclusively of
education. Owen told how he was teaching a boy at home in the evenings,
the son of their coachman, and how clever this boy was, and how he had
got Mr. Gill senior to promise to pay his college fees if he did well
at school during the next year or two. It was the first time I had
heard of the matter, but I supposed it was the mysterious something
which had interfered with his own work, and had made him so anxious
about retaining his exhibition. “Didn’t _he_ do splendidly?” Owen said
suddenly, nodding his head in my direction.
“Peter can be clever enough when he chooses,” my father answered dryly.
This was to prevent me from exaggerating the merit of my achievement,
but I did not care, for in my own mind my performance was somewhat
stale already, and I did not give a fig for such distinctions. It
occurred to me, as I watched them and listened to them, that Owen and
my father were perhaps more alike, mentally and spiritually, than Owen
and I, though my father had but a fraction of Owen’s fineness, and none
of his generosity. They were related as a coarse weed and a delicate
flower might be, but I was of a different genus. And then I thought
that, though I cared little for Gerald, and loved Owen, perhaps it was
Gerald with whom I had really most in common.
CHAPTER XLIII
Owen and I were standing by the low sea-wall, looking out across the
wet brown sands, when I saw her. It was a gray, cloudy day, and the air
was full of mist and damp, which hung in heavy, livid-coloured veils
over the black mountain-tops, and sometimes dropped half way down the
slopes. The tide was out and the noise of the waves sounded remote
and musical. The broad stretch of wet sand and shingle reached out to
the cold, gray-green sea, with its white curling line of foam; and
at the water’s edge, a little bent forward, her light dress floating
out behind her in the fresh wind, one hand raised, holding the brim
of her big black hat, she moved along, a solitary figure against the
broad line of sea and sky. It was Katherine, and as I watched her it
struck me that the whole picture, from her presence in it, became
curiously like a Whistler water-colour. The next thing I noticed was
that Katherine was quite grown-up, which had the effect of producing in
me a sudden shyness, so that I made no attempt to go to meet her. Yet
here was the meeting I had lain awake half the night imagining! I had
an almost overpowering impulse to turn tail and slink away, and perhaps
I might have done so had I been alone.
Owen, who took no more interest in girls than in octogenarians, asked
me what I was staring at.
“At Miss Dale,” I answered.
“Who’s Miss Dale?”
“Katherine.”
“And who is Katherine?”
“Mrs. Carroll’s niece.”
Then Owen looked at me in surprise. “Aren’t you going to speak to her?
I thought you knew her very well?”
“So I do.”
We clambered over the wall and crossed the beach to intercept her
path. My idiotic nervousness was increased by Owen’s presence. She had
noticed our approach now, and altered her own course to meet us. As she
came up she smiled with her bright frank smile and held out her hand.
She was perfectly natural and easy in her greeting, while I began to
stammer and splutter. I managed to introduce Owen, saying he had come
down yesterday, and we all three walked on together.
“I wondered if I should see you,” she said. “We arrived this morning.
Gerald is up at the house, but I had to come out and get some fresh air
after our travels.”
“There’s p――plenty of it at all events,” I stuttered.
“I like it. I like wind,” she added, turning her smile upon Owen.
“Don’t you? It’s very nice to be back here again. I always love coming
back to any place I know.”
“When the tide is out it looks like a Whistler water-colour,” I went
on, thinking it a pity that this should be lost.
But probably neither Katherine nor Owen had ever heard of Whistler. “It
looks to me very like rain,” said the former, glancing at the heavy
clouds over Slieve Donard. Owen took no notice at all of my remark.
“Conversation means nothing to Owen,” I reflected, impatiently, “unless
it takes the form of argument. Anything merely suggestive or decorative
is lost upon him.” And I felt annoyed because they had both begun to
chatter commonplaces about Katherine’s journey――what kind of passage
she had had; as if it mattered!
Then I became lost in contemplation of her. A year had certainly made
a tremendous difference! “Last winter she probably came out,” I said
to myself, with vague memories of Miss Broughton’s novels. At all
events, in twelve months she had managed to put at least five years
between us. It was quite conceivable that she was already engaged to be
married, while I was but a timid school-boy, who could only envy from
afar the happiness of her lover. And the thought that perhaps there
_was_ a lover cast a vivid illumination on my own feeling for her, made
plainer than ever the difference, how carefully veiled soever, between
friendship and love. I loved her with that love which, idealize it as I
might, was really the expression of a simple law of nature.
Meanwhile she was talking to Owen, who was explaining to her some
theory of the influence of the tides upon the earth, and of the moon
on the tides. How, in the first five minutes, he had contrived to get
on to such a subject I could not guess. It was fearfully like him,
nevertheless, and Katherine appeared to be interested.
No matter in what company he found himself Owen never talked about
anything except the things he was interested in. Last night it had
been a little delicious to hear him discuss Plato’s “Republic” with
Miss Dick, who, though immensely pleased, was always at her silliest
when taken seriously. To converse with Miss Dick was like trying to
get a definite impression from a kaleidoscope; you no sooner fixed
your attention on one particular idea than it dissolved into something
quite different. And yet Miss Dick had views――political, religious,
social,――derived from a deceased parent, who had been an apostle
of free thought. Only she would interrupt her expression of the
profoundest of these to wonder if Sissie McIldowie was really engaged
to young Stevenson.
And now Owen was talking to Katherine about the tides. I watched her
and knew she liked him. She liked his rough brown mane, his clear eyes,
with their kindness and innocence, for Owen, in spite of the “Kreutzer
Sonata” and the rest, was as innocent as a child. There was something
fine about Owen, and it was very visible in his face.
At present he quite monopolized the conversation, turning it into a
sort of scientific discourse; and I knew so well that he had been
reading some little book about tides――probably in the train on his way
down. I yawned two or three times when he looked in my direction, but
I might have spared myself the rudeness, for it had not the slightest
effect upon him while Katherine kept on asking questions as if she
found what he said absorbing. My apparent indifference simply had the
result of producing a _tête-à-tête_ between them.
“You ought to become a University Extension lecturer,” I said,
maliciously. “You should write and ask Tolstoy about it.”
It was a highly disagreeable remark to make, and as soon as I had said
it I was filled with shame. Owen coloured and stopped talking at once.
I was very sorry. Inwardly I went down on my knees to him and begged
his pardon, but outwardly I showed only a sullen stolidity. I said
something to Katherine, but she answered coldly, and turned again to
Owen as if to make up to him for my bad manners. And at this my remorse
degenerated into sulkiness.
Nevertheless, as we walked home together, I had the grace to apologize.
“I’m sorry for what I said,” I muttered. “It was a most beastly thing
to say. It’s not so much because it was rude as because it was rotten.”
This distinction I cannot undertake here to explain; let it suffice
that in my mind it was a very clearly defined one.
“Oh, it doesn’t matter,” said Owen. “I always do talk either too much
or too little.”
After tea we went for a long walk and discussed all our old subjects.
But in my present mood they bored me, though I was determined not to
show it. What I really wanted just then was to be alone, that I might
recall the past and make plans for the future. We went to bed when we
came in, but long after Owen had dropped asleep I lay awake, wrapped
in beautiful, desolating dreams. I gave Owen a gentle kick, for he had
begun to snore, which troubled the quiet that was necessary for the
perfect enjoyment of my visions. It woke him up, which was not what I
had intended, but it couldn’t be helped, and, before he had dropped
asleep again, I was myself lost in slumber.
CHAPTER XLIV
I happened on the thing by the merest accident. My father had been
going through the papers in his desk the night before, tying up old
letters in bundles, and burning many in the grate. He had been quite
absorbed in this dusty task when Owen and I had come in from our walk,
and he had been still absorbed in it when we had left him and gone
up to bed. This afternoon we were to call for the Dales, and Owen
was waiting for me now in the garden, sitting on the wall, nibbling
nasturtium leaves, whistling, and swinging his legs to and fro, while
I, having broken my shoe-lace, was in the parlour replacing it. And as
I bent down, through the tail of my eye I caught a glimpse of something
white between the desk and the wall. I laced up my shoe, and then,
pushing the desk further to one side, with the help of the poker I
fished out an envelope. There was no writing on this envelope, and the
flap was loose, but inside I felt something stiff and flat, like a card
or a photograph. I pulled it out. It was a photograph, considerably
faded, and certainly most astonishing if it had fallen from my father’s
desk, as I supposed it must have. For it represented a person very much
like the ladies in the chorus at the Christmas pantomime I had gone
to see with George――better looking, possibly, than most of them, but
similarly clad, in doublet and tights, and with a velvet cap, with a
cock’s feather stuck in it, set rakishly at the side of a curly head.
The face wore the conventional simper such faces seem naturally to
assume in the presence of photographers, displaying an admirable set
of teeth. A sword dangled from the waist, a short cloak hung from the
shoulders, and the right hand was raised to the cap in a dashing and
coquettish salute. There was something so comical in the idea of my
father, of all persons in the world, having treasured up this souvenir
of what I took to be a youthful flight of fancy, that I laughed aloud,
and was on the point of calling in Owen to show it to him, when I
turned the photograph round and on the back read, in a sprawling
feminine hand, “From Milly.”
I stopped short. Owen was still kicking his heels against the
whitewashed wall, still whistling, but I did not disturb him. I heard
my father coming downstairs, and my first impulse was to cram both
envelope and photograph into my pocket. I heard him in the hall, I
heard him turn the handle of the parlour door, and then I went to meet
him.
“I found this,” I said, “on the floor.” And I held it out to him.
My father glanced at it indifferently, but when he saw what it was a
faint flush crept into his face. It was the first time I had ever seen
him change colour. He took it from me without a word, and, putting it
back in its envelope, unlocked the desk. He opened a drawer somewhere,
and I saw him, still without speaking, slip in the envelope. Then he
pulled down the lid of the desk, which shut with a sharp click, and
turned to me.
“Do you know who it was?” he asked, abruptly.
I stammered and blushed. “I’m not sure――I think―― Wasn’t it mamma?”
He turned away without answering. “Owen is waiting for you,” he said,
as I still hung about nervously. “I suppose you won’t be in for tea?”
“No,” I replied, and went out to my friend.
“I’m sorry for keeping you,” I apologized; and as we walked round to
Derryaghy I half thought of telling him of the incident.
And my mother? I had known vaguely that she had been on the stage in
some not particularly brilliant capacity, but somehow the real thing,
in all its callous actuality, to have that suddenly thrust upon one,
was very different. I did not like it.
Visions of the girls I had seen in the pantomime kept rising before me
with a disagreeable relevancy. They strutted before my mind’s eye just
as they had strutted, jaunty and assured, about the stage, their eyes
boldly seeking the male occupants of boxes. They swaggered by me with a
peculiar movement of the hips, a perfect self-confidence; one of them
even winked as she passed. And I saw their fat legs, their bold eyes;
I heard them laugh, and sing idiotic songs, in shrill falsetto, about
Bertie, and Charlie, and latch-keys, and staying out till three.
I wished I had never found my mother’s portrait, though I tried to
persuade myself that she only looked like that because she was dressed
up for the theatre, and that in ordinary dress she must have been quite
different. But my attempts to _see_ her as different failed. I had
nothing to go upon, no memories, no other portrait; for me tights and
doublet would remain her perpetual garb. I was not disillusioned, for I
had had no illusions――that is to say, I had thought very little about
the matter――but I was certainly shocked. I remembered Mrs. Carroll’s
reserve on the few occasions when I had questioned her. Mrs. Carroll
must have known, and so must Miss Dick.
It was, doubtless, fortunate that I had never built up any imaginary
and sentimental picture of my mother, as I might easily have done. Mrs.
Carroll’s presence in my life probably had prevented this.
“Here we are,” cried Owen, catching me by the arm. “Wake up. I suppose
you don’t know that you’ve been fast asleep all the way!”
We found Katherine at the lodge, talking to the gardener’s wife, a
stout, ruddy young woman, with a flaxen-headed little fellow clutching
her by the skirts, one of my father’s youthful scholars, or, more
likely, one of Miss McWaters’, since he was still at the age when
problems connected with “twice times” awaken bewildering difficulties.
We stopped and joined in the conversation.
“Isn’t your brother coming?” Owen asked, after a minute or two.
“He said he was. He’s up at the house; he’s got some new music.”
Katherine smiled at me. “Do you mind hurrying him up? It’s a shame to
bother you, but if nobody fetches him he’ll never come.”
I complied with an extremely bad grace. It seemed to me I was always
chosen for these messages. If Gerald didn’t like to come himself, why
couldn’t he be left behind? I knew the others wouldn’t even wait for
us; in fact, when I turned round, they had already begun to walk on
slowly.
I found Gerald busy with his music, and not looking in the least as if
he intended to be anything else but busy with it all the afternoon.
“The others are waiting,” I said, with sulky abruptness. “Are you
ready?”
He raised his head and his brown eyes rested on mine curiously. “They
won’t wait very long,” he replied. “Do you really want to climb that
ridiculous mountain?”
I looked down sullenly. “Why not? We arranged to do so, didn’t we? Owen
wants to.”
“Let them go alone, then. They’ve begun to study botany. Katherine was
examining things through a little lens all yesterday evening.”
His drawling irony made me furious. “We must go,” I said, shortly. I
knew well enough that he knew what was passing in my mind, and that I
had been fighting against it for the last fortnight. He was the only
one, I fondly imagined, who _did_ know, and I had begun to think that
the spectacle of my jealousy was pleasing to him, and that he had his
own delicate ways of encouraging it. He did not like Owen, yet, for
some reason I could not fathom, he appeared to regard favourably his
friendship with Katherine. That friendship had made astonishing strides
in the past week or two. When we went anywhere together now, it was
invariably Owen who was Katherine’s escort. Things seemed to arrange
themselves naturally in that way, and this afternoon was no exception.
It was not till I told him I would follow the others, and was leaving
the room, that Gerald made up his mind to accompany me, and even then,
about a quarter way up Slieve Donard, he announced that he had gone
far enough and would wait here till they came down. Owen and Katherine
were not in sight, for Gerald had made the ascent at the pace of the
pilgrims in “Tannhäuser,” and I had had to keep with him. He stretched
himself full length on the grass, and, as if it were an amusing
question, asked me what I proposed doing. I did not know myself whether
to wait with him here or to finish the climb. I stood hesitating, with
a face like a thunder-cloud.
“I suppose they’re at the top by this time,” said Gerald, casually, and
his supposition decided me.
I climbed up alone and full of bitter thoughts. Presently I saw
Owen and Katherine far above me, but they never once looked back. I
remembered that day, long ago it now seemed when Katherine and I had
climbed the hill from the Bloody Bridge Valley, and how I had helped
her over rough places, as I supposed Owen was helping her now, and
walked hand in hand with her.
When I reached the summit I saw them standing together under the lee
of a huge gray rock, gazing seaward. They heard my approach and turned
round.
“Where did you leave Gerald?” Katherine asked, amused. “I didn’t think
he would get very far!”
“You might have waited for me then,” I answered gruffly. “You were in a
mighty hurry to start.”
It gave me a sort of stupid pleasure to think I was showing by my
manner that I considered myself neglected, so I proceeded deliberately
to be as unpleasant as possible. That I had joined them had obviously
not annoyed them in the least――Katherine had certainly shown no
annoyance when she had greeted me――yet I told myself that this was only
pretence, and that they wished me away. And then, as I thought how
there might have been some secret understanding between them, and that
perhaps Katherine had arranged to be down at the lodge when we arrived
so that she might send me back to the house for Gerald, I felt――though
I really did not believe in any such scheming――a violent anger against
them both. When she saw the kind of humour I was in, Katherine ceased
to take any notice of me, and this made me worse. I had not sense
enough to leave them. A kind of perversity seemed to force me to do
everything I could to make myself objectionable. I had an insane desire
to quarrel with Owen, and presently I contradicted him flatly when he
said something I knew to be perfectly true. He flushed and his eyes
brightened angrily, but he controlled himself. “What is the matter with
you, Peter?” he asked.
“Nothing,” I muttered.
I bounded away from them. I ran down the mountain-side at the risk of
breaking an ankle, leaping from one point to another. I did not pause
when I came to where Gerald lay in the grass, but continued my headlong
descent till I reached the woods. I had come down in an incredibly
short time, and the violence of my flight had relieved me. I walked now
at an ordinary pace, wondering what the others would think, conscious
that I had made a fool of myself, yet laying all the blame on Katherine.
The woods were silent save for the occasional note of a robin or the
low twitter of a swallow. I stopped by a marshy hollow to look at a
vivid splash of yellow irises, and I gathered an armful of them for
Mrs. Carroll.
CHAPTER XLV
Owen and I dined at Derryaghy that night, but all through dinner I sat
very quiet. No allusion was made by the others to my having left them,
which showed, I thought, that they had discussed it among themselves
and had agreed not to take any notice.
After dinner Gerald stayed behind to smoke a cigarette, and I stayed
with him. When we followed the others to the drawing-room, he went to
the piano and began to play. Owen sat by the window looking out. He
had not once spoken to me since I had left him and Katherine at the
top of Slieve Donard; I thought he had even avoided meeting my glance,
but I was not sure. Katherine and Miss Dick had each some needlework.
Mrs. Carroll was not with us. From my corner of the room I watched
Katherine as she worked, her beautiful head bowed in the lamp-light,
and secretly, in my soul, I knew Owen was more fitted to be her mate
than I. It is true, I did not believe he could love her so intensely,
but the love he gave her would be more unselfish. I became lost in
gloomy thoughts. I knew they both belonged to a world where I was a
stranger, an outcast. In that hour I recognized my moral inferiority
to Owen, and suddenly I felt how peaceful and quiet it would be in the
thick darkness, with the grass over my head, and everything finished
and forgotten.
Gerald had begun to play the “Moonlight Sonata,” Chopinizing it, as
he did everything, and perhaps this unhappy vision came to me from his
music. At all events, it hovered before me in an intensity of sadness
beneath which I shut my eyes. I got up by-and-by and crossed the room
to where Katherine sat at her work. I pulled forward a chair and sat
down near to her, and with my back to the others, so that what I said
should be heard by her alone.
“Will you come out with me?” I asked, in a low voice.
“Out? _Now_, do you mean?” She looked up in surprise, but she also
spoke in lowered tones, and with, I thought, a certain coldness. At
this my anger was stirred afresh.
“Now,” I answered.
She seemed on the point of refusing. “Are you afraid?” I sneered.
She appeared not to understand me. “Afraid! What is there to be afraid
of?” After a moment she decided. “I will come in a minute or two; I
want to finish this flower.”
She returned perfectly calmly to her work. She was embroidering a
table-cloth for her mother’s birthday, and was always saying she should
never have it finished in time. I, with a burning heart, got up and
strolled out on to the terrace, my hands in my pockets, and whistling
below my breath, which I imagined lent an air of off-handedness to my
exit. Once beyond the windows, however, my whistling ceased abruptly,
and I hurried round to the other side of the house, where I waited in a
fever till she should come.
She did not keep me long. She had not put on a hat, nor even a loose
wrap about her shoulders; evidently she intended our interview to be a
short one. I hastened from the shadow to meet her.
“Do you know what I want?” I began gloomily.
“You want to speak to me about something, I suppose?” Again I was
conscious of a coldness in her voice.
“Yes. I have so few opportunities now.”
“I think you have plenty of opportunities, considering you see me every
day.”
We walked on slowly, side by side. “Are you angry with me?” I asked,
trying to speak penitently.
“About what?”
There was something in her air of calm deliberation that held me at a
distance.
“Everything――this afternoon, for instance.”
“I thought you weren’t very nice to your friend.”
“I wasn’t. Nor to you.”
“Oh, it doesn’t matter about me.”
“Why?” I asked miserably.
“Well, it doesn’t matter so much. I’m not your guest――and――I don’t
suppose I’m as fond of you as he is.”
There was something cruel in those last words, though their cruelty may
have been unconscious. For a minute or two I could not speak.
“Why have you changed, Katherine?” I said at length, my voice still not
very secure.
“It is you who have changed.”
“Have I?”
“You were not like this last summer.”
“I think I was.”
“I don’t know what it is, but there is a difference. I suppose it may
be only that you are growing up. I like people to be either men or
boys. Why can’t you be natural? Why can’t you be content to be as you
were?”
“I don’t think you have treated me fairly.”
“I can’t help it. Why should you be so jealous? It’s horrid. Everything
is changed, as you say. It is not nearly so nice. I first began to
notice it in your letters, but I thought when I saw you it would be all
right. If I had known you were going to be like this I wouldn’t have
come at all.”
There was something in her manner I couldn’t understand, something
mysterious, as if her words hid a regret, though whether it was for our
old friendship or not I could not say.
“Tell me what it is you don’t like,” I said, thickly.
Katherine’s dark blue eyes rested on me while she hesitated. “I can’t.
I’m stupid. Perhaps I don’t really know myself.” Then suddenly she
broke out, “Don’t speak to me or I shall cry or do something idiotic.
Let us go back.” Without waiting for me she began to walk hastily in
the direction of the house. I ran after her; I was lost in wonderment;
but I made no attempt to detain her or to question her.
CHAPTER XLVI
No allusion was made to our absence when we returned to the others.
Gerald was still playing, but he got up as soon as we entered, and
strolled over to the window, where he stood beside Owen, looking out.
“There should be white peacocks here,” he murmured idly. “I’ve always
longed to live in a house where there were white peacocks. They are
the most poetic creatures in the world. They come over the lawn in the
moonlight, delightful fowls, and knock with their beaks against the
windows to be fed. They love moonlight. They’re extraordinarily morbid
and decadent. Their only quite healthy taste is that they want to be
fed. Shouldn’t you like them, Miss Dick?”
Miss Dick, to whom all Gerald’s words were pearls of wisdom, listened
to these with close attention. “I’ll speak to Mrs. Carroll about them,”
she said. “It _would_ be nice to have them.”
Gerald smiled sweetly, and Owen moved away from him, an expression on
his face of mingled contempt and disgust, which, had I not been so
miserable, I should have found highly comic. There was nothing, I knew,
irritated him more than this kind of talk, which Gerald manufactured
with extreme ingenuity, principally for Owen’s benefit. For Owen’s
sake he would talk in a world-weary fashion of the “colour” of life,
and ever since he had discovered that the word “Philistine” was
peculiarly exasperating, it had figured more frequently than any other
in his conversation. He dragged it in at every turn, nearly always with
absolute irrelevancy. He began to talk of Philistines now, à propos of
some concert at which he declared he had been asked to play――a concert
he had probably invented for the occasion.
Owen stood with his back against the chimney-piece, his eyes bright,
his cheeks red. “There is one class, at any rate, that is a good
deal more disgusting than your Philistines――the people who imagine
themselves superior to them.”
But Gerald could keep perfectly cool. “These people you mention,” he
began in his most elaborate manner, “I strongly suspect to be only the
commanders of the Philistine hosts――their Tolstoys, their chief-priests
and scribes. It is the Philistine who imagines himself superior to
other Philistines. This is the one flight his imagination is capable
of. The artist may be superior, but that, I think, is not what you
mean?”
“You’re right,” said Owen, fiercely, “it’s not what I mean. And I
suppose _you_ are an artist?”
“My dear Gill, it is apparent.”
“I’m not your dear Gill,” said Owen, who had lost his temper.
“Shut up, Owen,” I interrupted. “What’s the use of taking everything so
seriously?”
“Because everything _is_ serious. You may say a lot of chatter about
white peacocks and Philistines doesn’t mean anything if you like,
but it does. It is a mask for other things that are real enough――for
selfishness, and immorality.”
We all gazed at him in silence, almost open-mouthed, Gerald with a
faint smile on his handsome face. Miss Dick alone found it incumbent
upon her to say something, and she remarked that the Charity
Organization Committee to which she belonged had been able to do a
great deal, and that the lecture with lime-light views had brought in
over three pounds――she meant even after all expenses had been paid.
These observations could not fill up the breach. Nobody, indeed, took
any notice of them. Katherine had laid down her work, and her eyes
were fixed on Owen’s angry face, with, I thought, an expression of
admiration and sympathy.
“What has morality to do with art?” Gerald asked calmly. “Peter
supports you because he is not an artist, but only a person of taste,
who likes to listen to my playing. I _am_ an artist, and I know. You
not being even a person of――I beg your pardon――you being a person of
different tastes from Peter, and uninterested in art, naturally are at
a disadvantage when you discuss it. I do not mean that rudely; I say it
merely in self-defence. Is anyone coming down in the direction of the
station?”
He went out, but nobody offered to accompany him.
CHAPTER XLVII
Owen and I left shortly afterwards. He was very quiet as we walked
home, but when we were in bed he said to me, “I’ve decided to go back
to town to-morrow.”
I heard the words with a thrill of mingled pleasure and misgiving.
“To-morrow? Why?” I asked. “You must stay till the end of the week in
any case.” Then something made me add, “Is it because I was rude to you
this afternoon?”
“No.”
I thought for a little. “Has that nothing to do with it?” I persisted.
“No; at least, not directly. I may as well be quite frank about it.
I know you would rather I went; that is my reason. I ought to have
seen it before, but I didn’t, though I had a kind of feeling several
times that there was something wrong. It is partly your own fault
that I didn’t guess sooner. You always mentioned Katherine as if you
were quite indifferent to her; and that first day you seemed even to
hesitate about going to speak to her. I remember now what you told me
on the night of our party, but until to-day I never connected it with
her.”
“You think I’m jealous?” I said in a low voice.
“I know you are, but I didn’t know it until this afternoon. Don’t
imagine I’m offended or any silly rot of that kind. There is no reason
why I should be. Of course I should have liked it better if you had
told me openly――but――well, it doesn’t matter. I don’t understand your
feeling, but that doesn’t matter, either; if you have it, it is enough.
I like Katherine, I like her very much, but, after all, it is you who
are my friend.”
“She won’t want you to go,” I said miserably. At that moment I
certainly preferred Owen to Katherine.
“She won’t mind very much, and I really can’t knock about with her
brother. I hate the very sight of him.”
“Couldn’t we knock about by ourselves?”
“I’m afraid it would hardly do to drop them now.”
There was a silence.
“Owen?”
“Yes.”
“I don’t know what to do.”
“About what?”
“About anything. About your going away. About Katherine.”
“But when I’m away won’t it be all right?”
“No; it will be all wrong. I’ve been beastly to you as it is. And she
doesn’t like me――I mean she only likes me middling――not even as much as
she did――she told me so, this evening.”
“But you will have plenty of time to make it up.”
“It isn’t that――it isn’t that we’ve quarrelled. And the other――it is no
use――it only irritates me. I wish I could explain. Things――things come
into my mind.”
Owen was silent.
“And I’ve been beastly to you,” I went on.
“Oh, nonsense.”
He was silent again till he said, “There’s one way, but I know you
won’t take it.”
“What is it?”
“Come back with me, and spend the rest of your holidays with me.”
I lay quiet.
“Will you?”
In the dark I shook my head. Then, remembering he could not see me, I
answered, “No: I can’t.”
“Why not? It is only a matter of will.”
“But I haven’t any will, except to get what I want.”
“You could try it for a few days.”
“No. There are not a great many days altogether. They will be leaving
before the end of the month.”
“Well, if you should change your mind, come at any time――I mean without
bothering to write.”
“Very well.”
Owen was silent so long that I thought he had dropped asleep, when
suddenly he spoke again.
“Peter?”
“Yes.”
“I didn’t know if you were asleep or not. It is this. I wrote to my
people about you――about your having to go to lodgings when you come up
to town after summer; and they want you to come to live with us.”
I felt myself grow hot with shame.
“You see there are plenty of bedrooms,” Owen went on, “and my study, I
daresay, would do for both of us to work in. I hope you’ll come: they
all want you to. If you think of it I’ll speak to your father; but of
course if you’d rather be in ‘digs’ by yourself, it would be better for
me not to mention it to him.”
“Do you really want me to come?” I asked.
“Of course I want you.”
“I mean, do you really and truly want me?”
He laughed pleasantly. “Of course I really and truly want you.”
“You’re not doing it out of kindness or anything like that?”
“The kindness will be all on your side.”
“No: but I mean it. You must tell me.”
“I suggested it because I’d like to have you. I wasn’t a bit sure
whether you’d come or not. My reason for asking you is exactly the same
as my reason for asking you every Sunday to come for a walk with me.”
“I’ll come,” I said. “Thanks awfully.” But my pleasure was spoiled by
the remorse I felt for my own conduct as host. It seemed to me I was a
fairly second-rate specimen of humanity, hardly good enough to be taken
out and drowned.
CHAPTER XLVIII
I do not know whether Katherine attributed Owen’s sudden departure to
me or not, but I think it extremely probable that she did, although she
never mentioned it. Yet we sometimes spoke of Owen himself during the
days that followed. In those days we slipped back more or less into
our former friendship, and I tried to feel that it was just the same.
Yet something of the old freedom had gone, and I could not forget what
Katherine had said to me the night before Owen’s departure. After a few
days, indeed, it came into my romantic mind that there might be another
interpretation of her behaviour on that occasion, one I hardly dared
even to dream of, so much was it what I desired. But it influenced me
nevertheless. I longed to have another day alone with her――a day such
as we had had last year, and I determined to ask her to come somewhere
with me alone, to come, that is, without Gerald.
I went up to Derryaghy one afternoon with this intention, and was shown
into the morning-room, where I found Mrs. Carroll and Miss Dick. Mrs.
Carroll informed me that Katherine had been washing her hair, and was
now drying it at the kitchen fire. She told me to go on in if I wanted
to speak to her, but I hung back bashfully. In the end I went, all the
same, and discovered Katherine sitting on a stool, a book open on her
knee, and her long, thick, dark brown hair hanging loose in the red
glow of the kitchen range.
“It’s well for you you haven’t to undergo torments of this kind!” she
exclaimed. “I was baked nearly ten minutes ago. My hair was simply
full of salt. I don’t know how it gets in under my bathing-cap.”
The situation may seem more homely than romantic, but I thought she
looked extremely lovely, and gazed at her in silent admiration. Perhaps
she noticed it, for she coloured as she laughed.
“My dear Peter, aren’t you going to say good-morning to me? I’m not the
Sleeping Beauty, you know?”
“What beautiful hair you have,” I said, in an awed tone, and
involuntarily I touched it with my hand.
She laughed again, but drew back. “Did you come in just to admire it?
It’s very nice of you.”
“I came to ask you to go for a walk with me this afternoon, round
by the Hilltown Road――by the road under the mountains――just you by
yourself.”
“‘Me by myself!’ When do you want to go?”
“After lunch.”
“Very well――if it’s not too hot.”
The readiness with which she consented made me consider myself a fool
for not having asked her sooner, and I began to regret all my lost
opportunities.
On my way home I met Gerald, who wanted to know if I had bathed yet.
“I bathed before breakfast. Where have you been?”
“Oh, just down to the Club House.”
I turned back with him. I had made up my mind to say something he might
possibly resent, but I plunged into my subject without beating about
the bush. “Don’t you think you are rather a fool to go down there so
often?”
“Down where?” asked Gerald. “To the Club House?”
“Yes; though I was thinking more of the hotel. It seems to me you go to
the hotel nearly every evening now.”
He smiled, indifferently. “There’s nothing else to do.”
“It seems stupid to chum up with people about twice your age,” I
persisted.
“They’re not twice my age. Some of them aren’t very much older than I
am. What harm does it do?”
“Well, I was only with you once, but I didn’t like what I saw there,
especially towards the end of the evening.”
“What didn’t you like, Peter?” he asked, good-humouredly.
“I thought it looked silly――and a little disgusting. There were you, a
chap barely eighteen, calling Captain Denby, who’s about fifty, by his
Christian name. You must know well enough that he’s as gross as a pig.
What does he care about your playing? And what pleasure, anyway, can it
give you to play a lot of waltzes and popular songs?”
“He cares as much for my playing as you do.”
“My dear Gerald, if you think that you’re a fool.”
“You sat quiet enough at the time. You were afraid to open your mouth.”
“That may be so, but it doesn’t alter the fact that I was infinitely
superior to anyone in that room except yourself.”
“I daresay you were, Peter. I never doubt your superiority. There’s one
thing you forget, however, and that is that any friendship there may be
between you and me is a pretty one-sided affair.”
“What do you mean?” I asked, uncomfortably.
“Only that you’ve never given it much encouragement.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know, I’m sure. Partly, I should think, because you rather
dislike me. That always stands in the way of such things.”
His irony rang unpleasantly true. “Why should you think I dislike you?”
I said, very weakly.
“It would take too long to explain. It never gave me any particular
pleasure to think so――at first, just the reverse――and I mention it now
merely at your request.”
I didn’t quite know what to say. “Isn’t my speaking to you about this
matter a proof of my not disliking you?” I risked. “I thought we had
always been friends.”
“No, Peter, your friend is a prig called Owen Gill.”
“Owen isn’t a prig,” I said warmly, glad to have a chance to put him in
the wrong, but my chance did not last.
“I beg your pardon,” said Gerald, “even if he was, I shouldn’t have
called him one to you.”
“Better say it to me, if you’re going to say it at all. I can defend
him.”
“I daresay there is no harm in being a prig.”
“Owen is a good deal finer chap than either you or I.”
“And yet neither of us would change with him! But the point is hardly
worth discussing.”
“I don’t want to discuss it.”
“You want to give me good advice? Well, fire ahead.”
“Oh, there’s no use in my saying anything. You know it all well enough
yourself, and if you think it better to go on as you are doing, I can’t
interfere. But it seems to me stupid to get into bad habits.”
“Have you no bad habits, Peter?”
“I’m not talking about myself.”
“That’s true.”
“You said the other night you were an artist; but you know as well as I
do, that if you are going to do anything in that way you will have to
work, and that you won’t work if you begin to loaf about, taking drinks
with this person and that. I can’t even understand why you should want
to. If _I_ had any particular gift I would cultivate it for all it was
worth.”
“Have you no gift?”
“No. As you also remarked, I am a person of taste.”
“I’m sorry if I offended you. I didn’t mean anything.”
“You believed it all the same.”
“I’m not sure that I did. You’re clever enough.”
“Thank you. I’ll not come any further.”
“Won’t you? It was good of you bothering about me, and I took it very
well, didn’t I?” He smiled.
“You didn’t take it at all; but that’s not my fault.”
CHAPTER XLIX
It was a cloudless afternoon when I went back to Derryaghy. Katherine
was quite ready and we set out immediately. As I walked beside her,
in her simple cotton dress, and with her gay parasol, I thought her
adorable.
“Do you remember our picnic?” I asked, for I was for ever harking back
to it in my mind.
“Which? There have been so many!”
“I mean our own――the one we went together――the first of all.”
“It seems centuries ago. I wonder if Bryansford isn’t too far for this
afternoon? The others were saying something about driving. That would
be better.”
“It was a day very like this,” I went on, “a perfect summer day.” And a
strange thrill passed through me as I recalled its incidents.
The air was as soft as velvet. The August sun streamed over the fields.
We followed a lane which led us past a long, low house, where an
immense cherry-tree, with a trunk nine or ten feet in circumference,
spread its branches in a small green orchard. I repeated aloud some
lines of a poem I remembered:
“I know a little garden-close
Set thick with lily and red rose,
Where I would wander if I might
From dewy dawn to dewy night,
And have one with me wandering.”
Two friendly dogs wagged their tails, and a cat lounging on the gray
stone wall unclosed its eyes in sleepy yellow slits.
“Can’t we be friends, Katherine, as we were then?” I pleaded.
“But aren’t we friends?” she asked, with a shade of impatience in her
voice.
“You know what I mean.”
“I’m afraid I _don’t_ know what you mean, Peter.” Then she unexpectedly
added: “You’re a very queer mixture. I often wonder how you’ll come out
in the end.”
“I haven’t an idea,” I replied, somewhat taken aback. The remark
appeared to me peculiar, and I felt as if she had pushed me farther
away; and with this my self-confidence began to evaporate.
We walked on in silence. There was, at the particular point we had
now reached, a certain grandeur in the landscape, which even at that
agitated moment impressed me with a sense of solemnity. From childhood
I had imagined it――quite without historical foundation――as the scene
of ancient Druidical worship. I thought of the dark soil as having
drunk up the hot, sweet blood of human sacrifice, while the “pale-eyed
priest” lifted his gaze to the clear autumn sky, and watched against
it, just that same dark curving line of quiet hills that I was watching
now.
Yet, when we began to speak again it was of things about which we were
both profoundly indifferent, and I had a sickening feeling that I was
failing to interest my companion, and that while she was talking to me
her thoughts were elsewhere. Somehow it appeared to be impossible to
raise our conversation out of the rut of deadly commonplace into which
it had fallen. It seemed to me almost as if Katherine were keeping it
there on purpose, and before we came to Bryansford, I proposed trying
to get tea at one of the cottages, for I felt that any interruption
would be a relief.
When we had finished, and paid for, our refreshment, instead of
continuing our way round under the mountains, as I had intended,
Katherine decided that we ought to start for home.
“Let us at least go back through the woods,” I begged. “We don’t want
to tramp along that dusty road again.”
She yielded to my persuasion, and we entered the estate that lay beyond
Derryaghy. It was strangely still in the late afternoon. Not a leaf
stirred. On and on we walked, hardly speaking, and suddenly the dead
silence, and our complete solitude, became, as it were, visible to
me; and with that there rose in my mind, with intense vividness, a
memory――the memory of Elsie at Owen’s party. The whole thing came back
to me almost with the strength of hallucination: her lips on mine, my
own kisses, her yielding body as she closed her eyes under my embrace.
I was horribly nervous. I felt myself trembling and a faint mist swam
before my eyes. I put out my hand and tried to take Katherine’s, but
she drew away from me at once. I stopped short, facing her, on the
narrow path. “I want to speak to you,” I said. “What have I done?”
She made as if to pass me, but I barred the way. I was conscious once
more, through other things, of a smouldering anger against her. “Why do
you draw back when I touch you? You once told me you cared for me. You
wrote to me that you did.”
“So I do,” she answered quietly, though her face had altered. “I don’t
know what you want, nor why you aren’t satisfied.”
And, all the time, that other vision was acting like an hypnotic
suggestion upon my mind. “You know that I love you,” I persisted,
hoarsely, my voice sounding queer, though I tried to speak naturally.
“Tell me, would you rather have Owen?”
“I don’t think you should speak to me like this. I wish you would allow
me to pass, please.”
Her dark blue eyes were fixed on me; she was very near. I was
passionately conscious of her attraction for me; my heart was thumping,
and the blood began to drum in my temples, while a sort of shadow
veiled my sight. I threw my arms round her; I could feel her body
straining away from me, her breath on my face. For a moment she seemed
to submit as I kissed her, but the next instant she struggled from me,
and I felt a blow across my face. She had struck me with her parasol,
which now hung broken in her hand.
Her eyes flashed on me like a withering fire. She was furiously angry.
“How dare you touch me! Let me pass at once, you――you beast.”
My arms dropped to my sides. A sudden, bitter shame overcame me. I saw
her pass me with head erect and flaming cheeks, and then I dropped on
my face on the ground.
When I got up she was out of sight. I did not know how long I had lain
there, but I made no attempt to follow her. As I brushed mechanically
the earth and bits of grass and twigs from my clothes, I felt almost
dazed. It had all passed, and I did not want to think. I heard the
drowsy prattle of a stream, and became aware that I was hot and
thirsty. I went down to it and followed the bank till I reached a deep
green pool, from which, lying flat on my belly, I drank greedily. As
I raised my head I saw my own image in the water――my bright eyes, my
dark, flushed face, my coarse, ruffled hair.
CHAPTER L
I had told my father I should be dining at Derryaghy, yet he made no
remark when, instead, I came in an hour late for tea. Fresh tea simply
was prepared for me, and again, while I sat at table, I was conscious
of something peculiar in the way he watched me, so that for an instant
it even flashed upon me that he might have heard of what had happened
in the wood.
It was only when I had finished eating that he spoke. “I had a letter
from your Uncle George this afternoon,” he said, and I knew at once,
not so much from his voice as from the face he turned to me, that
something serious had happened.
My thoughts darted straightway to Aunt Margaret, to vague, gruesome
tragedies, murder or suicide. “What’s the matter?” I asked, uneasily.
Perhaps it had to do with little Alice? Why couldn’t he tell me at
once? Then I noticed that he had pushed a bundle of photographs to me
across the table.
“Do you know anything of these?” he asked, in a strange voice.
I started. A glance at the top one had been sufficient. I recognized
the photographs George had kept hidden in his room, or others like
them. I looked at my father watching me, not angrily, but in a kind
of hopeless way; I looked into his gray, still face while he went on
speaking. “They were found in your bedroom hidden under the floor.
Uncle George says that George knows nothing about them, and, that
being the case, he felt it his duty to tell me. He does not mention
your name. I don’t know what to do. I have been trying to think.” He
looked at the wretched things, as they lay there, with a kind of horror.
I sat silent for a moment. “They’re not mine,” I then said. “I have
nothing to do with them.”
A gleam of relief came into his face, but it faded quickly. “You never
saw them before?”
I lifted the top one, but immediately put it back again. “I don’t know
whether I saw them before or not,” I answered. “If I didn’t see these
particular ones I saw others like them.” My father winced. “But they
never belonged to me. Even if I had wanted them I wouldn’t have known
where to get them.”
“Did you know of this hiding place?”
“Yes.”
“And of what was there?”
“Yes.”
“Only you and George occupied that room.”
“And George says they aren’t his.” I looked towards the window.
My father hesitated. Then he said solemnly, “Will you give me your word
of honour, Peter, that you had nothing to do with their being there?”
“I had nothing to do with it.” I answered quietly. “I knew they were
there, because George showed them to me. If he was here he would not
say they were mine. I knew what he was like from the first day I went
there. Those things were there then, and on the very first night he
wanted to show them to me, but he was frightened to. I did not see them
till a long time afterwards. I would never have seen them at all, if
you had let me leave when I first wrote to ask you to.”
“You gave me no reason,” said my father, sadly. “Do you think I should
have allowed you to stay an hour in the place if I had known?”
“You might have guessed there was _some_ reason. And at the time I
couldn’t give any――I didn’t know myself.”
“Had that anything to do with your not wanting to go back there after
Christmas?”
“In a way――more or less,” I answered. “Not exactly that, but other
things――――”
My father sighed. He tore the photographs in two, and placed them
in the empty grate, where he set fire to them. It was like an act
of purification, and when it was concluded he turned round and said
gloomily, “I’m sorry if I misjudged you. I accept your word.”
But he didn’t accept it――he couldn’t. Secretly, and underneath
everything, and, without admitting it even to himself, he couldn’t
help being doubtful, and I knew he was doubtful. If I had suddenly
told him the photographs were mine, and expressed appropriate remorse,
I believe it would have made him happier than my denial did. As I saw
the wretchedness of his face the injustice of the whole thing became
intolerable. “Do you believe me, or do you not?” I asked brusquely.
“I have told you I believe you.”
“You don’t look as if you did.”
“I can’t pretend to treat the matter as of no importance. My believing
you means that I must disbelieve George.”
“Why should you trouble about George? And, at any rate, though he did
have those things, he’s decent enough in some ways. I’m pretty sure he
would have burnt them himself after a while.”
I’m afraid this speech did neither George nor myself any good. It
simply made my father think me callous.
I went out on the golf-links with Tony, and sat looking at the sea.
I began to think of my father and of the failure of his life. This
last incident seemed but to fit with all the others into its tragic
grayness. And I reflected how for him I must compose a large part
of that failure. Thinking of me could bring him little consolation,
probably just the reverse. It was a pity. I doubtless was not,
particularly from his point of view, much to boast of, but I was better
than he thought me. I might be below the average in most things, but I
was not below it in all....
And then my natural egotism rose once more to the surface. My mind
turned to Katherine, and it seemed to me I was making a horrible mess
of my whole existence. I got up and walked slowly back to the town. A
wandering troupe of open-air entertainers had arrived during the day,
and were busy erecting tents and hobby-horse machines in a large field
not far from our house. Most of the natives, both young and old, were
superintending these preparations with an unflagging interest which
had already stretched over hours, but I was in no mood to join them. I
determined to walk as far as the pier and then go home. I had not gone
above a hundred yards when I felt my face burning. Before me, coming in
my direction, were Katherine and Gerald. Nothing but a straight stretch
of road and footpath lay between us, and it was certain that they must
have already seen me. I would have liked to turn back, but my pride
prevented such a step, and I walked on, my head up, a flaming blush on
my face. Gerald and I raised our caps. My eyes sought Katherine’s, but
her glance just brushed mine to rest on some distant point beyond me.
The next moment we had passed. Hot tears rose to my eyes, but I walked
as far as I had intended to. On the pier steps I sat down and put my
arms round Tony’s broad back and kissed him. If I had committed the
greatest crime on earth, I thought, he would have licked my cheek and
pretended to bite my ear just as he did now.
CHAPTER LI
“I want to go up to Belfast to-day,” I said to my father next morning
at breakfast.
His reply was exactly the one I had anticipated. “What do you want to
go to Belfast for?”
“I want to see Owen about something.”
“Hadn’t you a whole fortnight when you saw him every day?”
“I want to speak to him,” I answered, very low-spiritedly. I knew he
was thinking of the railway-fare, and if I had had any money myself I
should never have asked him.
“Can’t you write?” he demanded, querulously.
“I want to speak to him.”
“Don’t go on repeating the same thing like a child.”
“But why can’t I go?” I asked helplessly.
“Because it is a waste of money.”
“It will only cost five shillings.”
“Five shillings is a great deal too much to spend upon nothing.”
“It isn’t nothing. I want to speak to him. I never asked to go before.”
“You’ll be seeing him very soon――in another fortnight――and you will
have plenty of time to talk to him then.”
“I want to speak to him now,” I persisted. “Can’t I go?”
“Peter, you are dreadfully obstinate. What do you want to see him about
that won’t keep for a few days?”
“I sent him a telegram before breakfast, asking him to meet me, and I
can’t very well not go.”
“It is your own fault if you do things without consulting me.”
Nevertheless, in the end, he allowed me to go, and I caught the first
train.
I had asked Owen to meet me in the Botanic Gardens, for I did not want
to call at his house, and, as I arrived some few minutes before the
appointed time, I began to pace disconsolately up and down one of the
paths, my head filled with dreary thoughts. Two or three gardeners with
long rakes were raking the walks, and a man with a pair of clippers
was trimming the edges of the grass. As they pottered over their work
they carried on a disjointed conversation, principally about religion,
or rather about the evils of Roman Catholicism. I listened to their
idiotic remarks, which at another time might have amused me. The man
with the clippers was describing some form of service which he called
“High Rosary,” and the rakers from time to time interpolated words and
grunts. A few little boys were playing hide-and-seek, and now and then
a nurse passed, wheeling a perambulator. An old pensioner, sucking an
empty pipe, hobbled up to the seat I had taken a corner of, though
all the others were vacant, and began with much fumbling to unfold a
greasy-looking newspaper. The sight of his futile senility somehow
irritated me, and I stared at him fiercely, but he sat on. I began to
think that perhaps Owen would not come: for all I knew he might be away
from home. Two or three untidy, vulgar, little girls, with smaller
brothers and sisters in tow, came up to inquire “the right time.” After
I had satisfied their curiosity they still hovered near me, gazing at
me in a silence that it was difficult to construe as flattering. At a
distance of three or four yards they then settled down stolidly to some
obscure game, in which a great deal of monotonous, rhymed dialogue
was the principal feature. They intoned this in shrill, unmodulated
voices, but all the time keeping a sharp look-out on my movements. The
old pensioner turned his watery eyes on me and made a remark about the
weather. I pretended not to hear him, but he only made it again, and
I had to answer. He began to talk politics. His fumbling hands, his
foolish, empty pipe, his bleared and rheumy eyes, depressed me, and I
wondered why he couldn’t be put into a lethal chamber. Then I saw Owen
turn the corner and sprang up to meet him.
“Why didn’t you come to the house? Where are your things?” he asked.
The little girls had suspended their game to watch us with breathless
interest.
“I’m not going to stay, Owen. I came up just because I wanted to speak
to you about something―――― Get away!” This last remark was addressed to
a child who had drawn nearer, so as not to miss what we were saying.
She stared at me with an expression of solemn idiocy, but without
budging an inch from the position she had taken up.
“That’s all right,” said Owen, “but of course you’ll stay now you’re
here. I can lend you everything you need, and I’ve told them at home to
expect you.”
“I can’t. My father would hardly let me come; even as it was.”
“Get yer hair cut,” suggested the polite child, putting out her tongue.
“Owen, I want to tell you something: I want your advice.”
He at once became serious. He took my arm and we strolled down toward
the pond, followed by the whole band of children, who, captained by the
same odious little girl, screamed now in chorus, “Get yer hair cut! Get
yer hair cut!”
The din they made was terrific. I waited till we had turned the corner
and were out of sight of the gardeners and the pensioner. Then I swung
round quickly and made a grab at the ringleader. In about two seconds,
kicking and screaming, she was across my knee, and I was administering
as sound a spanking as she had ever received in her life.
“I say,” cried Owen, “what on earth are you doing?”
I released my captive, who with crimson, tear-drenched face, and open
mouth, went bawling back in the direction she had come from.
“That’s all right, any way,” I said to the astonished Owen. “There’s
nothing like taking these things in time.”
The rest of the children had retreated, moving backwards, with round
eyes fixed on me, but perfectly callous to the woes of their comrade.
“You’ll be having someone coming and kicking up the mischief of a row,”
said Owen, uneasily.
“I don’t care. Can’t we find a quiet place?”
Owen considered. “Come down the Lagan walk: there’s never anybody
there.”
I let him take me, and we walked till we were stopped by a low parapet,
over which we had a charming view of the black mud-banks of the river,
for the tide was out, and beyond this a strip of waste land, dotted
with mill chimneys and the backs of dirty houses. It was neither a
cheerful nor a beautiful outlook, but we both stood gazing over the
wall, as if beyond it lay the New Jerusalem.
“It’s horribly smelly,” I discovered at length.
“I thought you wanted somewhere quiet,” Owen apologized.
“I didn’t mean this sort of thing. I’m sure there’s a dead cat or dog
in that sack down there. Come away.”
“I didn’t know the tide was out,” said Owen patiently.
But I found it difficult now to begin my story. Those wretched children
had upset everything. I was quite unreasonably cross, too, with Owen,
for bringing me to these hideous mud-banks, with their litter of old
boots, of empty tins and broken bottles. I even had it on the tip of
my tongue to tell him it was just like him, but refrained.
We retraced our steps and found a seat near the pond. Here we sat in
silence, Owen waiting for me to begin my tale.
“Something very unpleasant happened yesterday,” I murmured, branching
off to a secondary subject.
“Happened to you?”
“Not to me only―――― It was a letter my father got from Uncle George――the
people I was living with in town here, you know.”
“I know.”
“You remember the chap who came with us to ‘Faust?’”
“Your cousin?”
I nodded. “He had some photographs which he kept hidden under the floor
in our bedroom.”
“Why?”
“So that nobody would get hold of them. They were――that kind. I don’t
know where he got them from.”
“Bad?”
I nodded again. “And they were found a few days ago, and he denied that
they were his, so Uncle George wrote to my father.”
“Saying they must be yours?”
“It came to that, though he didn’t actually say it.”
“But you denied it too?”
“Yes――only――I don’t know that my father believes me.”
“Even now?”
“He says he does, but I’m not sure. At any rate it has upset him a lot.”
“He must be an awfully low cad.”
“George? He’s not up to much. But I expect it never occurred to him
that his people would write, and I suppose he thought, now I was out of
the way, it wouldn’t much matter to me whether they blamed me or not.
Neither would it have mattered, if Uncle George hadn’t written.”
“Of course it would have. What is your father going to do?”
“I don’t know. There is nothing he _can_ do, except tell them what I
say.” I felt suddenly sad and doubtful――doubtful of the quality of
my own innocence, which had seemed perfectly clear before. “I’m not
sure that I’m giving you a right impression,” I went on, after a short
silence. “I knew George had these things: I had looked at them: I knew
where he kept them.”
“It all seems to me very rotten,” said Owen, disgustedly.
“It is, rather. Aunt Margaret may write to Mrs. Carroll, for instance,
just out of spite.”
“She can hardly do that now.”
“I don’t know. She hates me. And it would be horrible if she did,
though Mrs. Carroll wouldn’t believe her.”
I was silent a while. “But that isn’t really what I came up to tell
you,” I suddenly began. Then I related what had happened yesterday in
the wood.
Owen stared in front of him at the drab, seedy-looking, little ducks,
who were paddling about on the dirty sheet of water. A rat stole out,
and seeing us scuttled back again.
“Why did you behave like that? It was most extraordinary!”
I made no answer.
“It wasn’t very gentlemanly, you know,” Owen continued, “to say the
least of it.”
“I never said I was a gentleman,” I interrupted. “I’m not one, in the
ordinary sense of the word, nor even in the other, according to you.”
“Oh, that’s rot.” He sat trying to puzzle it out. He looked at me and
unexpectedly smiled.
I smiled too, but my heart was heavy as lead. “Well, that’s all I came
up to tell you,” I muttered, “――not very much!”
He saw I was not happy. “I know I’m not very experienced in matters of
this kind,” he confessed, “but if I were you, Peter, I should go to
Derryaghy and ask to see her. Would you like me to do anything?”
“There’s nothing you could do. Would it not be better for me to write?”
“I don’t think so. It might be easier.”
“It would be. And suppose she won’t see me?”
“You can only try.”
“Well, I’ll go back and think it over.”
“But won’t you stay, really?”
“No. I must go.”
“Before this happened she liked you very much――she told me so herself.”
I shook my head. “It is all over. She will never speak to me again.”
“If she doesn’t――――” He stopped.
“What?” I asked.
“She isn’t worth bothering about,” Owen concluded.
“Oh, you don’t know.”
“What was there, after all, so very dreadful? It’s not as if you were
in any way repulsive!”
He tried to persuade me to change my mind about going home as we walked
toward the park gate, but I was firm. “Good-bye, Owen,” I said. “Thank
you for coming. I will write to you if there is anything to write
about.”
I got on a tram, and he stood on the footpath, looking after me.
CHAPTER LII
Owen had cheered me up a little; I was glad I had come; and during my
return journey I pondered the advice he had given me and decided that
I must follow it. I waited till nine o’clock, by which hour I thought
Gerald would probably have gone out, for I wanted to avoid him: then I
went up to Derryaghy. So far as I could see, the only way was to call
just as usual, and trust to luck to get a few minutes with Katherine
alone.
But at the door my courage failed me, and I stepped softly round to
the terrace, and, standing hidden in the deep shadow of the house,
looked to see who was in the room. The curtain was as usual undrawn
and the room was full of lamplight. They were all there. Gerald was
sprawling on his back on the sofa; Katherine was working at her
table-cloth, her head bent over it so that I could not see her face;
Miss Dick was writing; Mrs. Carroll was playing “Patience.” Presently
Katherine looked up, and, for a moment or two, before she returned to
her work, I saw her gaze out into the darkness. The others, except
Mrs. Carroll, had their backs to me; a small fire was burning in the
grate. I stood there under a kind of fascination. The impression was
strange, and even slightly weird. Looking in upon them, all so silent
and so unconscious of my presence, I had a peculiar feeling that, if
I came right into their line of vision, they would still not see me.
I had a strange feeling that I was actually invisible, and, moreover,
that I was not the only watcher there, and, that if we were invisible
to the inmates of the room, we might not be invisible to each other.
Other faces, pale and dim, peered in at other windows; the house was
surrounded by shadowy presences――shadowy forms that hovered outside
here on the terrace, that glided up and down the wide, dark, creaking
staircase, or stood motionless in the upper rooms. I stepped back and
looked up at the long line of black, unlit windows, with just here and
there a glimmering light. And I felt as if I no longer belonged to the
same world as the occupants of the room I watched. I was but a memory,
a ghost; my place was upstairs; in dim passages; by trembling blinds,
pulled aside for just a moment that we might peep out; in shadowy
rooms; behind doors whose handles the timid maid, hurrying by in her
glimmer of unsteady candlelight, feared to turn. I was the breath
that set the curtains at the bed’s head trembling; the faint sound
as of a chair pushed back on the upper floor; the draught――was it a
draught?――that made the lamp-flame flicker; the pale reflection passing
across the looking-glass and gone before there was time to strike a
match. I was that mysterious something one turned one’s head quickly to
see, and did not see; the cold touch that awakened just before dawn;
the gray, ghostly figure sitting by the window in the first wan light,
and that was no longer there when one rubbed one’s eyes; the tapping on
the window-pane as of a leaf――the tapping that must surely be only a
leaf moved by the wind.
I do not know how long I stood there: it may have been but a few
minutes, yet it was long enough for me to realize that the simple
act of entering the room was become an impossibility. It would have
required too violent an effort, too sharp and brutal a wrench, an
effort I shrank from as from physical pain. I must write to Katherine.
How could I go in there as if nothing had happened? If she came out
on to the terrace I might find courage to speak to her, but she would
not come. Gerald, on the other hand, almost certainly would; and if he
discovered me prowling about like this what would he think? I slipped
away, then, like a veritable ghost, my footsteps making no noise upon
the faded grass.
CHAPTER LIII
I wrote that night to Katherine, but she did not reply to my letter,
and I had no heart to send a second. Two days passed, during which
I did not go near Derryaghy, but took to gardening, and when Gerald
came down on the second afternoon I offered this as my excuse for not
going with him. The fact was that I felt uncomfortable in his society,
not knowing how much he knew. He had witnessed my discomfiture on the
night Katherine had cut me, and of course he must have questioned her
afterwards.
During these days I made one or two attempts to come to a more cordial
relation with my father; yet it seemed to me that he suspected the
genuineness of my timid advances, and at all events his unresponsiveness
discouraged me from repeating them.
On the evening of the third day, having nothing else to do, I
strolled listlessly in the direction of the field occupied by the
booths of the steam-circus proprietors. It was recognizable from
afar by a luminous cloud that hung above it like a curtain of fire
against the night. The wind was blowing from that direction, and, as
I advanced, my ears were filled with the rough music blared out by a
couple of steam-organs, a music broken every now and again by short
convulsive shrieks as of demoniac laughter. Swings, shooting-galleries,
throwing-competitions――all were in the full energy of life when
I approached; but the chief centres of attraction were the two
hobby-horse machines, brightly painted and flashing with mirrors and
gilding. I mingled in the outer ring of spectators about the larger of
these two wheeling monsters, and stood gazing at it, as it turned round
swiftly and rhythmically to the throbbing din of brazen pipes. White
puffs of steam shot up against the black sky in the coloured glare
of naphtha lamps. Girls with flushed, excited faces, tossed hair and
shining eyes, leaned sideways from the horses’ backs, laughed, swayed
in a kind of innocent abandon toward their accompanying sweethearts.
Arms were round waists, the pops of guns mingled with the blare
of the music, the shrieks of the steam-whistle, the shrillness of
feminine voices. Standing there, in lonely contemplation of all this
Dionysian revelry, I felt as hopelessly out of touch with it, as if I
had wandered thither from another planet. Suddenly I felt a hand laid
lightly on my arm, and looking round saw the laughing face of Annie
Breen.
She asked me if I had seen their Willie, but without waiting for an
answer went on to chatter about all the people who were here to-night.
A whole crowd had come over from Castlewellan; and there were a lot of
excursionists from Belfast, who had missed the last train, and nobody
knew where they were going to sleep, for there wasn’t a room to be had
in the hotels. Wasn’t it fun? They would have to stay out all night;
and if it rained wouldn’t it be awful?
“There’s room for two there,” she cried, “those white horses. Ellen
Gibson and Brian Seery are getting off.”
I made a half-hearted movement forward, but in my lack of enthusiasm
was ousted by a more eager couple whose eyes had been as quick as
Annie’s. There was no hint of reproach, however, in the smile the girl
turned on me.
“We’ll get them next time, and I’d just as soon watch, any way.
Wouldn’t you?”
“There’s Willie over there,” I suggested. “Perhaps you would like――――”
But she interrupted me. “I don’t care about the horses. Only maybe I’m
keeping you: maybe you’re waiting for somebody?”
“No,” I answered, hurriedly.
“Let’s go round the tents then. Will you?”
We moved over to the one which appeared to have attracted the largest
crowd. In the foreground, just beyond the barrier, was a long counter
or table covered with cheap ornaments, artificial jewelry, and boxes
of unhealthy-looking cigars; and behind this, set in tiers against
the canvas back of the tent itself, were three rows of grotesque,
painted, wooden busts, waiting to be knocked down. Surrounded by a
group of encouraging spectators, George Edge was stolidly bombarding
these figures with a good deal of success, though what he intended to
do with his prizes it was difficult to imagine. We stood and watched
him, and every now and again a loud smack was instantly followed by the
disappearance of one of the dolls.
“Have a throw you,” said Annie. “Go on. I’m sure you can do it better
than him.”
An obliging lady handed me three wooden balls, about the size of tennis
balls, in exchange for two pence; but in absence of mind I came within
an ace of sending the first of these at the head of the proprietor
himself, which just then bobbed up close to the dolls, and in features,
colouring, and expression, startlingly resembled them. At my third
shot I was successful, and Annie chose a gold and turquoise cross. We
passed on to the next booth, leaving George still pegging away, with a
perseverance that must have cost him about half-a-crown already. Annie
herself now won a walking-stick, by throwing a wooden ring over it, and
this trophy was presented to me.
“Let’s get out of the glare for a minute,” she said unexpectedly. “It’s
that hot with all the lights and things I can’t hardly breathe.”
We passed behind the tents, and a few steps brought us into shadow,
and a few steps more to a bank under a hawthorn-hedge, where we sat
down. I had nothing to say to her, and, as it did not seem to matter
to Annie whether we talked or not, I pursued my own thoughts. She
leaned up against me confidingly, but I was hardly more conscious
of her presence than of the bank upon which I sat. I was thinking,
and presently I put a question to her, put it perfectly seriously.
“Suppose, Annie,” I began very deliberately,――“suppose you were friends
with somebody――somebody like me, say. Suppose you knew he was very fond
of you, and, one day, when you were alone together, without asking you
if he might, he put his arms round you and kissed you――would you be
very angry with him, so angry that you would never speak to him nor
look at him again?”
I kept my eyes fixed upon the ground as I awaited her reply, and I
awaited it with some anxiety. It seemed to me a long while coming. All
at once I felt two warm lips pressed against my cheek. I was so taken
aback by the unexpected nature of this answer that I’m afraid I drew
away from it. I understood that poor Annie had seen in my question
only a somewhat timid method of courtship. It was distinctly awkward.
She leaned her head sentimentally on my shoulder, and we sat in this
absurd position for several minutes, while I had time to reflect on the
hopeless inconsistency of feminine nature. As soon as I could, without
hurting her feelings, I got up. “We must try the hobby-horses now,” I
said, with feeble sprightliness, seizing on the only pretext I could
think of to escape from a disagreeable situation.
Annie rose too, but with no great alacrity: in fact, she remarked that
she was sick of the hobby-horses. I pretended not to believe her. We
went back to the spot where she had first spoken to me, and, when the
machine came to a standstill, secured two riderless steeds. Mine was
on the outside and Annie’s of course next to it, but we were no sooner
in possession of them than I became aware of Katherine and Gerald
among the spectators quite close to us. I looked the other way, and I
felt my face grow crimson. It seemed to me that the engine-man would
never set us in motion. Already we appeared to have been waiting for
an eternity. Annie was laughing and chattering, and I answered at
random, though, indeed, to the kind of remarks she was making, any sort
of answer served. Had she, too, seen the Dales? for her vivacity had
suddenly become much more noisy and familiar, with something about it
that smacked rather of town than of country? I noticed that all the
other riders were obviously in couples, and that most of the youths
were supporting their partners in a strikingly gallant fashion. Annie
had already given me permission to follow their example by telling me
half a dozen times she was sure she’d fall off. I didn’t care very much
whether she did or not. At last, with a shrill and frivolous scream,
the huge construction began to revolve slowly, and our horses to move
up and down on their polished brass rods. We swept by within a yard
or two of Katherine and Gerald, but I looked straight before me, my
face burning. I would have liked to pretend that I was there for a
solitary ride, quite independent of Annie, but her manner made any such
hypocrisy perfectly futile. Round we came a second time, and a third,
gathering velocity at every moment. Annie had taken off her hat and put
it on my horse’s head, and her skirts streamed out behind, and flapped
against my right leg.
“Peter!”
It was Katherine’s voice. She had called my name. It came to me through
the night, and an indescribable emotion shook me. I could not have
spoken: my eyes were blinded with tears: and again the huge machine
swept round. But in the place where Katherine and Gerald had been I
could no longer see them. Where were they gone? The organ belched its
coarse music, the steam throbbed, the whistle hooted, we rushed on
faster and faster. Where were they? She had called me. Perhaps they had
gone home. I could not wait any longer, but slipped from my horse’s
back. Annie screamed; the man who was going round collecting the fares
while the ride was in progress made a grab at me; but I jumped――jumped
and fell headlong, rolling over and knocking all the breath out of
my body, though luckily not breaking any bones. Instantly there was
commotion. A crowd gathered about me, and everybody seemed to think
I had either gone mad or been seized with a fit. I scrambled to my
feet as soon as I had pumped a little wind into myself, and, without
waiting to brush the dust from my clothes, without answering any of the
questions that poured in upon me from all sides, pushed my way through
the people, who appeared inclined to detain me by force, and hurried,
as fast as my still rather breathless condition would allow, in pursuit
of Katherine and Gerald. Alas, I could see no sign of them. They had
vanished as completely and mysteriously as Persephone on that summer
morning in the meadows. I clambered through the hedge out on to the
road, but there was no one there. I ran on till I reached the turning,
but there was no one there either, and I knew I had missed them, for
the road here lay straight and bare in both directions. I stood still
by the sea-wall. I could not go back. The glare and din were now
become impossible, to say nothing of Annie, whom I had flouted in so
unscrupulous a fashion.
I took my old path over the golf-links till I reached the hollow where
I always came when I wanted to be quite alone. I flung myself down on
the soft, white, powdery sand, among the thin gray grasses, in the
pallid starlight. My heart was surging with emotions, at once happy
and desolating. I could not understand what had occurred; only I heard
again and again the sound of my name, as it had come to me in that
loved voice through the night.
I lay there for a long time. I was crying, I think, but I did not know
I was crying, though I kept wiping my tears away. I was unconscious
of everything around me, I was blind and deaf, and it was only when
I felt a hand on my shoulder that I looked up, startled, and saw
Katherine bending over me.
“Peter, what is the matter? Is it my fault?”
Her voice was all gentleness; in her face a beautiful tenderness; but I
could not speak.
“It is nothing,” I stammered out at last. “Only I thought――you were
never going to speak to me again, and――”
“I was horrid. I can’t think now why I was so horrid. Forget about it,
Peter dear, won’t you? Tell me you will.”
“It was my fault,” I muttered. “It was all my fault.”
“Never mind whose fault it was. Let us forget about it.”
“I can’t forget,” I said. “It was my fault.”
“But why――when I want you to? Can’t you forget, even if you know I love
you?”
I scrambled to my feet and stood facing her. “Do you really?” I
faltered. “Don’t say it if――if it is not true.”
“It is true.”
“How is it true?” I asked. “How much? Do you love me as much as you
love Gerald?”
She hesitated, and it seemed to me that it was because she feared to
wound me. “Yes,” she said at last, in a low voice. There was something
that touched me, through all my longing and pain, in her desire to
be perfectly honest. “Better than Gerald. Better than anybody,” she
pursued, doubtfully, “better than anybody, I think, except mother.”
I sighed; I could not help it.
She looked at me sadly. “Why aren’t you content, Peter? Why do you
always want more than I can give, when I have given you so much?”
“And Owen?” I asked, though I was ashamed of myself for doing so.
“I like Owen very much. I think he is very nice, but that is all. And
now tell me you are content. I must go, and I shan’t be happy unless I
know _you_ are.”
“I am happy,” I lied most dismally. I saw indeed that it was all
hopeless, and that she would never understand.
“I will see you to-morrow. I can’t stay now; Gerald is waiting for me
over at the Club House.”
“Where were you when I looked for you?” I asked. “I heard you call my
name, and I jumped off, but when I went to look for you, you were gone.”
“Miss Dick was with us, and she wanted to go home; but we went round
the other way――not by the sea. We had to go all the way back with Miss
Dick, but I got Gerald to come out again, for I thought, I don’t know
why, I might find you here. And I’m very glad I came. I couldn’t go on
any longer without making it up. But I mustn’t really wait now. I told
Gerald I should only be five minutes. Good-night, Peter. Come to-morrow
morning.”
“Good-night.”
She was gone, and I was left alone to whatever felicity I might be able
to discover.
CHAPTER LIV
Of the days that followed our reconciliation I tried to make the most.
Too much time already had been wasted and spoiled by clouds of jealousy
and other troubles. I knew the kind of love Katherine offered me was
very different from the kind of love I had desired, and in the old days
dreamed of, but more than this I did not know, and some instinct kept
me from trying to find out. We had become again such friends as we
had been last year, and I lent myself to a certain protective quality
in her affection for me, because I felt that it was in this way she
could care for me most. From her point of view I knew that if I could
have dropped back two or three years nearer to my childhood it would
really have been preferable. She would have liked to pet me and tell me
stories.
What her brother thought of our quarrel, and of our making up again, I
never heard. He gave no sign of having noticed anything. I had ceased,
indeed, to see very much of him, for he had taken to knocking about
the Club House and the hotel more and more. This left Katherine and
me almost wholly to each other’s company. I saw her each morning,
afternoon, and evening, and I moved through day after day in a kind of
dream, as if this ideal life were to last for ever.
One afternoon I went up to Derryaghy as usual, but the servant who
answered the door told me Mrs. Carroll wished to see me, and when I was
shown into the morning-room I found her there alone.
“Oh, I wanted to speak to you, Peter,” she said. “Katherine is out with
her mother, who arrived an hour ago. They went out after lunch.”
I stared my surprise. “I didn’t know she was coming!” I murmured.
“Neither did anybody else. She didn’t even send a telegram.”
From her tone I gathered that Mrs. Carroll was not altogether pleased
by this unexpected visit. “What has she come _for_?” I asked.
“That’s just what I want you to tell me. The woman is raging with me,
and now we’re alone we’d better have the whole matter out.”
“But what matter?” I inquired innocently. “What have _I_ to do with it?”
“Goodness knows! Sit down, child; I want to talk to you seriously....
Miss Dick said something to me more than once, but Miss Dick is a
perfect fool when it comes to questions of this kind, and I paid no
attention to her.” She looked at me. “Don’t you understand? It is about
Katherine――about you and Katherine. Mrs. Dale’s visit is the result of
some letter which Katherine sent to her, and which I haven’t seen. How
was I to imagine such things? I had always looked upon you as children,
and now she arrives, simply furious, and accuses me of not looking
after her daughter.”
I had begun to blush.
“Tell me exactly how much there is in it all?” Mrs. Carroll continued.
“You are the only person who appears to have any common-sense.”
“What does she say?” I asked ingenuously.
“She says―― Oh! what doesn’t she say? She says she’s going to take
Katherine home with her to-morrow, and that she thought she should have
been able to trust me!”
I looked at her helplessly, but made no reply.
“I knew you liked Katherine,” Mrs. Carroll went on, “but it never
occurred to me there was any particular reason why you shouldn’t like
her――nor, indeed, do I see any now. They didn’t expect, I suppose, that
she was going to spend all her time with a couple of old women like me
and Miss Dick!” She paused. “You _are_ very fond of her, aren’t you?”
“Yes,” I replied, as if I were repeating my catechism.
“And apparently she is fond of you.”
I shook my head. Then, as she looked at me interrogatively, “Not like
that――not in the same way,” I murmured.
Mrs. Carroll continued to regard me. “Not like what? What do you mean?”
“She doesn’t even understand,” I pursued.
Mrs. Carroll’s face altered, grew graver, though not less kind. “Then
there _is_ something in it? You really care――very much?”
“Yes.”
“But――――” her perplexity seemed to increase.
I waited, twirling my straw-hat on my knee, and only now and then
glancing up. She eyed me thoughtfully. “You know it is all quite
impossible,” she brought out slowly. “And you’re so ridiculously
young!” For a moment she smiled. Then she put her hand sympathetically
upon mine, which rested on the arm of my chair. Yet I could see she
still more or less regarded the affair in the light of a sentimental
fancy that would dissolve as quickly as dew under the sun.
I got up. “I think I’ll go now,” I said, plucking at the ribbon of my
hat.
“I’ll not keep you, Peter, if you want to go. Remember, I’m not
scolding you, or angry with you in any way,” she added. “As I told
you, I see no reason why you shouldn’t be fond of Katherine. I can
perfectly trust you. It is just that you are a boy, and of course such
things can come to nothing so far as you are concerned; whereas, in
Katherine’s case, and especially since she is a year older than you, it
is quite different. Her mother probably has her eye on a husband for
her already. That, I am afraid, is the secret of all this indignation.
However, I’ve taken your part. I told her exactly what you are――that
you are a gentleman, and would never do anything dishonourable; that
a word would be enough; and that it was perfectly ridiculous to talk
of taking Katherine home before the natural end of her visit, which
will be on Friday or Saturday of this week. If she _does_ take her,
not one of them shall ever enter this house again. That, at least, is
certain. I’m not going to have any nonsense about it. Will you dine
here to-night?”
I shook my head.
“Where are you going now?”
“Out into the woods just.”
She kissed me. “Well, whatever happens, I’ll promise that Katherine
shan’t go without saying good-bye to you. Be a good boy, and come to
see me to-morrow.”
CHAPTER LV
When I left Mrs. Carroll I did not go out at once, but scribbled first
a note to Katherine, telling her I had gone to the summer-house, and
should wait for her there all afternoon. I then went in search of Jim,
who had always been my friend, and whom I could rely upon absolutely.
I found him working with Thomas in the greenhouses, and, as soon as
I could attract his attention, I beckoned him outside. He was a very
different Jim from the one who had climbed a ladder to see my skin
peeling off, though he had the same round rosy candid face, like a ripe
russet apple, and though he still played doleful tunes on his flute.
But he had developed amazingly: he had grown into a strapping big
fellow, with limbs like a youthful Hercules. When I explained to him
that I wanted him to give a note to Miss Dale, but that nobody must see
him do it, he promised to try his best.
I went on to the summer-house and lay down among the bracken close by.
I had been there fully two hours before I saw Katherine coming. She
smiled brightly as I rose from my ferny bed to greet her.
“Why did I come without an umbrella?” she exclaimed gaily. “It’s just
going to pour!” And she turned to look at the heavy clouds that were
gliding up rapidly against the wind.
“You can shelter in the summer-house,” I said, laconically.
“I loathe summer-houses, especially when they’re like this old thing,
crammed with earwigs and spiders.”
“The rain is going to be heavy: you’d better come in now,” I went on,
without attempting to emulate her lightness of manner. I dusted the
rough seat for her with my pocket-handkerchief, in silence, just as the
first big drops came pattering down on the leaves.
She sat down, and I stood near the door, looking at her. “Mrs. Carroll
told me your mother arrived to-day, because of some letter of yours
about me.”
Katherine coloured a little. “I know,” she answered, eagerly. “It’s
awfully silly of mamma. I’ve been talking to her about it.”
“And you are to go home at once――to-morrow――perhaps this evening.”
She laughed. “Certainly not this evening. How could we? And at any
rate, we should have been going in a few days. But I told mamma she was
taking it all absurdly seriously, and behaving exactly like a furious
parent in a novel.”
“It is serious to me,” I said, quietly, “though to you it may be
amusing.” That she should laugh in this way hurt me deeply.
It had grown rapidly dark, and now a heavy rain began, cold and
sad, sweeping through the trees, very soon making it plain that the
summer-house was in need of repair. From the distance there came the
crying of a sea-gull, a mournful, solitary note.
“Don’t be angry with me, Peter,” said Katherine, coming to the door and
looking out. “I know it was stupid of me to write, but I never dreamt
of mamma coming over like this.... Why has it got so dark?”
Before I could answer there came a blinding flash of lightning,
accompanied, nearly instantaneously, by a hideous din of thunder,
which seemed to burst out just over us. A blank silence succeeded this
ear-splitting crash, and Katherine said, “Some tree must have gone!”
“I wish it had been this summer-house,” I muttered bitterly.
She looked at me, her face grown graver. The flash was followed by no
other, but the rain continued in a fierce downpour, beating through our
flimsy shelter, and streaming down the paths in brown muddy rivulets.
“I can’t understand why mamma should have made such a fuss,” Katherine
went on, but no longer in the same tone, though I knew well enough the
alteration in it was due merely to what I had said. “She is usually
very sensible.”
“How can you be so indifferent?” I asked, in a rough voice, for her
calmness exasperated me.
“I’m not indifferent. I’m sorry I wrote. But we should have been going
in three or four days, at any rate. You know that.” Her manner was
tinged with a faint reproach.
I answered nothing, and she went on. “It is getting lighter――the rain
will soon be over.”
“Do you want to go?” I asked furiously. “Don’t let me keep you if you
do!”
“Why do you speak like that, Peter? I told you I was sorry.”
“This is the last time I shall see you alone.”
“Nonsense.”
“If you are going to-morrow, will you promise to meet me to-night
somewhere――here――or on the golf-links?”
“I can’t possibly. There are people coming to dinner. Won’t _you_
come――or come in afterwards, at least?”
“Shall I see you by yourself if I do?”
“By myself?”
“Will you come out here with me?”
She sighed at my unreasonableness. “How can I? You know mamma and the
others will be there, and how can I leave them? But say you’ll come.”
“I certainly won’t,” I answered sullenly. “What does it matter to you
whether I do or not?”
I felt her lips touch my cheek. Her face was wet and cold with the
rain. I put my arms round her very gently, and kissed her hair and
her cheek, but no more than that, for I knew her own embrace had been
given merely to console me, and because it was for the last time. Her
dark eyes caressed me, and she smiled a little. She laid her hand on my
shoulder. “Will you walk back to the house with me now, Peter? You are
not angry with me?”
“No,” I answered.
“I can’t stay any longer, because mamma knows I came out, and she will
suspect it was to meet you. She is not so bad about it as she was when
she first arrived. I managed to convince her that she had been alarming
herself unnecessarily.”
“Very unnecessarily,” I thought, but I said nothing.
I walked back with her, and then on down the drive and home.
CHAPTER LVI
I was writing to Owen when my father brought me Katherine’s letter.
It was to say good-bye to me, and there was a veiled reproach at my
not having come to the station to see them off. She had looked out for
me up to the last moment; so that in the end it was really I who had
failed! I smiled dimly.
As I write it now, in this quiet, gray, autumn morning, it appears to
me that the thought then hovering at the back of my mind was, after
all, not so very foolish. Death, coming without disease, without
weakness, before life has grown stale, before illusions have been
shattered and innocence marred;――simply upon the bright, fresh comedy
of life, the dropping of a dark, rapid curtain.
I finished my letter to Owen, and addressed it; but when that was done
I still sat on at the table, holding my pen, on which the ink had long
since dried. Then I bent down and leaned my forehead upon Katherine’s
open letter. When I looked up the sun was shining in the garden, and
shining in on me through the window; nothing had changed....
In the afternoon I went up to Derryaghy, where Mrs. Carroll received
me. I spoke quite quietly to her, just as usual; but all I remember now
is that there were some red dahlias in a bowl on the table, and that
Mrs. Carroll proposed taking me to Paris for my Christmas holidays.
It was when I had left her and had gone out to walk in the woods, that
I suddenly felt the full reality of what had happened. It meant that
everything was finished, that I should never see Katherine again. I was
filled with desolation, with a kind of sick feeling that my love had
been superfluous, wasted, and perhaps distasteful. Last year I had been
sorry to say good-bye to her; I had dreaded the new life opening out
before me; but I had had the prospect of meeting her again at a year’s
end, and the belief that she cared for me and would remember me. Now
there was nothing――nothing.
My grief was mingled with a kind of bitter, impotent rage against I
knew not what. I kicked a stick that lay in my path savagely out of
the way, cursing it under my breath. I flung myself down among the
bracken. Sometimes a kind of blank would come into my mind, and I would
find myself staring stupidly at the trees, while for a few moments an
altogether different thought would slip into my brain; then my grief
would overwhelm me once more, and blot out the world.
But was this grief I felt? I do not know. It was different from what
I felt later. It was something violent and maddening, sweeping over
me in paroxysms, leaving me intervals of cold insensibility. And late
that night, when, thoroughly wearied out, I went to bed, and from sheer
exhaustion would be dropping off to sleep, from time to time it would
pierce through my numbing senses, and waken me sharply, as if some one
had violently pulled me, so that I would start up, yet for a moment not
realize what it was that had wakened me.
I did not go back to Derryaghy on the next day or the next. I took
long walks, and it was during these solitary rambles that the thought
of death came irresistibly to me. I felt that my life was become an
intolerable burden, and in my inexperience I imagined that the pain I
felt now I should feel always. I thought of shooting myself, of taking
poison, only I disliked the idea of other people knowing. Was there
not a better way? I thought of swimming out so far that it would be
impossible to return, but I dreaded the pain of suffocation. Then, two
days before my time for leaving home, and when Owen had written saying
that they expected me and that he would be at the station to meet me,
there came a night of wind and rain, and it seemed to me I had found
the solution to my problem.
Shortly before midnight, when my father’s snores had become deep and
regular, I stole out of the house, as I had so often done in the old
days of our club. I had put on my overcoat, but under it I wore only
my night-shirt, and I hurried down the road and across the golf-links
in the cold, driving rain. When I reached an exposed spot, I took off
my coat and lay down on the soaking ground, letting the wind and rain
sweep over me. I lay there till morning. It did not matter if I were
seen returning to the house then; it would simply be thought that I had
gone out for an early bathe. As I staggered to my feet my limbs were so
stiff and cramped that at first I could hardly hobble along, but after
I had gone a little way it became easier.
I got into bed in my wet night-shirt, but I could not go to sleep. My
head ached and I was shivering; yet a few minutes later I no longer
felt cold; on the contrary, a burning heat seemed like a fire under my
skin. I could not lie for two minutes without altering my position; and
when I got up to dress I knew I was really ill. At breakfast I only
pretended to eat. My father noticed there was something the matter and
questioned me, when I answered that I was all right, and presently he
left me to go to the school, which was being whitewashed and made ready
for the re-opening next week. As for me, I was glad I should not have
to repeat my experiment twice, and I had even a naïve curiosity as to
the precise nature of my illness.
Before night I began to feel much worse. My father went out to a
meeting in connection with church matters, and I was left alone. I
should have gone to bed, had not the task of climbing two flights of
stairs and undressing appeared almost insurmountable; so I half sat,
half lay, in a chair, with my eyes shut and my head leaning back. I was
extremely thirsty, and at every breath I drew my side hurt me, the pain
being increased by the fact that I had begun to cough a little. It had
all come on so quickly that I wondered if I should die that night.
When my father came in he immediately saw I was worse, and sent me to
bed, giving me something hot to drink; but all that night I hardly
slept, and in the morning he went for Doctor O’Brian. By that time
I had almost forgotten the cause of my illness; what had led me to
seek it; whether I desired it to be fatal or not. I was examined,
stethoscoped, asked questions, gazed at. “Acute pneumonia.” I caught
the words through a kind of lethargy into which I had fallen. They
were talking together, my father and the doctor, but neither could
understand how the disease had developed so rapidly....
CHAPTER LVII
And, after all, I failed! I did not die. I got better, though not quite
well, for my lungs remained delicate, and in October Mrs. Carroll took
me to be examined by a specialist. I was examined, sounded, tapped, a
sample of my blood taken, and other odious things done to me, before it
was finally decided that I must go abroad. I listened to the discussion
that followed, taking no part in it myself, but simply sitting on the
sofa in the consulting-room.
“For the winter, I suppose?”
“For the winter certainly.”
“And afterwards?”
“Afterwards? I’m afraid it is impossible to say. There is no use making
promises which may never be fulfilled. Would there be anything to
prevent his living abroad always, supposing it should be the best thing
for him?”
“There is only the difficulty of his future――that is, of a profession.
He was to have gone to Oxford next year.”
“I see. It is certainly unfortunate. But apart from that, there is
nothing?”
“To prevent his living abroad? Not that I know of.”
There were such things as tutors, it then appeared; young gentlemen
of excellent scholastic attainments, just fresh from one or other
of the Universities, who could be induced to combine the rôles of
travelling-companion, mentor, and pedagogue.
And on this hopeful note we came away. We had lunch in town, and
caught the next train home. When we arrived at Newcastle we took
one of the station cars. I was staying at Derryaghy to complete my
convalescence; so Mrs. Carroll stopped at our house to give my father
the news, telling me to drive on by myself. The October sunlight, still
with a little of the warmth of summer in it, slanted through the trees,
as I drove in at the lodge-gate. There was a charming autumnal languor
in the still air――a kind of dreamy, happy beauty, which made me think
of some verses of La Fontaine’s:――
“J’étais libre et vivais seul et sans amour;
L’innocente beauté des jardins et des jours
Allait faire à jamais le charme de ma vie.”
And, far out on the dark sea, a white sail gleamed in the sun.
The thought of leaving it all behind me, and of passing the rest of my
life in exile, was too painful to dwell upon; yet I knew that, once I
went away, I might very easily never be back. It had struck me that the
doctor had been anything but optimistic, and I knew this meant that my
chance must be a pretty poor one.
I went upstairs to my own room. I sat down in my old window-seat and
began a letter to Owen, which I did not finish, for it occurred to me
that, later on, I might have more definite news to give him; and, at
any rate, if I were going away, he must come down first to stay with
me. With my incomplete letter before me I sat dreaming. I wondered
if, in years to come, another boy would have this room as his own,
and sit in this window-seat; and if his thoughts would for a moment
perhaps touch mine? All _my_ thoughts would be dead then; my dreams
vanished; the life that had unfolded here be gone out. A feeling of
sadness stole over me. I had been a very little chap when I had first
taken possession of this room. If the ghost of that little boy, who
had been me, could only come back, how I should have hugged him! For I
loved him: he seemed quite different from the “me” who was thinking
about him now. Only he was gone, and just one person in the world knew
anything about him, and he, too, I supposed, as years passed would
forget....
* * * * *
“Why are you sitting up here in the cold, child?”
Mrs. Carroll had opened the door and was speaking to me. “How long have
you been here? Come down to tea.”
I looked round and saw that the room had filled with dusk. “Oh, not
very long.” I smiled. “I’m not cold.” But I shivered slightly as I
spoke.
“That means you have been here ever since you came in. It is really
very wrong of you, Peter. The fire is laid, and all you had to do was
to put a match to it.”
I followed her downstairs. There was no one in the drawing-room, and
I was glad we were going to be by ourselves. I sat on the hearth-rug,
hugging my knees, gazing into the red, glowing grate.
“Is Miss Dick out?” I asked.
“She went out to tea.”
I waited till the servant had come in and cleared away the tea-things.
Then I said, “I have something to tell you.”
Mrs. Carroll, her plump, rather large hands moving swiftly and deftly
amid soft, fleecy wool, was knitting what looked remarkably like an
under-garment for me. “Yes, dear,” she replied.
But instead of proceeding I asked a question: “Won’t it cost a great
deal, my going away――with a tutor, and all that?”
“Not very much. It is of no importance.”
“But you will be paying for it, won’t you?” I urged.
“My dear child, why do you want to discuss such things now?”
“I have a reason.”
“I don’t think it can be a good one.”
“If I were related to you――if I were your nephew――it would be
different.”
“What would be different?”
“If I were worth it it would be different too. But I’m not.”
“Aren’t you?” Her needles clicked placidly.
“Why should you think me so?”
“Because, I suppose, from the days when you were quite a little boy,
you have been the principal thing I have had to think about. There was
a time when I tried very hard, and very selfishly, I’m afraid, to be
allowed to look after you altogether, when I wanted this house to be
your home.”
“Suppose I told you that all this――all my illness――was not accidental?”
Mrs. Carroll displayed no alarm. “I don’t know what you mean, Peter,
I’m sure,” she said, gently, disengaging her ball of wool from Miss
Dick’s cat, who had stretched out a tentative paw.
“I mean that I did it myself,” I answered, bringing it all out at last.
“I did it on purpose.... I wanted to die, to kill myself, and I thought
of this way. I went out and lay on the golf-links one whole night, in
the rain, with nothing on but my night-shirt; and next morning I took
ill.”
Mrs. Carroll said nothing, but she had stopped knitting. I felt her
hand rest on my head.
“Is that true, Peter?” she asked at last, after a long pause, and in a
low voice.
“It’s true.” I stared into the fire.
She was again silent, but she did not draw away her hand. “Why did you
do this?” she asked presently.
“Because I felt miserable.”
“But――but it was a dreadful thing to do! Don’t you know that?” Her
voice trembled slightly.
I got on my knees. I put my arms round her neck and pressed my
cheek against hers. “I have spoiled everything, I made a mess of
everything,” I muttered quickly. “I am not very old, but I have made a
mess of any life I have had.”
She drew my head down on her breast and held me close. For some time
she did not speak.
“It will all come right, if you try,” she said at last. “The beginning
is not everything.”
“It is not for myself I care. It is for you.”
“For me, then.” She paused. “But for me you are what you have always
been and always will be, since I have no boy of my own. You are my son,
the one being whom I love. Your future is what I think of and make
plans for; and whenever I pray it is that you may be happy.”
THE END
_Wyman & Sons Ltd., Printers, London and Reading._
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