ABOUT REGENERATION AND RENUNCIATION
Sad-eyed little Boodles stood in the porch of Lewside Cottage holding a
letter which the postman had just left. She did not know who it was
from, nor did she care, as there was no foreign stamp on the envelope,
and the postmark was only unromantic Devonport. Aubrey had not written
for a month, and she knew the reason. His parents had told him the truth
about her, and he was so horrified that he couldn't even send her a line
on a naked postcard as a sort of farewell. Still it was better to have
no letter than a cruel one; if he could not write kindly she was glad he
didn't write at all.
What was supposed to be spring had come round again, and something which
used to be the sun was shining, and the woods beside the Tavy were
carpeted with patches of blue and yellow which "once upon a time" had
been called bluebells and primroses. The ogre had done his work of
transformation thoroughly, leaving nothing unchanged. During those days
Boodles went about the house so quietly that she wondered sometimes if
she was much better than a shadow; she seemed to have lost the power of
making pleasant noises; and when she caught sight of herself in the
glass as she moved about her bedroom she would say: "There it is
again--the ghost!" She told her friends of the hut-circles that the
cottage was haunted, and Mary exclaimed: "Aw, my dear, I'll be round wi'
my big stick," while Peter rebuked his sister for her folly, pondered
the matter deeply, and at last told Boodles he should come in his own
good time to "exercise the ghost" with various spells. Peter had fallen
into the pernicious habit of using strange words, as he had purchased a
cheap dictionary, and made constant use of it. He was developing other
evil traits of authorship, having added to his ordinary costume of no
collar and leather apron a yard of flimsy material about his neck in the
form of a flowing tie. Master had told him philosophers wore such
things, and Peter was also contemplating the purchase of a pair of
spectacles, not because he required them, but Master declared that no
man could possibly appear philosophic unless he regarded men and matters
through gold-rimmed circles of glass. Every evening Peter approached
Boodles with the utterance: "I be coming. I be coming to-morrow to
exercise the ghost." She reminded him of the clock which he had been
going to clean for two years, and added: "I'm the ghost," which brought
upon her the fierce denunciation of Mary, who still maintained Boodles
to be the "most butiful maid that ever was," and now that her Old Sal
was no more the most perfect of all living creatures; while Peter went
away, not like his apostolic namesake to weep bitterly, but to indite
illegible aphorism number three-hundred-and-one dealing with the sad
truism that men of wisdom do not receive a proper tribute of respect
from the young and foolish.
Boodles was afraid of her mysterious letter and did not open it for some
time. It might be from some relation of Weevil's, claiming what property
he had left; or from her unknown mother concerning the obligations upon
daughters to support their parents. At last she pulled the envelope
apart, glanced timidly at the signature, and her dread departed, or
became lost in astonishment, when the most extraordinary name caught her
eye: "yours faithfully, Yerbua Eimalleb."
Boodles had a little fun left in her, not much, but enough to let her
laugh sometimes. She plunged into the letter, to discover that Miss
Eimalleb had only recently come to England, she wanted lodgings on
Dartmoor, and having heard of Miss Weevil she was writing to know if she
could accommodate her. "I believe you prefer old ladies," Boodles read.
"I am not old, indeed I am quite young, and shall be glad to be a
companion to you, but I am not well off, so I cannot come unless your
charges are very moderate. I have only about £80 a year left me by an
aunt, though my parents are still living."
"Oh, you darling!" cried Boodles. Then she sat down and began to think.
Here was a young girl wanting to come and live with her, and willing to
pay; a girl to be her companion and friend, who would go about with her
everywhere, help her, comfort her, work with her--what a splendid
prospect it was! They would cling together like two sisters, and the
winds would not trouble, and the shadows would not terrify, any more;
and she could laugh at the windy moonlit nights. The gods were being
good to her at last, perhaps because she had been truthful and had not
told Mrs. Bellamie the lie she had invented. They had taken the great
thing from her because it was obviously impossible that she should have
it. Aubrey was gone from her for ever, but surely this was the next best
thing; a girl friend to live with her, perhaps to enter into partnership
with her. Boodles felt she could face the big desert with a friend to
help her, and a companion to depend upon. Love was not for her, but she
would have the next best thing, which is friendship.
The letter was certainly a remarkable one, the writer's candour being no
less extraordinary than her name. It was obvious she was a foreigner,
but the signature gave Boodles no clue as to her nationality until she
recalled a certain book on Eastern travel which she had once read, where
a Persian name--or at least she thought it was Persian--very much like
Eimalleb had occurred.
"I hope she's not a nigger," Boodles sighed, as her ethnical knowledge
was slight and she had no idea what a Persian girl would be like.
"Ethiopians have black faces, I'm sure. And she's certain to be a
heathen. What fun it will be! She will wake me at some unearthly hour
and say: 'Come on, Boodles, we must hurry up to the top of Gar Tor and
worship the sun.' I hope she won't have a lot of husbands, though," she
went on with a frown. "Don't they do that? Oh no, it's the men have a
lot of wives, and they are not Persians, but Mohammedans. I am sure
Persians worship fire. Persian cats do, I know. She will kneel before
the grate and say her prayers to the coals."
Boodles was getting excited. The prospect of a companion was bringing
smiles to her face and colour to her cheeks. One young maid would be
decidedly more congenial to her than a covey of old ones. She would give
up her own bedroom to the Persian girl, and when the cottage was nicely
crammed with unquestionable old maids they could sleep together. She was
sure her friend wouldn't mind, because she seemed so nice.
"She must be an impulsive, warm-hearted girl," Boodles murmured.
"Telling me, a perfect stranger, about her private affairs." Then she
plunged again into the letter, which was full of astonishing sentences.
"Could you meet me on Friday morning at eleven o'clock in Tavy woods?"
she read. "There is a gate at the Tavistock side and I would meet you
close to that. You are sure to know me, as it is not likely there will
be any one else about. I shall wear grey flannel and a plain straw hat.
I understand you are not elderly. I think you will like me."
"I shall love you," cried Boodles with much decision, laughing joyously
at the concluding sentences. "She understands I am not elderly, but I
expect she will be astonished when she sees what a very young thing I
am. Perhaps I had better make myself look older, wear a rusty black
frock trimmed with lace, and a huge flat brooch at my throat, and a
bonnet--Boodles, a little black bonnet with a lot of shaking things on
it."
She ran indoors, singing for the first time since Weevil's death, and
sat down to answer the wonderful letter as primly as she could. "I will
be at the gate of the wood Friday morning," she wrote. Shall I say
weather permitting or God willing? she thought. No, I shall be there
anyhow. "I will come whatever happens," she went on, in defiance of gods
and thunderbolts. "I am rather a small girl with lots of golden hair,
and like you I am quite young. I feel certain I shall like you." This
note she fastened up, and addressed to Miss Y. Eimalleb, again
exclaiming: "What a name!" at the Post Office, Devonport.
When the fit of high spirits had exhausted itself she became unhappy
again. It was unfortunate that the foreign girl with the wonderful name
should have asked her to come to that gate where she and Aubrey had
parted for ever, the gate which was just outside fairyland. All that
childish nonsense was over, and the story had finished that day they
roamed about the wood, and the gate had closed with unnecessary noise
and violence behind them; but still it would be hard for her to wait
there, not for Aubrey, but for a stranger. Her new friend would be
coming from Tavistock, she supposed, meeting her halfway, just as Aubrey
had done. It was quite natural she should do so, but Boodles wished she
had appointed any other meeting-place. It cheered her a little to think
that the Bellamies had cast aside enough of their respectability to
recommend her, as she did not know how the young foreigner could have
heard of her except through them. "She cannot be quite a lady, or they
would never have sent her to me," was the girl's natural inference.
"Perhaps they think foreigners don't count. I do hope she will have a
nice English girl's face. If she is a nigger I shall scream and run
away."
She carried the good news to Ger Cottage, but the savages both expressed
their disapproval. Peter, who had travelled to distant lands, such as
Exeter and Plymouth, told Boodles that foreigners, by which he meant
dwellers in the next parish, were fearful folk with no regard whatever
for strangers. Peter did not know anything about Persia, but when
Boodles talked about the East he supposed she meant that mythical land
of dragons and fairies called Somerset, which was the uttermost limit of
his horizon in that direction; and he declared that the folk there were
savage and unscrupulous, and spoke a language which no intelligent
person could understand. Peter implored Boodles to have nothing to do
with such people. While Mary, who had not travelled, except in one
memorable instance from Lydford to Tavistock, said regretfully: "It
bain't a maid yew wants, my dear, but the butiful young gentleman." Mary
was much too outspoken, and was always making Boodles wretched with her
blundering attempts at happy suggestions.
When Peter was shown the astonishing signature, and had obtained the
mastery over it letter by letter, he nearly strangled himself with his
abnormal tie, and expressed an opinion that the stranger was coming from
absolutely unheard-of places, from the paint-clad aborigines of some
land beyond Somerset, although his geography did not extend beyond that
county.
"Her's a heathen," he cried, without any regard for the fact that he was
himself no better. "Her will worship idols."
"Aw, my dear, don't ye ha' nought to du wi' she," begged Mary.
"I think Persians worship the sun," said Boodles doubtfully.
"Aw, bain't 'em dafty?" said Mary scornfully, though she too was a
sun-worshipper without being aware of it.
"Her will be a canister tu," said Peter lugubriously.
"What be that?" asked Mary, who did not profess to know things.
"Her will et she, and then mebbe her will come on and et we," explained
Peter, with needless apprehension, as the most ravenous cannibal would
certainly have turned vegetarian before feasting upon him.
Boodles was always rude enough to correct Peter's most obvious errors,
though he was so much older than herself, and she did so then, with the
usual result that he went away muttering for his dictionary. He looked
up cannon-ball, and of course discovered that he had been quite right
and she was hopelessly in the wrong. Then he looked up canister, and
found that it was a box for holding tea; and when he turned to tea he
discovered it was sometimes made of beef, and beef was meat, and meat is
what human beings are composed of; and canister was, therefore, a box
for containing meat. He had been perfectly right, and the presumption of
young maids was intolerable.
When Boodles got back to the village she saw the people standing about
the street in groups as if they were expecting some one of importance to
pass that way. She looked about but could see nothing; the people were
almost silent; they did not laugh and spoke only in whispers. She felt
as if some calamity was impending, so she hurried indoors and kept away
from the windows, as it was rather a bright day for her and she did not
want it spoilt; but presently a rumbling sound made her look out, and
soon she was shuddering. A black closed vehicle, like a hearse, passed,
drawn by two horses; and white-faced grey-haired Annie was seated beside
the driver; and then Boodles knew what the people were standing about
for. It was to see the vehicle go through on its way down to the
workhouse infirmary. Boodles went very white, drew back, and hid her
face in her hands. She thought Annie had turned her head and seen her at
the window.
"Those flames will haunt me all my life," she whispered. "I shall see
them jumping about my bed, and hear them roaring--but it wasn't my
fault. He must have been a brute. How awful it would have been for me if
he had died there."
Had she known all the evil that Pendoggat had done she would have felt
less guilty and less sorry. She could only comfort herself with the
knowledge that it had been Annie rather than herself who had started
those terrible and uncontrollable flames. She would not be troubled with
either of them again, apart from memory, for the workhouse had received
them; one would remain there, crippled and blind, the other would
doubtless go on into the world, and try to earn a livelihood for a few
years before returning there again in the twilight of her days.
That night there was moonlight but no wind, and Boodles awoke in horror,
fancying she heard for the second time that rumbling beneath her window,
and screamed when she found and felt her body enveloped in flames. She
sprang up to discover that she had been frightened by her own glowing
hair. She was so sleepy before tumbling into bed that she had neglected
to plait it, and it was all over the sheets like fire. "I shall always
get these horrors while I am alone," she cried; and then she thought
again of the wonderful letter, and the foreign girl with the amazing
name whom she was to meet at the gate of the wood on Friday morning, and
an intense longing for that strange girl came over her, and she cried
aloud to the pale and equally lonely moon: "I hope she is nice. I will
pray for her to be nice. The very first thing I shall ask her will be if
I may sleep with her."
Friday, day of regeneration, came clothed in a white mist, and found the
girl asking herself: "Shall I try and make myself look older?" She
peeped out, saw the moor shining, and thought she would be natural, and
go out upon it young and fresh; dressed in white to suit the mist, like
a little bride; and, having decided, she was soon trying to make herself
look as sweet as possible. When she had finished, slanting the bedroom
glass to take in as much of the picture as it would, she was fairly well
satisfied, and was just beginning to sing the old song, "I'm only a
baby," when she stopped herself severely with the rebuke that she was
only a common person trying to let lodgings.
All the spring flowers lifted up their heads and laughed at the
lodging-house keeper when she appeared among them--they were really
spring flowers that morning--and the real sun smiled, and real
singing-birds mocked the little girl in white as she tripped towards the
woods, because it appeared to them quite ridiculous that Boodles should
relinquish her claims to childhood. The book of fairy-tales had been
shut up and put away, thought she; but somehow the young spring things
about her would not admit that.
Everything in the woods was wide awake and laughing; not crying any
more, and saying, lisping, murmuring, whispering: "Here's the
happy-ever-after little girl." It was the proper ending of the story,
the ending that the gods had written in their manuscript and the
compositor-ogres had tried to mar in their wicked way. How could any
story end unhappily on such a morning? The yellow patches in the woods
were not artificial blobs of colour but real primroses, and the blue
patches were bluebells, and the white patches were wind-flowers with
warm mist hanging to them; and Boodles was not a mere girl any longer,
but the presiding fairy of them all going out to find another fairy to
play with. It was not the best ending perhaps, but it was the second
best. So she went down to the woods and met another fairy, and they
played together happily ever after. The furze, in genial generous mood,
showered its blossoms at her feet and said: "Here is gold for you, fairy
girl." The Tavy roared on cheerily, and a little cataract said to a
conceited whirlpool too young to know how giddy it was: "Isn't that the
goddess Flora crossing by the stepping-stones?" And the flowers said:
"We are going to have a fine day." Boodles was ascending in the romantic
scale. She had started as a lodging-house keeper; then she had become
quite a young girl; from that to the fairy stage was only one step; and
then at a single bound she became the goddess of flowers; and she went
along "our walk" with sunshine for hair, and wind-flowers for eyes, and
primroses for skin; and the world seemed very sweet and fresh as if the
wonderful work of creation had only been finished that morning at nine
o'clock punctually, and Boodles was just going through to see that the
gardener had done his work properly.
Life at eighteen is glorious and imaginative; sorrows cannot quench its
flame. One hour of real happiness makes the young soul sing again, as
one burst of sunshine purges a haunted house of all its horror. Boodles
was down by Tavy side to bathe in the flowers and wash off the past and
the beastly origin of things; the black time of winter, the awful
loneliness, the windy nights. She was going to meet a friend, a
companion, somebody who would frighten the dark hours away. The past was
to vanish, not as if it had never been, but because it really never had
been. The story was to begin all over again, as the other one had been
conceived so badly that nobody could stand it. The once upon a time
stage had come again, and the ogres had agreed not to interfere this
time. Boodles baptised herself in dew, and rose from the ceremony only a
few hours old. The child's name was Flora; no connection of the poor
little thing which had been flung out to perish because nobody wanted it
except silly old Weevil, who hated to see animals hurt. Weevil belonged
to the other story too, the rejected story, and therefore he had never
existed. Nobody had wanted Boodles, which was natural enough, as she was
merely a wretched illegitimate brat; but every one wanted Flora. The
world would be a dreary place without its flowers. Flora could laugh Mr.
Bellamie to scorn; for the sun was her father and the warm earth her
mother; and nobody would stop to look at the flowers while she was going
by with them all upon her face.
* * * * *
At last Boodles looked up. She had been sitting on the warm peat just
outside the gate until all Nature struck eleven; and the warmth and
fragrance of the wood had made her sleepy. Dreams are the natural
accompaniment of sleep, and she was dreaming then; for the expected
figure was close to her, the figure in grey flannel and a plain straw
hat; not elderly certainly, not much older than herself; and it was true
enough she would have liked that figure if it had only been real.
"Go away," she murmured, rather frightened. "Please go away."
There was something dreadfully wrong. It was a nice girl's face that she
saw, at least she had often called it so, and it was not black, and the
owner of that face was assuredly going to like her very much indeed,
although it was hardly a case of love at first sight; for the girl had
failed to keep her appointment, the foreign girl with the amazing name
was not there, the Persian girl who was to adore the sun and the coals
of Lewside Cottage was evidently a deceiver of the baser sort. She had
not come, and instead she had sent some one who could not fail to
recognise the little girl waiting at the gate of the wood, who was
calling her fond names, and actually kissing her, just as if the story
was going to end, not in the second best way, but in the most blissful
manner possible, with a dance of fairies on Tavy banks and a
wedding-march. It was Aubrey who had come to the gate of the wood.
"I wish you wouldn't," said Boodles rather sleepily. "I am waiting here
for a girl."
Then something appeared before her eyes which woke her up; the letter
which she had written to Devonport; and she heard a voice saying very
close to her ear, so close indeed that the lips were touching it--
"I wrote it, darling. I was afraid you would not come unless I deceived
you a little. But I signed it with my own name."
"Yerbua Eimalleb--what nonsense!" she sighed.
"It is only Aubrey Bellamie written backwards."
"Oh, you must not. How could you? It made me so happy. I thought at last
I should have a friend, to drive the loneliness away--and now, it is all
dark again and miserable. You are sending me back to the creeping,
crawling shadows."
"I have given up the Navy. I have given up my people, and everything,
for the one thing, the best thing, for you," Aubrey said.
Boodles put her head down, as if the wind had snapped her slender neck,
and he kissed the hair just as he had done at different periods of her
life, when she was a very small girl and the radiance was hanging down,
and when she was rather a bigger girl and the radiance was up--and now.
It was the best kiss of all, a man's kiss, the kiss which regenerated
her and renounced all else.
"You don't know what you are saying. I am an illegitimate child. You
must not give up anything for me."
Boodles had forgotten that it was the beginning of a new story. His
great act of renunciation staggered her. Everything, birth, name,
prospects, respectability, for her. She could not let him, but how was
she to resist? She threw the sleep off, and said almost fiercely--
"You must not. The time may come when you will be sorry. I shall be a
weight upon you, dragging you down. You might become ashamed of me."
"Darling, I have been true to you all my life. I will be true for the
rest of it."
"I promised your parents I would not."
"You promised me, year after year, that you would."
Boodles tried to smile. She would have to be false to some one.
"I have left my father's house, and I am not going back," Aubrey went
on.
"It will be terrible for them," she murmured.
"It would be worse for you and for me. They have known nothing but
happiness all their lives. It is their turn to have a little trouble.
They are bringing it upon themselves. I have told them I shall not go
back until they are willing to receive my wife."
"They will never do that. Oh, Aubrey, you must not marry me. I shall
spoil your life."
"If I lost you it would be spoilt. I am being selfish after all," he
said. "And if you were left alone what would you do?"
Boodles said nothing, but the Tavy went roaring by, answering the
question for her.
"I am going to take you away, darling." He was holding her tightly, and
she did not resist much, perhaps because she felt she ought to give up a
little to him as he was giving up so much for her. "We will be married
at once, and live in a tiny home. I have got it already, at Carbis Bay,
looking over St. Ives at the sea, a lovely place where the sun shines.
We will have our own boat and go fishing--"
"And drown ourselves sometimes," added happy Boodles.
"Not till we quarrel, and that will be never."
"Look, Aubrey!" she cried, lifting herself, pointing between the bars of
the gate into the wood. "There is our walk in a blue mist."
The atmosphere of the wood was the colour of bluebells, which stretched
in a magic carpet as far as they could see.
"Let us go in," he said.
"Not yet. Not unless I--Oh, Aubrey, if we go in it will be all over. Do
I deserve it? Those winter evenings, the loneliness, the winds," she
murmured.
"It is all over," he said firmly, with a man's seriousness. "We have to
start life now, for I have nobody but you--my little sweetheart, my wife
of the radiant head, and the golden skin--"
"And the freckles," she said, looking down, without a smile.
"They have faded. You are so thin, sweet. You have been indoors too
much, out of the sun."
"There wasn't any sun; not until to-day," she whispered.
"You see, darling, we are alone together."
"It is what we wanted always, to be alone. Oh, my boy, I must--I must
spoil your life, because I have got you in my heart and you won't go
out. You never would leave me alone," she said, looking up with the
childlike expression which had come back to her.
Aubrey swung the gate open and she went to him. They kissed as they went
through, and the gate slammed behind with a pleasant sound. They were
inside, surrounded by the blue mist. It seemed to them very warm in
there. They went on hand in hand, not speaking just then, not laughing
as in the old days; for their eyes were opened, and they understood that
life is not a fairy-tale, but a winding path between rocks and cruel
furze; and only here and there occurs the Garden of Happiness; only here
and there in the whole long path; but the gardens are there, and every
one may walk in them if they can only find the way in.
"I think you are such a nice boy, Aubrey," said a small voice in sweet
school-girl tones. The little girl was feeling ridiculously young and
shy again. It seemed absurd to think that she was going to be a bride so
soon.
They were walking upon the magic carpet of bluebells. The work of
regeneration was finished at last; and the world was only a few hours
old.
THE END