THE HOLIDAYS
It will be believed that Gerald’s return from school to Kestercham for
the holidays succeeding his first term was eagerly anticipated by Mr.
Eversley. It is no figurative expression to say that he counted the
days to it. He would, perhaps, have been ashamed to own that, when
Gerald went away to St. Anselm’s, he did what is more commonly done by
schoolboys in anticipation of their holidays than by their parents,
_i.e._, he placed upon the desk in his study a calendar showing all the
days from the time of his departure to his return, and every night,
before he went to bed, carefully drew his pencil through the number of
the day that was verging to its close with a feeling of thankfulness in
his heart that he was so much nearer to the longed-for reunion. For if
Gerald had been lonely in his school life, he had not been so lonely
as his father at home. He had exchanged his home for other scenes
and interests; he had companions, if not friends, at his side; but
his father, left at home, found nobody to fill the place of his son.
The second Mrs. Eversley, as her family grew up, became increasingly
occupied with domestic affairs; there was even a danger that her ‘good
works’ would be neglected; nor had she ever been the centre of his
hopes, as Gerald was.
Gerald’s letters, which arrived every Tuesday morning, were a
never-ceasing spring of interest to Mr. Eversley. There was no
post-office at Kestercham; the letters were brought by a carrier who
walked from Wickeston. If he walked briskly, he ought to arrive at
the vicarage before breakfast; but he was rather a loquacious person,
and, having a large and not very prosperous family, was apt to linger
at the cottages and shops of his acquaintances, or at other places,
to lament the happiness of one whose domestic quiver was, through
no fault of his own, unduly full--a happiness guaranteed (as he was
wont to say) by sacred authority, and the more familiarly known to
him from the circumstance of his acting on Sundays as parish clerk in
Kestercham Church. Instead of ‘speaking with his enemies in the gate,’
Mr. Dawes (for that was the letter-carrier’s name) was not ashamed to
be found speaking with his friends in the public-house. This garrulous
dilatoriness was a great annoyance to Mr. Eversley, who wanted his
letters, and in the early part of Gerald’s school life went near to
costing Mr. Dawes his official position in the parish church. On the
Tuesday mornings when Mr. Dawes was behind (not his usual, but) his
proper time, Mr. Eversley’s impatience would not suffer him to sit
down to breakfast before the arrival of the post; but he would walk
as far, or nearly as far, as the green gate to meet him and take the
letters--or one particular letter--from him; and Mrs. Eversley, as she
waited for him--the most exact and punctual of men on other days--would
see him walking slowly up the lane, poring eagerly, as if he had no
other thought in the world, over the big boyish characters of the
letter which he held in his hand, and apparently unconscious of his
home or wife or breakfast. On one such occasion she remarked to the
parlour-maid, who was putting the poached eggs down to the fire to keep
them warm, that ‘she believed her master cared for nothing and nobody
but that boy.’ Sometimes Mr. Eversley read the letters or parts of them
to his wife; but always he numbered them, as he had numbered the first,
on the envelopes and put them away carefully in his desk. The letters
themselves were not altogether unworthy of Mr. Eversley’s devoted
attention. They were frank natural letters, full of the details which
are so wearisome if the heart of the reader is not at one with his
who writes, but when they are at one, so delightful. Gerald related
whatever interested him, and all that possessed an interest for him
interested his father. Perhaps they differed a little from the ordinary
letters of schoolboys, and were not the less attractive, by their
freshness, as exhibiting the sense of wonderment or surprise which
public-school life aroused in the boy who had never known anything like
it before. There is always a charm in the narrative of one who observes
the phenomena of Nature or Life as if no one had observed them before
him. It is the charm of Homer’s similes. Mr. Eversley noticed with the
keenest pleasure that the letters showed no sign of alienation from
the circumstances of thought and habit at home. Gerald manifested all
his old interest in the life of Kestercham. He asked many questions,
not only about his family, but about the church and its congregations,
about the Harvest Thanksgiving Service which was held at the end of
October, about the farmers and their affairs, especially about Mr.
Seaford’s horses, and whether the village pond had dried up during the
drought, and how many sixpences his father (as his custom was) had paid
the school children for the discovery and destruction of wasps’ nests.
The letters, too, were full and candid in their account of St.
Anselm’s. One incident, as this story has shown, Gerald did not relate
to his father, and his father was never informed of it. But the common
events of daily life, the lessons, the games, the books read in the
library, the half-holidays, the meals, the fagging, his place in form,
his association with Harry Venniker, ‘the son of Lord Venniker,’ the
decoration of their room, their conversation, the names of the masters,
of those especially with whom he came into personal contact, Mr.
Brandiston’s words and doings, all carefully recorded, were delineated
with the simple confidence that, as they were supremely interesting
to the writer, so would they equally be to his correspondent. Nor did
it surprise Mr. Eversley that Gerald should experience some slight
unhappiness in the early days of school life; he looked upon it as a
part of the discipline which the children of God are called to endure
in the world. But nothing pleased him so much as the spirit in which
Gerald spoke of the pleasure that he found in the chapel services, and
most of all in Dr. Pearson’s sermons, from which he would sometimes
quote passages or phrases. Mr. Eversley did not feel quite so happy
about the sermons themselves. They did not appear to be always what he
would call ‘Gospel sermons,’ instinct with the sentiments of human
depravity, divine redemption, and eternal judgment. But Mr. Eversley
hoped for the best.
When Gerald was coming home to spend his first holidays, it was a
question whether he or another boy who had been his rival all through
the term would come out head of his form in the examination at the end
of it. He had written home several times about his chance of winning
the highest place; and his father had replied, urging him not to be
disappointed if he were second, as he ‘would do his best,’ and ‘the
issue was in God’s hand,’ but plainly showing--he was too simple a man
for disguise--how great his own longing was that he should be first.
The list would not be read out until the morning of the day on which he
came home. He would reach X---- about four o’clock in the afternoon. It
was arranged that Mr. Eversley should go not all the way to X------he
was prevented from doing so by some parochial duty--but to a little
hill about halfway between Kestercham and X----, from which a view of
the train, as it speeded by, was easily obtained; he was to be there
in time for the train, and Gerald, if he were first in his form, was
to wave his pocket-handkerchief from the window of his carriage; if
not, there was to be no sign. It was a bitter day, the snow lay upon
the ground; but Mr. Eversley was at his post, waiting fully half an
hour for the train. As it sped by, a white handkerchief waved in the
cold wind. Mr. Eversley thought he could discern a happy boyish face
half hidden behind it. He knelt down for a moment in the snow and gave
God thanks. It was a bitter day, the winter was strong upon valley and
wold; but the summer had come again to Mr. Eversley’s heart.
What rejoicings there were that night at Kestercham Vicarage!
Gerald’s little sisters all sat up (except the baby) in honour of his
home-coming. Mrs. Eversley’s sternness relaxed under the influence of
the genial occasion, she kissed him with unusual warmth, looked him
all over, and, while remarking that his clothes would need a good deal
of mending, gave it as her opinion that he was ‘very much improved,’
and she ‘had never seen him look so gentleman-like.’ The servants,
including the gardener, who was married and lived by the green gate,
came in a body to welcome Master Gerald. And tea was hardly finished
when the voice of Mr. Seaford was heard in the hall, inquiring if the
vicar was within, and if ‘the young gentleman’ had got home safely
‘from that nasty ingin.’ For Mr. Seaford himself made it a rule not to
travel by rail; he firmly believed, and did not scruple to express
his belief, that the locomotive engine was an invention of the Evil
One; and by way of impressing his view upon his domestic circle, which
was composed of Mrs. Seaford and an unmarried daughter--the same who
played the harmonium in church--all the other members of his family
being married and out in the world, he was fond of reading aloud on the
winter evenings a detailed account of some terrible railway accident
which had lately occurred, enriching it with a stirring commentary of
his own, which was not calculated to mitigate its horror. The question
addressed by Mr. Seaford to the maidservant in the hall would suggest
that he imagined passengers by rail to occupy places on the engine;
but, of course, he may have spoken inexactly. At all events, in the
eyes of Mr. Seaford, Gerald’s safe return to Kestercham was not only
a pleasure, but in some sense a surprise; he looked upon it as an
instance of a special Providence. For Mr. Seaford’s own travels seldom
extended beyond a drive in his brougham to attend the fortnightly
market at Wickeston, or on rare occasions, and always under protest,
with Mrs. Seaford to do some necessary shopping at X----.
Nothing would satisfy Mr. Eversley on the evening of Gerald’s return
but that Mr. Seaford should stay and drink a cup of tea at the
vicarage, despite something of the nature of a protest from Mrs.
Eversley, whose rigid adherence to the inviolable social distinction
between the clerical and the agricultural classes seemed to be
threatened with a serious assault. But Mr. Eversley’s enthusiasm was
not to be gainsaid.
‘Now, Mr. Seaford,’ he exclaimed, ‘this _is_ good of you. You must let
Mrs. Eversley give you a cup of tea; you must indeed.’
‘My dear!’ interposed Mrs. Eversley, who foresaw an air of ‘commonness’
descending upon the house if a farmer like Mr. Seaford should be known
to have taken a seat at her tea-table.
But Mr. Eversley would not hear of opposition; so his wife was fain
to pour out the tea, and with her own orthodox hands present it to
Mr. Seaford, who gulped it down, though it was so hot as almost to
choke him, feeling a little awkward at the unwonted familiarity. He
did not fail to inform his family, when he went home, that he had been
invited to take tea at the vicarage, but he paid a delicate compliment
to Mrs. Seaford by protesting that the tea was ‘nothin’ like his own
home-brewed.’
But the cup of tea was not the only privilege accorded to Mr. Seaford
on that memorable evening; for Mr. Eversley bade Gerald run upstairs
and bring down the prize which he had received as being head of his
form, and Mr. Seaford, after inspecting it for some time with an air
of enlightened admiration, returned it to its owner, observing that an
intellect which yielded such a crop as that must have had ‘a pretty
sight o’ manure.’ High farming and wide reading were parallel forms of
cultivation in Mr. Seaford’s view.
Who will doubt that Mr. Eversley, when he retired to his study that
night, lifted up his voice in reverent thanksgiving to the Eternal?
He read the story of Joseph and his meeting his father in Egypt; it
seemed appropriate to the occasion in his own life. Tears of joy were
in his eyes as he read it. When at last he went upstairs, he could not
resist the satisfaction of peeping into Gerald’s room just to see that
all was well with him; the boy was asleep, sleeping as peacefully as
on the morning when Mr. Eversley had stood over him with the telegram
announcing his election to a scholarship at St. Anselm’s; he stooped
down and kissed him. Oh! happy, blessed self-forgetfulness of love!
We live two lives, our own and our children’s, and it is often in our
children’s lives that we live most truly. What success that could have
happened to Mr. Eversley would have given him as much pleasure as his
son’s? What preferment in Church or State would have been equal in
value to that little volume that lay upon the drawing-room table with
the arms of St. Anselm’s on its cover?
The old life at Kestercham seemed to revive the next morning. Once
more Mr. Eversley in the morning sat in his study with Gerald at
his side, though I think he found it necessary, more often than of
old, to interrupt his work for the sake of putting questions which,
if the truth must be told, were somewhat alien from the sermon upon
which he was engaged. Once more when he visited his parishioners in
the afternoon Gerald trudged at his side, and there was not a farmer
or labourer whom they passed but wished the boy well, some remarking
in their rough honest way that he ‘fared hearty,’ others that he
‘had grown wonderful,’ and others again that they were ‘right glad
to see him back with all his larnin’ in little Kest.’ The people of
Kestercham did not ‘hold with’ education, at least in Kestercham;
they did not feel that the village of Kestercham stood in need of it;
but they supposed that for the unfortunate outer world, whose affairs
were in general not so well ordered, it was desirable, and perhaps
even necessary. Once more, too, when Sunday came, Gerald accompanied
his father to church, took his old seat in the vicarage pew in the
chancel, immediately behind the labourers and schoolchildren who formed
the choir, and Mr. Eversley listened with grateful satisfaction to his
young voice joining fervently, as of old, in the responses and hymns.
There was much to think of, much to talk of, it will be believed, in
the long winter evenings of the first holidays. But the days and nights
passed only too quickly, and still the father and the son found ever
new topics of conversation. For conversation is not the conveying or
receiving of knowledge, but the interchange of sympathetic feelings.
One of the topics to which Mr. Eversley referred in almost the earliest
of their walks through the fields was the suspicion entertained
against Gerald of having reported the Sunday boxing to Mr. Brandiston.
Several letters about it had already passed between them. Gerald had
not failed to tell his father of the kind part played by Mr. Selby.
He was convinced, though he could not have proved, that he owed his
deliverance from suspicion to Mr. Selby’s advocacy. Mr. Eversley had
expressed the hope of being able some day to thank Mr. Selby personally
for his kindness. But of the boxing on Sunday he spoke in emphatic
terms. He looked upon it as a definite act of sin, the violation of an
express divine commandment. He regretted extremely that any boys in
Mr. Brandiston’s house should have been guilty of it. He thought that
the house, having been implicated in the sin, ought to make some sort
of special atonement for it. But he accepted the suspicion which had
lain upon Gerald as part of the discipline which the children of God
are called to undergo in a wicked world. He was not anxious that Gerald
should escape it; he was only anxious that he should bear it in the
spirit of Christ. The story of Joseph, which was much in Mr. Eversley’s
mind just then, afforded an example of unmerited accusation and of good
resulting from it under Divine Providence.
But the subject on which Gerald talked most eagerly, and his father
listened with the keenest interest, was his friendship with Harry
Venniker. To his father Gerald descanted in terms of generous
enthusiasm, and even more during later holidays than at first, upon the
achievements and attractions of his boyish hero. Mr. Eversley heard
him with somewhat mingled feelings. It was only a partial pleasure
to him to learn that his boy’s heart had been so drawn out towards
a schoolfellow. No doubt he appreciated the sympathy and protection
which Gerald owed--more, perhaps, than he was aware of--to his robust
and popular friend. It is possible, too, that he felt a secret
satisfaction in his boy’s connection with a member of the social class
which he had himself always regarded with a distant and respectful
veneration as being in some unexplained manner a necessary part of the
constitution. But he could not conceal from himself that the friendship
was not altogether free from danger. It might excite in Gerald’s mind
ideas and ambitions which a country clergyman like himself could
not hope to satisfy. It might render him indifferent to the narrow
circumstances in which he had been brought up, and in which his father
and his family were destined to live. It might--oh! painfullest thought
of all!--it might alienate Gerald’s affection from himself. For deep
down in Mr. Eversley’s mind there was a jealousy (though he himself
understood it not) of whatever could come between his dear boy and
himself. Nor could he be blind to the fact that Harry Venniker, though
a good average Christian English boy, had not been trained in the
strictly orthodox evangelical lines of the theology which ruled in
Kestercham Vicarage.
Still, Gerald was so happy, so ardent, so enthusiastic in his friend’s
favour, that Mr. Eversley would not have had the heart, even if he
had had the wish, to interfere with the friendship. After all, as he
reflected, great and terrible is the responsibility of one who cuts
a young soul adrift from the moorings of innocent friendship. Is not
friendship sanctified by the Divine Example? Did not He whose life on
earth is the model of all human lives say to His disciples in the most
solemn hour of His soul’s history, ‘But I have called you friends’?
And for the present at least--I am speaking of the first holidays--none
of the ill effects which Mr. Eversley apprehended as possible were
seen in Gerald. He was still as frank and genuine as ever, as full of
interest in all that made up the life of Kestercham. He seemed not to
need, not to desire, any companionship but his father’s. He seemed to
have no secrets from him. He showed him all his letters, and among them
one or two from Harry Venniker. He consulted him upon all his doings
at St. Anselm’s. He spoke with the same certainty as before of being a
clergyman; it did not seem that any other calling presented itself to
his mind. In a word, he was still the same simple, dutiful, religious
Gerald as before. Mr. Eversley thanked God for that; it was all that he
had wished and prayed to find.
So the first holidays passed, and so the succeeding holidays. It would
not accord with the purpose of this story to say more of them. Gerald
passed from thirteen to fifteen or sixteen, and Mr. Eversley was
conscious of no change, or of none such as caused him any disquietude.
A developed character indeed, a deeper thoughtfulness (though
discernible only when something called it out), a wider knowledge of
human things, a multifarious information which at times surprised his
father, a somewhat more critical tone in speaking of the school--these
things Mr. Eversley saw or felt; but no moral or spiritual change--no
change in his boy’s relation to himself. They had, in his own words,
lived one life until Gerald went to St. Anselm’s; they lived, or he
thought they lived, but one life still.
One morning, when Gerald was just sixteen, as he was sitting at
breakfast with his father and Mrs. Eversley, the letters were brought
in, and an envelope bearing a coronet upon it was handed to him. He
recognised the handwriting at once; it was Harry Venniker’s; but, as
he read the letter, a flush mantled upon his cheek. The flush did not
escape Mr. Eversley.
‘What is it, Gerald?’ he said; ‘I see there is something important in
your letter.’
‘It’s from Venniker,’ was Gerald’s reply, and he passed the letter to
his father.
The letter, after various allusions to the affairs of school life, and
to a certain ‘spree’ which Harry had been enjoying in the holidays,
went on to say that Harry’s mother wished him to ask if Gerald could
come and spend a few days at Helmsbury before going back to St.
Anselm’s; she had heard so much about him (Harry said), but had never
seen him, and being an invalid, and unable to bear the journey to St.
Anselm’s, she was afraid her only chance of making his acquaintance
lay in the hope that he would give them the pleasure of his company at
Helmsbury. ‘Mind you come,’ added Harry on his own account; ‘this is
an awfully jolly country, and we can give you a mount if you like; and
if you don’t care about shooting, there is Ross Abbey and Sedgefield
within a drive, and you can go there with Ethel.’
At the time when this letter was written Harry Venniker and Gerald
Eversley were not living on quite the same terms of intimacy as before.
The progress of school life had parted them a little from each other;
they were no longer occupants of the same room. But Gerald, being now
in the Lower Sixth Form, enjoyed the privilege of having breakfast and
tea in his own room, and of inviting a friend, whenever he wished, to
share them with him. It is needless to say that that friend was always,
or almost always, Harry Venniker. The friendship between them was thus
maintained in its integrity, and Gerald had the happiness of reflecting
that he was able to confer a slight favour while receiving so many.
There was also a tacit understanding that they should, if possible, go
for a walk together on Sundays--how many school friendships have been
consecrated by the happy rule of Sunday walks!--or, if the weather was
too bad for a walk, that they should meet for a long talk in the room
of one of them. Thus the friendship, so vital to them both, continued.
It was in a sense even purified, as being free from the petty
frictions and bickerings which are the incidents of great and constant
propinquity, which sometimes occur, it is said, even between husband
and wife. Harry and Gerald did not now need to meet unless they chose;
but their meetings were the more highly valued. Perhaps, however, it
was because they saw less of each other during the term that Harry
had thought of asking Gerald to his home in the holidays. There was
much talk in Kestercham Vicarage at breakfast and afterwards about the
unexpected invitation to Helmsbury Hall. Mr. Eversley and his wife
were at one in assuming that it could not be refused. Mr. Eversley had
once or twice--not oftener--been invited to dinner with a noble lord
who possessed a mansion (to which he seldom came) in the neighbouring
parish of Wickeston--it was known as Wickeston Manor--and who owned a
great part of the land in Kestercham, and he had always looked upon
the invitations as commands. The feudal feeling for the great lords,
which is dying out among the farmers and agricultural labourers, will,
I think, find its last resting-place in the breasts of the country
clergy. Mr. Eversley anticipated the visit to Helmsbury with some
anxiety; for might it not exalt Gerald’s ideas above his station? He
reminded him that all men were equal in the sight of God. Mrs. Eversley
opined that the visit would give him ‘polish,’ though she exhorted him
to be on his guard against ‘the world.’ However, the result, which had
been visible enough from the first, was that Gerald wrote, and Mr.
Eversley revised, a letter, saying how grateful he was to Lord and Lady
Venniker for the honour done to him, and that he would gladly come in
the week before returning to St. Anselm’s.
Such arduous and absorbing questions as the clothes he must wear on
week-days and on Sunday, the money he must take with him (as if he
would be expected to pay a subscription every day), the style of
language he must adopt, and the attitude he must assume, towards his
hosts having been settled at last to the satisfaction of Mr., and still
more of Mrs., Eversley, Gerald was put into the little carriage with
the old grey mare and driven to X----, where he was to take the train
for London; after that he was to take a cab and drive across London and
so catch the train to Helmsbury. Mr. Eversley accompanied him to the
station at X----, and took leave of him with the remark that wherever
he was he would (Mr. Eversley felt sure) behave like a gentleman and a
Christian.
Gerald Eversley’s stay at Helmsbury was limited to a week. During
that week he wrote as many as five letters home. Mr. Eversley noticed
that after the first two letters, in which he described the size and
grandeur of the house, especially its picture-gallery with the works
of many artists whose names he had never heard of, but one or two
masterpieces--a Murillo and a Titian--that awoke strange memories and
imaginations in his mind, and the organ in the hall, Gerald referred
more frequently to Lady Venniker than to anyone else. Her delicacy of
health prevented her entertaining many guests. Lord Venniker and Harry
and such friends as were with them spent the days in sport, so that
Gerald (whose defective eyesight would have disqualified him for sport,
had his inclination led him to it) was left for a good many hours to
the study of books in the great library--a privilege exceeding his
highest expectations--and to the society of Lady Venniker. Once, but
only once, he mentioned Miss Venniker, as a beautiful girl, rather like
Harry, but with softer and more sensitive features than his.
The transition from the simple country vicarage, where his step-mother
would often lend a helping hand in laying the cloth or clearing
away, to the ancestral home of a noble family, with its army of male
and female servants, could not but impress, and might easily have
disturbed, the mind of a boy less unworldly than Gerald Eversley. But
Lord and Lady Venniker, though so different in character, were alike
in possessing the exquisite tact which prevents wealth from being felt
as a burden, or rank from appearing in the light of a reproach. They
soon made Gerald feel at his ease. Instead of reminding him of the
points of difference in his life and theirs, they drew out whatever was
sympathetic between them. They understood the art of leaving him alone.
It is only when the guests feel bound to be amused and the host feels
bound to amuse them, that life in a country house becomes intolerable.
Gerald took several drives with Lady Venniker, who was able to go
out sometimes in the summer months, and on one of these an incident
occurred which formed a bond of union between them. They were
returning from a drive to Ross Abbey and were nearing a cottage which
belonged to one of Lord Venniker’s tenants, when at the turning of the
road, near the foot of the hill, a little girl, attracted by the sound
of the carriage, ran out of the wicket-gate at the entrance to the
cottage-garden and came, as it seemed, actually under the horses’ feet.
Lady Venniker, seeing what was inevitable, gave a faint scream, and
fell back in the carriage as if in a swoon. Gerald, who dreaded what
the effect of the shock might be on one so delicate, turned to her.
‘Never mind me,’ she said in a low voice, ‘look after the child.’
The coachman had pulled the horses to the side of the road, and the
child lay in the middle, screaming. The footman had already descended
from the box and was standing by her side, doing nothing, as the way
of servants is in an emergency. Gerald got out of the carriage and
passed his hand rapidly over the child’s body. It seemed that when he
touched her left leg, her screaming grew worse. He told Lady Venniker
that he was afraid one leg was broken, but that the child was as much
frightened as injured.
Neither the father nor the mother of the child was in the cottage.
Gerald said he would stay with the child until one of them came
back. By this time she was screaming less convulsively, though she
continued to lay her hand on the injured leg. Lady Venniker, whose
face was deadly pale, said she would drive for the doctor, whose house
was three miles distant. The evening was closing in, and there was a
chilly feeling in the air; but she insisted upon fetching the doctor
herself. Meanwhile Gerald, who with the footman’s help had carried the
child into the cottage, sat by her side, doing his best to soothe her
pain. A neighbour, who had seen the accident, was sent for the child’s
mother; but she was in the harvest-field, and it was some time before
she could be found. When the doctor arrived in the carriage with Lady
Venniker he pronounced that the child had sustained a fracture of the
_tibia_--probably one of the horses had trodden upon her leg--but it
was a simple fracture, and he did not doubt it would do well. Lady
Venniker and Gerald drove back to Helmsbury; neither of them spoke a
word. Lady Venniker looked very ill. She retired at once to her room,
and did not appear any more that night. Next morning she was said to
be suffering from the combined effects of cold and fright, and the
doctor expressed anxiety about her. It was some days before she left
her bed. But she did not fail to send each day some article of food or
dress, and a kindly message with it, to the mother of the suffering
child. Gerald did not see her any more; for on the second day after
the accident he left Helmsbury. But she sent him a message through her
daughter, to say that she was better, and to thank him for his kindness
to the child and to herself; she hoped he would come to Helmsbury again.
Gerald, upon his return to Kestercham, learnt to his surprise that the
news of his adventure was already known. It had got into the papers,
as affecting Lady Venniker, and most improbable and grotesque accounts
of it were in the air. That he had carried a peasant’s child out of
a burning house; that he had saved a child from drowning; that he
had been wounded in warding off a blow aimed at Lady Venniker; that
he had gallantly stopped her ladyship’s runaway horses--these and
other versions of the story were current. He found himself the hero
of the hour in Kestercham and the neighbouring parishes. At one of
the clerical parties to which Mr. Eversley occasionally went and took
his son, the conversation turned almost exclusively upon his feat
of daring. The clergy and their wives and daughters were forward in
congratulating him. A comical incident connected with this party may be
mentioned here; for Mr. Eversley and he sometimes laughed over it in
after-days. Among the guests at the party was an elderly clergyman, so
deaf that it was practically impossible for him to join in the general
conversation. He understood, however, that something unusual was astir.
To him, as he sat in a corner of the room, Mr. Eversley made his way,
partly out of kindness and partly to escape the embarrassment of so
much talking about Gerald.
‘A fine afternoon, Mr. Drummond,’ he said to the old gentleman, raising
his voice a little, for there was a buzz of conversation everywhere.
‘What?’ said the old gentleman, in a state of excitement.
‘I only said it was a fine afternoon,’ repeated Mr. Eversley.
‘What do you say?’ cried the old gentleman. ‘I cannot hear what you
say. You must speak louder.’
Mr. Eversley repeated his striking observation once more. But the old
gentleman did not catch what was said; so, raising his voice to a
stentorian pitch, he called to his wife who was at the other end of the
room.
‘Harriet, come here, my dear. Mr. Eversley is making some observation;
it is important, and I cannot hear what he says.’
By this time the attention of the whole room had been attracted to the
old gentleman and Mr. Eversley, and there was a breathless silence as
Mrs. Drummond made her way across the room and said, with a pleasant
smile,
‘Will you be so kind as to tell me what it was that you said to my
husband? He is so very deaf, but he cannot bear not hearing what is
said to him, and he will never be satisfied now until he is made to
hear what it was.’
Mr. Eversley, his face turning crimson at the predicament in which he
was placed, repeated in a low tone that he had casually remarked it was
a fine afternoon.
Mrs. Drummond turned to her husband, who was exhibiting every sign
of impatient curiosity, and, making a speaking-trumpet of her hands,
shouted with great deliberation:
‘My--love--Mr. Eversley--says--it is--a fine--afternoon.’
A burst of laughter from all quarters of the room attested the
merriment of the company at learning the remark which had excited
this visible commotion. The old gentleman alone did not seem amused;
he turned away, muttering something which sounded like ‘Why did not
he tell me that before?’ But the laughter, and the incident which
gave rise to it, diverted the thoughts of all who were present from
Gerald’s adventure; it was not referred to any more.
In this way is reputation won, and in this way too, perhaps, it is
lost.