A belt of rhododendrons grew close down to one side of our pond; and
along the edge of it many things flourished rankly. If you crept through
the undergrowth and crouched by the water's rim, it was easy--if your
imagination were in healthy working order--to transport yourself in a
trice to the heart of a tropical forest. Overhead the monkeys chattered,
parrots flashed from bough to bough, strange large blossoms shone around
you, and the push and rustle of great beasts moving unseen thrilled you
deliciously. And if you lay down with your nose an inch or two from the
water, it was not long ere the old sense of proportion vanished clean
away. The glittering insects that darted to and fro on its surface
became sea-monsters dire, the gnats that hung above them swelled to
albatrosses, and the pond itself stretched out into a vast inland sea,
whereon a navy might ride secure, and whence at any moment the hairy
scalp of a sea serpent might be seen to emerge.
It is impossible, however, to play at tropical forests properly, when
homely accents of the human voice intrude; and all my hopes of seeing a
tiger seized by a crocodile while drinking (vide picture-books, passim)
vanished abruptly, and earth resumed her old dimensions, when the
sound of Charlotte's prattle somewhere hard by broke in on my primeval
seclusion. Looking out from the bushes, I saw her trotting towards an
open space of lawn the other side the pond, chattering to herself in her
accustomed fashion, a doll tucked under either arm, and her brow knit
with care. Propping up her double burden against a friendly stump, she
sat down in front of them, as full of worry and anxiety as a Chancellor
on a Budget night.
Her victims, who stared resignedly in front of them, were recognisable
as Jerry and Rosa. Jerry hailed from far Japan: his hair was straight
and black; his one garment cotton, of a simple blue; and his reputation
was distinctly bad. Jerome was his proper name, from his supposed
likeness to the holy man who hung in a print on the staircase; though
a shaven crown was the only thing in common 'twixt Western saint and
Eastern sinner. Rosa was typical British, from her flaxen poll to the
stout calves she displayed so liberally, and in character she was of the
blameless order of those who have not yet been found out.
I suspected Jerry from the first; there was a latent devilry in his
slant eyes as he sat there moodily, and knowing what he was capable of
I scented trouble in store for Charlotte. Rosa I was not so sure about;
she sat demurely and upright, and looked far away into the tree-tops
in a visionary, world-forgetting sort of way; yet the prim purse of her
mouth was somewhat overdone, and her eyes glittered unnaturally.
“Now, I'm going to begin where I left off,” said Charlotte, regardless
of stops, and thumping the turf with her fist excitedly: “and you must
pay attention, 'cos this is a treat, to have a story told you before
you're put to bed. Well, so the White Rabbit scuttled off down the
passage and Alice hoped he'd come back 'cos he had a waistcoat on and
her flamingo flew up a tree--but we haven't got to that part yet--you
must wait a minute, and--where had I got to?”
Jerry only remained passive until Charlotte had got well under way, and
then began to heel over quietly in Rosa's direction. His head fell on
her plump shoulder, causing her to start nervously.
Charlotte seized and shook him with vigour, “O Jerry,” she cried
piteously, “if you're not going to be good, how ever shall I tell you my
story?”
Jerry's face was injured innocence itself. “Blame if you like, Madam,”
he seemed to say, “the eternal laws of gravitation, but not a helpless
puppet, who is also an orphan and a stranger in the land.”
“Now we'll go on,” began Charlotte once more. “So she got into the
garden at last--I've left out a lot, but you won't care, I'll tell you
some other time--and they were all playing croquet, and that's where the
flamingo comes in, and the Queen shouted out, 'Off with her head!'”
At this point Jerry collapsed forward, suddenly and completely, his
bald pate between his knees. Charlotte was not very angry this time. The
sudden development of tragedy in the story had evidently been too much
for the poor fellow. She straightened him out, wiped his nose, and,
after trying him in various positions, to which he refused to adapt
himself, she propped him against the shoulder of the (apparently)
unconscious Rosa. Then my eyes were opened, and the full measure of
Jerry's infamy became apparent. This, then, was what he had been playing
up for. The fellow had designs. I resolved to keep him under close
observation.
“If you'd been in the garden,” went on Charlotte, reproachfully, “and
flopped down like that when the Queen said 'Off with his head!' she'd
have offed with your head; but Alice wasn't that sort of girl at all.
She just said, 'I'm not afraid of you, you're nothing but a pack of
cards'--oh, dear! I've got to the end already, and I hadn't begun
hardly! I never can make my stories last out! Never mind, I'll tell you
another one.”
Jerry didn't seem to care, now he had gained his end, whether the
stories lasted out or not. He was nestling against Rosa's plump form
with a look of satisfaction that was simply idiotic; and one arm had
disappeared from view--was it round her waist? Rosa's natural blush
seemed deeper than usual, her head inclined shyly--it must have been
round her waist.
“If it wasn't so near your bedtime,” continued Charlotte, reflectively,
“I'd tell you a nice story with a bogy in it. But you'd be frightened,
and you'd dream of bogies all night. So I'll tell you one about a White
Bear, only you mustn't scream when the bear says 'Wow,' like I used to,
'cos he's a good bear really--”
Here Rosa fell flat on her back in the deadest of faints. Her limbs were
rigid, her eyes glassy; what had Jerry been doing? It must have been
something very bad, for her to take on like that. I scrutinised him
carefully, while Charlotte ran to comfort the damsel. He appeared to be
whistling a tune and regarding the scenery. If I only possessed Jerry's
command of feature, I thought to myself, half regretfully, I would never
be found out in anything.
“It's all your fault, Jerry,” said Charlotte, reproachfully, when the
lady had been restored to consciousness: “Rosa's as good as gold, except
when you make her wicked. I'd put you in the corner, only a stump hasn't
got a corner--wonder why that is? Thought everything had corners. Never
mind, you'll have to sit with your face to the wall--SO. Now you can
sulk if you like!”
Jerry seemed to hesitate a moment between the bliss of indulgence
in sulks with a sense of injury, and the imperious summons of beauty
waiting to be wooed at his elbow; then, carried away by his passion, he
fell sideways across Rosa's lap. One arm stuck stiffly upwards, as in
passionate protestation; his amorous countenance was full of entreaty.
Rosa hesitated--wavered--and yielded, crushing his slight frame under
the weight of her full-bodied surrender.
Charlotte had stood a good deal, but it was possible to abuse even her
patience. Snatching Jerry from his lawless embraces, she reversed him
across her knee, and then--the outrage offered to the whole superior
sex in Jerry's hapless person was too painful to witness; but though
I turned my head away, the sound of brisk slaps continued to reach my
tingling ears. When I looked again, Jerry was sitting up as before; his
garment, somewhat crumpled, was restored to its original position; but
his pallid countenance was set hard. Knowing as I did, only too
well, what a volcano of passion and shame must be seething under that
impassive exterior, for the moment I felt sorry for him.
Rosa's face was still buried in her frock; it might have been shame, it
might have been grief for Jerry's sufferings. But the callous Japanese
never even looked her way. His heart was exceeding bitter within him.
In merely following up his natural impulses he had run his head against
convention, and learnt how hard a thing it was; and the sunshiny world
was all black to him.
Even Charlotte softened somewhat at the sight of his rigid misery. “If
you'll say you're sorry. Jerome,” she said, “I'll say I'm sorry, too.”
Jerry only dropped his shoulders against the stump and stared out in the
direction of his dear native Japan, where love was no sin, and smacking
had not been introduced. Why had he ever left it? He would go back
to-morrow--and yet there were obstacles: another grievance. Nature,
in endowing Jerry with every grace of form and feature, along with a
sensitive soul, had somehow forgotten the gift of locomotion.
There was a crackling in the bushes behind me, with sharp short pants as
of a small steam-engine, and Rollo, the black retriever, just released
from his chain by some friendly hand, burst through the underwood,
seeking congenial company. I joyfully hailed him to stop and be a
panther; but he sped away round the pond, upset Charlotte with a
boisterous caress, and seizing Jerry by the middle, disappeared with him
down the drive. Charlotte raved, panting behind the swift-footed avenger
of crime; Rosa lay dishevelled, bereft of consciousness; Jerry himself
spread helpless arms to heaven, and I almost thought I heard a cry for
mercy, a tardy promise of amendment; but it was too late. The Black Man
had got Jerry at last; and though the tear of sensibility might moisten
the eye, no one who really knew him could deny the justice of his fate.
“YOUNG ADAM CUPID”
NO one would have suspected Edward of being in love, but that after
breakfast, with an over-acted carelessness, “Anybody who likes,” he
said, “can feed my rabbits,” and he disappeared, with a jauntiness that
deceived nobody, in the direction of the orchard. Now, kingdoms might
totter and reel, and convulsions change the map of Europe; but the iron
unwritten law prevailed, that each boy severely fed his own rabbits.
There was good ground, then, for suspicion and alarm; and while
the lettuce-leaves were being drawn through the wires, Harold and I
conferred seriously on the situation.
It may be thought that the affair was none of our business; and indeed
we cared little as individuals. We were only concerned as members of a
corporation, for each of whom the mental or physical ailment of one of
his fellows might have far-reaching effects. It was thought best that
Harold, as least open to suspicion of motive, should be despatched to
probe and peer. His instructions were, to proceed by a report on the
health of our rabbits in particular; to glide gently into a discussion
on rabbits in general, their customs, practices, and vices; to pass
thence, by a natural transition, to the female sex, the inherent flaws
in its composition, and the reasons for regarding it (speaking broadly)
as dirt. He was especially to be very diplomatic, and then to return and
report progress. He departed on his mission gaily; but his absence was
short, and his return, discomfited and in tears, seemed to betoken some
want of parts for diplomacy. He had found Edward, it appeared, pacing
the orchard, with the sort of set smile that mountebanks wear in their
precarious antics, fixed painfully on his face, as with pins. Harold had
opened well, on the rabbit subject, but, with a fatal confusion between
the abstract and the concrete, had then gone on to remark that Edward's
lop-eared doe, with her long hindlegs and contemptuous twitch of the
nose, always reminded him of Sabina Larkin (a nine-year-old damsel,
child of a neighbouring farmer): at which point Edward, it would seem,
had turned upon and savagely maltreated him, twisting his arm and
punching him in the short ribs. So that Harold returned to the
rabbit-hutches preceded by long-drawn wails: anon wishing, with sobs,
that he were a man, to kick his love-lorn brother: anon lamenting that
ever he had been born.
I was not big enough to stand up to Edward personally, so I had to
console the sufferer by allowing him to grease the wheels of the
donkey-cart--a luscious treat that had been specially reserved for me,
a week past, by the gardener's boy, for putting in a good word on his
behalf with the new kitchen-maid. Harold was soon all smiles and grease;
and I was not, on the whole, dissatisfied with the significant hint that
had been gained as to the fons et origo mali.
Fortunately, means were at hand for resolving any doubts on the subject,
since the morning was Sunday, and already the bells were ringing for
church. Lest the connexion may not be evident at first sight, I should
explain that the gloomy period of church-time, with its enforced
inaction and its lack of real interest--passed, too, within sight of all
that the village held of fairest--was just the one when a young man's
fancies lightly turned to thoughts of love. For such trifling the rest
of the week afforded no leisure; but in church--well, there was really
nothing else to do! True, naughts-and-crosses might be indulged in on
fly-leaves of prayer-books while the Litany dragged its slow length
along; but what balm or what solace could be found for the sermon?
Naturally the eye, wandering here and there among the serried ranks,
made bold, untrammelled choice among our fair fellow-supplicants. It was
in this way that, some months earlier, under the exceptional strain of
the Athanasian Creed, my roving fancy had settled upon the baker's wife
as a fit object for a life-long devotion. Her riper charms had conquered
a heart which none of her be-muslined, tittering juniors had been able
to subdue; and that she was already wedded had never occurred to me
as any bar to my affection. Edward's general demeanour, then, during
morning service, was safe to convict him; but there was also a special
test for the particular case. It happened that we sat in a transept,
and, the Larkins being behind us, Edward's only chance of feasting on
Sabina's charms was in the all-too fleeting interval when we swung round
eastwards. I was not mistaken. During the singing of the Benedictus the
impatient one made several false starts, and at last he slewed fairly
round before “As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be” was
half finished. The evidence was conclusive: a court of law could have
desired no better.
The fact being patent, the next thing was to grapple with it; and my
mind was fully occupied during the sermon. There was really nothing
unfair or unbrotherly in my attitude. A philosophic affection such as
mine own, which clashed with nothing, was (I held) permissible; but the
volcanic passions in which Edward indulged about once a quarter were
a serious interference with business. To make matters worse, next week
there was a circus coming to the neighbourhood, to which we had all been
strictly forbidden to go; and without Edward no visit in contempt of law
and orders could be successfully brought off. I had sounded him as to
the circus on our way to church, and he had replied briefly that the
very thought of a clown made him sick. Morbidity could no further
go. But the sermon came to an end without any line of conduct having
suggested itself; and I walked home in some depression, feeling sadly
that Venus was in the ascendant and in direful opposition, while
Auriga--the circus star--drooped declinant, perilously near the horizon.
By the irony of fate, Aunt Eliza, of all people, turned out to be the
Dea ex machina: which thing fell out in this wise. It was that lady's
obnoxious practice to issue forth, of a Sunday afternoon, on a visit of
state to such farmers and cottagers as dwelt at hand; on which occasion
she was wont to hale a reluctant boy along with her, from the mixed
motives of propriety and his soul's health. Much cudgelling of brains,
I suppose, had on that particular day made me torpid and unwary. Anyhow,
when a victim came to be sought for, I fell an easy prey, while the
others fled scatheless and whooping. Our first visit was to the Larkins.
Here ceremonial might be viewed in its finest flower, and we conducted
ourselves, like Queen Elizabeth when she trod the measure, “high and
disposedly.” In the low, oak-panelled parlour, cake and currant wine
were set forth, and after courtesies and compliments exchanged, Aunt
Eliza, greatly condescending, talked the fashions with Mrs Larkin; while
the farmer and I, perspiring with the unusual effort, exchanged remarks
on the mutability of the weather and the steady fall in the price of
corn. (Who would have thought, to hear us, that only two short days ago
we had confronted each other on either side of a hedge,--I triumphant,
provocative, derisive; he flushed, wroth, cracking his whip, and
volleying forth profanity? So powerful is all-subduing ceremony!) Sabina
the while, demurely seated with a Pilgrim's Progress on her knee, and
apparently absorbed in a brightly coloured presentment of “Apollyon
Straddling Right across the Way,” eyed me at times with shy interest;
but repelled all Aunt Eliza's advances with a frigid politeness for
which I could not sufficiently admire her.
“It's surprising to me,” I heard my aunt remark presently, “how my
eldest nephew, Edward, despises little girls. I heard him tell Charlotte
the other day that he wished he could exchange her for a pair
of Japanese guinea-pigs. It made the poor child cry. Boys are so
heartless!” (I saw Sabina stiffen as she sat, and her tip-tilted nose
twitched scornfully.) “Now this boy here--” (my soul descended into my
very boots. Could the woman have intercepted any of my amorous glances
at the baker's wife?) “Now this boy,” my aunt went on, “is more human
altogether. Only yesterday he took his sister to the baker's shop, and
spent his only penny buying her sweets. I thought it showed such a nice
disposition. I wish Edward were more like him!”
I breathed again. It was unnecessary to explain my real motives for that
visit to the baker's. Sabina's face softened, and her contemptuous nose
descended from its altitude of scorn; she gave me one shy glance of
kindness, and then concentrated her attention upon Mercy knocking at the
Wicket Gate. I felt awfully mean as regarded Edward; but what could I
do? I was in Gaza, gagged and bound; the Philistines hemmed me in.
The same evening the storm burst, the bolt fell, and--to continue the
metaphor--the atmosphere grew serene and clear once more. The evening
service was shorter than usual, the vicar, as he ascended the pulpit
steps, having dropped two pages out of his sermon-case,--unperceived by
any but ourselves, either at the moment or subsequently when the hiatus
was reached; so as we joyfully shuffled out I whispered Edward that
by racing home at top speed we should make time to assume our bows and
arrows (laid aside for the day) and play at Indians and buffaloes with
Aunt Eliza's fowls--already strolling roostwards, regardless of their
doom--before that sedately stepping lady could return. Edward hung at
the door, wavering; the suggestion had unhallowed charms.
At that moment Sabina issued primly forth, and, seeing Edward, put out
her tongue at him in the most exasperating manner conceivable; then
passed on her way, her shoulders rigid, her dainty head held high. A
man can stand very much in the cause of love: poverty, aunts, rivals,
barriers of every sort,--all these only serve to fan the flame. But
personal ridicule is a shaft that reaches the very vitals. Edward led
the race home at a speed which one of Ballantyne's heroes might have
equalled but never surpassed; and that evening the Indians dispersed
Aunt Eliza's fowls over several square miles of country, so that
the tale of them remaineth incomplete unto this day. Edward himself,
cheering wildly, pursued the big Cochin-China cock till the bird sank
gasping under the drawing-room window, whereat its mistress stood
petrified; and after supper, in the shrubbery, smoked a half-consumed
cigar he had picked up in the road, and declared to an awe-stricken
audience his final, his immitigable, resolve to go into the army.
The crisis was past, and Edward was saved!... And yet... sunt lachrymae
rerem... to me watching the cigar-stump alternately pale and glow
against the dark background of laurel, a vision of a tip-tilted nose,
of a small head poised scornfully, seemed to hover on the gathering
gloom--seemed to grow and fade and grow again, like the grin of the
Cheshire cat--pathetically, reproachfully even; and the charms of the
baker's wife slipped from my memory like snow-wreaths in thaw. After
all, Sabina was nowise to blame: why should the child be punished?
To-morrow I would give them the slip, and stroll round by her garden
promiscuous-like, at a time when the farmer was safe in the rick-yard.
If nothing came of it, there was no harm done; and if on the
contrary...!