THE day was long. Though the aeroplane flew to admiration, though Tommy
adored him and all his works, though the skylarks sang, and the downs
were drenched in sunshine, Edward Basingstoke admitted to himself,
before half its length was known to him, that the day was long.
He climbed the cliff above Cuckmere and sat in the sunshine there, where
the gulls flashed white wings and screamed like babies; he watched the
tide, milk-white with the fallen chalk of England's edge, come sousing
in over the brown, seaweed-covered rocks; he felt the crisp warmth of
the dry turf under his hand, and smelt the sweet smell of the thyme and
the furze and the sea, and it was all good. But it was long. And, for
the first time in his life, being alone was lonely.
And for the second time since the day when Charles, bounding at him from
among the clean straw of an Oxford stable, had bounded into his
affections, he had left that strenuous dog behind.
He got out his road map and spread it in the sun--with stones at the
corners to cheat the wind that, on those Downs, never sleeps--and tried
to believe that he was planning his itinerary, and even to pretend to
himself that he should start to-morrow and walk to Lewes. But instead
his eyes followed the map's indication of the road to that meadow where
the red wall was, and presently he found that he was no longer looking
at the map, but at the book of memory, and most at the pictures painted
there only that morning. Already it seemed a very long time ago.
"I am afraid," said Mr. Basingstoke, alone at the cliff's edge, "that
this time it really is _it_. It's different from what I thought. It's
confoundedly unsettling."
Like all healthy young men, he had always desired and intended to fall
in love; he had even courted the experience, and honestly tried to lose
his heart, but with a singular lack of success. In the girls he had met
he had found gaiety, good looks, and a certain vague and general
attractiveness--the common attribute of youth and girlhood--but nothing
that even began to transfigure the world as his poets taught him that
love should transfigure it. The little, trivial emotions which he had
found in pressing hands and gazing into eyes had never lured him further
than the gaze and the hand-clasp. Yet he had thought himself to be in
love more than once.
"Or perhaps this isn't the real thing, either," he tried to reassure
himself. "How could it be?"
Then he explained to himself, as he had often explained to Vernon, that
love at first sight was impossible. Love, he had held and proclaimed,
was not the result of the mere attraction exercised by beauty--it was
the response of mind to mind, the admiration of character and
qualities--the satisfaction of one's nature by the mental and moral
attributes of the beloved. That was not exactly how he had put it, but
that was what he had meant. And now--he had seen a girl once, for ten
minutes, and already he could think of nothing else. Even if he thought
of something else he could perceive the thought of her behind those
other thoughts, waiting, alluring, and sure of itself, to fill his mind
the moment he let it in.
"Idiot," he said at last, got up from the turf, and pocketed the map,
"to-morrow she'll be quite ordinary and just like any other girl. You go
for a long walk, young-fellow-my-lad, and think out a water-mill for
Tommy."
This had, indeed, been more than half promised. Mr. Basingstoke was one
of those persons whom their friends call thorough; their enemies say
that they carry everything too far. If he did a thing at all, he liked
to do it thoroughly. If he wrote a duty-letter to an aunt, he wrote a
long one, and made it amusing. As often as not he would illustrate it
with little pictures. If he gave a shilling to a beggar he would
immediately add tobacco and agreeable conversation. One of his first
acts, on coming into his inheritance, had been to pension his old nurse,
who was poor and a widow with far too many children--too many, because
she was a widow and poor and had to go out to work instead of looking
after her family, as she wanted to do. Any one else would have written
and told her she was to have two pounds a week as long as she lived.
Edward sent her a large box of hot-house flowers--her birthday happening
to occur at about that date--the most expensive and beautiful flowers he
could find, anonymously. Then he sent her a fat hamper bursting with
excellent things to eat and drink--and a box of toys and clothes for the
children. The lady who "served" him with the clothes was amused at his
choice--but approved it. And in the end he told his solicitors--smiling
to himself at the novel possession--to write and tell the woman that an
old employer had secured her an annuity. Later he went down to see her,
to find her incredibly happy and prosperous, and to hear the wonderful
and mysterious tale. So now, in the case of Tommy, most people would
have thought an aeroplane and a motor-ride as much as any little boy
could expect. But Mr. Basingstoke liked to give people much more than
they could expect. It was not enough to give them enough. He liked to
give a feast.
That evening after tea, Tommy breathing hard on the back of his neck, he
sketched the water-wheel with the highest degree of precision and a
superfluous wealth of detail. But the thought was with him through it
all.
Next morning he went to the trysting-place, through the fresh, sweet
morning. He climbed the wall, sat down on the log, and waited. He waited
an hour, and she did not come. It says a good deal for his tenacity of
purpose that when he went home he began at once on the water-wheel.
In the afternoon he took Charles out for a walk. Charles chased and
killed a hen, and was butted by a goat, before they reached the end of
the street; knocked a leg of mutton off the block at the butcher's in
the next village; bit the rural police to the very undershirt, and also
to the tune of ten compensating shillings; and was run over by a
bicycle, which twisted its pedal in the consequent fall, and grazed its
rider's hands and trousers knees. After each adventure Charles was
firmly punished, but, though chastised, he was not chastened, and when
they met a dog-cart coming slowly down a hill he was quite ready to run
in front of it, barking and leaping at the horse's nose. The horse,
which appeared to Charles's master to be a thoroughbred, shied. There
was a whirl of dust and hoofs and brown flank, a cry from the
driver--another cry, a fierce bark from Charles, ending in a howl of
agony--the next instant the horse had bolted and Edward was left in the
dusty road, Charles writhing in the dust, and the dog-cart almost out of
sight.
"Charles, old man--Charles, lie still, can't you? Let me see if you're
hurt."
He stooped, and as he stooped Charles did lie still.
His master lifted the heavy, muscular body that had been so full of life
and energy. It lay limp and lifeless, head and hind-quarters drooping
over his arm like a wet shawl.
Basingstoke sat down on the roadside with the dog across his knees. For
him the light of life was out. Men do not cry, of course, as women do
when their dogs die, but he could not see very clearly. Presently he
found himself face to face with that question, always so disconcerting,
even to criminals--what to do with the body. He was miles from his inn,
and Charles was no light weight. He could not leave the dog in the road.
His friend must have decent burial. There was nothing for it but to
wait till some cart should come by and then to ask for a lift.
So he sat there, thinking such thoughts as men do think in adversity.
After a calamity, when the first excitement of horror dies down, one
always says, "How different everything was yesterday!" and Mr.
Basingstoke said what we all say. Yesterday Charles was alive and well,
and his master had not taken him out because he wanted to be at leisure
to think--he realized that now--about the girl whom he was to have met
to-day. And he had not met the girl. And Charles was dead.
"I wish I hadn't left you at home yesterday, old boy," said Mr.
Basingstoke.
And then came the sound of hoofs, and he prepared to stop the vehicle,
whatever it was, and beg for a lift for himself and what he carried. But
when the wheels came near and he saw that it was the very cart that had
run over Charles he sat down again and kept his eyes on the ground. It
wasn't their fault, of course, but still. . . .
The cart stopped and some one was saying: "I hope the dog isn't much
hurt." A hard, cold voice it was.
Edward got out his hand from under Charles to take his hat off, and
said: "My dog is dead."
"I am extremely sorry, but it was the dog's fault," said the voice,
aggressively.
"Yes," said Edward.
"There's nothing to be done," said the voice. "It was nearly a nasty
accident for us."
"I apologize for my dog's conduct," said Edward, formally.