The lady nodded. "We loved them too, but of course they lived on the
other side of the pond, and sometimes they and the Sepoys and the
Soudanese had to insurrect. Somebody had to, you know, but we regretted
the Egyptian Camel Corps awfully. I hope you don't think us silly....
Murray was always a childish person. I hope I am too. The bowling-green
gave us a lot of trouble to make; it is nice and flat, isn't it? We trim
it with nail-scissors."
It was a good bowling-green, about twelve inches by six. There were some
marbles on it.
"It has historical associations," said the mother of Murray. "It was
here that Drake played when the Armada was sighted. Of course that was
before our time, but sometimes, on a moonlit summer night, we used to lie
down on our fronts and see his little ghost haunting the green. We used
to bring our young sailors here, and inspire them with stories about
Drake. The sailors used to stand on the green, and we put up railings
made of matches all round, and civilians used to stand in great
breathless crowds outside the railings watching. Chessmen, of course.
Murray used to make the civilians arrive in motors, so as to make ruts in
the road. Somehow it was always rather splendid and real to have ruts in
the road."
There was a long pause.
"Later on, of course, things got more grown-up. The last time we played
before the War--when War was already in sight--we shipped an
unprecedented mass of troops to that peninsula, and had a wonderful
battle. You can still see the trenches and gun emplacements; I cleared
them out yesterday. Murray joined the Army in that first August, and
whenever he came home after that he was somehow ashamed of these things.
I quite understood that. When I am having tea with the Vicar's wife, or
cutting out shirts for the soldiers, I sometimes blush a little to think
how old I am, and to think of the things I do at home with Murray. I am
sure he felt just the same when he was with other men. But his last
letter was young again. He wrote that the War should cease the moment he
set foot inside this gate, and we would have a civilian game, an alpine
expedition up the mountains. You see the beech-root mountains. There is
the cave where we put up for the night. There is a wonderful view from
Bumpy Peak, over the sea, and right away to far-off lands. Murray thought
that when the expedition had caught a chamois it might turn into
engineers prospecting for the building of a road up to Bumpy Peak, so
that the soldiers might march up, and look out over the sea, and
see--very far off--the fringes of the East that they had conquered, when
they were young and not tired of War...."
She broke off and looked at Kew.
Anonyma stood a few paces away, gazing at her vanilla-ice reflection
in the pond.
"I dare say you think us silly," said the lady. "I dare say you would
think Murray a rotter if you met him. It doesn't matter much. It doesn't
matter at all. Nothing matters, because he will come home to-night."
Kew fidgeted a moment, and then took the slate and wrote: "I am very much
afraid that all leave from abroad has been stopped this week."
"Yes, I know," said the mother, "I have been unhappy about that for some
days. But it doesn't make any difference to Murray now. You see, I heard
last night that he was killed on Tuesday. That's why I know he will come,
and I shall be waiting here. Can't you imagine them shouting as they get
through, as they get through with being grown-up, shouting to each other
as they run back to their childhood and their old pretences...."
After a moment she added, "That is the only sound that I shall ever hear
now,--the shouting of Murray to me as he runs home."
It was in a sort of dream that Kew watched Anonyma go forward and take
both the hands of the mother. I suppose he knew that all that was
superfluous, and that Murray would come home.
Anonyma said, "I am so sorry. I am so sorry that we intruded. You must
forgive us."
The mother of Murray did not hear, but she saw that sympathy was
intended, and she nodded awkwardly, and a little severely. I don't think
she had known that Anonyma was there.
Kew was not sorry that he had intruded.
At sunset, when the high sea span
About the rocks a web of foam,
I saw the ghost of a Cornishman
Come home.
I saw the ghost of a Cornishman
Run from the weariness of War,
I heard him laughing as he ran
Across his unforgotten shore.
The great cliff, gilded by the west,
Received him as an honoured guest.
The green sea, shining in the bay,
Did drown his dreadful yesterday.
Come home, come home, you million ghosts,
The honest years shall make amends,
The sun and moon shall be your hosts,
The everlasting hills your friends.
And some shall seek their mothers' faces,
And some shall run to trysting-places,
And some to towns, and others yet
Shall find great forests in their debt.
Oh, I would siege the golden coasts
Of space, and climb high heaven's dome,
So I might see those million ghosts
Come home.
Next day all the Family, including Mr. Russell and excepting Cousin
Gustus, came to breakfast with the intention of announcing that he or
she must go up to London by the next train. Mrs. Gustus, as ever,
spoke first.
"My conscience is pricking me. My work is calling me. I must go up
and see my old darlings in the Brown Borough. There is, I see, a
train at ten."
"I was just going to say something quite different to the same effect,"
said Kew. "I want to go up and whisper some secrets into the ear of
Cox. I want to have my hair cut. I want to buy this week's _Punch_. I
want some brown bootlaces. Life is empty for me unless I go up to town
this morning."
Mr. Russell, although he had tried the effect of all his excuses on his
Hound while dressing, was silent.
Mrs. Gustus was never less than half an hour too early for trains. This
might account for the excellence of her general information. She had
spent a large portion of her life at railway stations, which are, I
think, the centre of much wisdom. She and Kew started for the station
with mouths burnt by hurried coffee and toast-crumbs still unbrushed on
their waistcoats, forty minutes before the train was due. The protests of
Kew could be heard almost as far as the station, which was reached by a
walk of five minutes.
Cousin Gustus, Mr. Russell, and the convalescent Hound went to lie upon
the downs which climbed up straight from the back doorstep of the inn.
They were accompanied by a rug, a scarf, a sunshade, an overcoat, the
blessings of the landlady, and Cousin Gustus's diary. Nobody ever knew
what sort of matter filled Cousin Gustus's diary, nobody ever wanted to
know. It gave him grounds for claiming literary tastes, and his literary
tastes presumably made him marry a literary wife. So the diary had a
certain importance.
They spread out the rug in a little hollow, like a giant's footprint in
the downs, and sheep and various small flowers looked over their
shoulders.
For the first ten minutes Mr. Russell lay on his back listening to the
busy sound of the bees filling their honeybags, and the sheep filling
themselves, and Cousin Gustus filling his diary. He watched the rooks
travel across the varied country of the sky. He watched a little black
and white bird that danced in the air to the tune of its own very high
and flippant song. He watched the sun ford a deep and foaming cloud. And
all the time he remembered many reasons why it would have been nice to go
up to London. Oddly enough, a 'bus-conductor seemed to stand quite apart
from these reasons in the back of his mind for several minutes. One would
hardly have believed that a bus-conductor could have held her own so long
in the mind of a person like Mr. Russell.
And Providence finally ordained that he should feel in his cigarette case
and find it empty.
"No cigarettes," said Mr. Russell, after pondering for a moment on this
disappointment.
"You smoke too much," said Cousin Gustus. "I once knew a man who
over-smoked all his life, and when he got a bullet in his lung in the
Zulu War he died, simply as the result of his foolishness. No
recuperative power. They said his lungs were simply leather."
"Should have thought that would've been a protection," said Mr. Russell.
"The train is not even signalled yet," said Cousin Gustus. "You would
have time to go to the station and tell Kew to get you some cigarettes."
But this was not Providence's intention, as interpreted by Mr.
Russell. "D'you know, I half believe I'll go up too," he said. "Would
you be lonely?"
"Not in the least," said Cousin Gustus pathetically; "I'm used to being
left alone."
As the signals dropped Mr. Russell sprang to his feet and ran down the
slope. He had country clothes on, and some thistledown and a sprig or two
of clover were sticking to them. He reached the station in time, and fell
over a crate of hens. The hens were furious about it, and said so. Mr.
Russell said nothing, but he felt hurt when the porter who opened the
door for him asked if the hens were his. After the train had started he
wished he had had time to tell the porter how impossible it was that a
man who owned a crate full of hens should fall over it. And then he
thought that would have been neither witty nor convincing. He was one of
those lucky people who say so little that they rarely have need to regret
what they have said.
The business that dragged him so precipitately from the country must, I
suppose, have been very urgent. It chanced that it lay at Ludgate Circus,
and it also chanced--not in the least unnaturally--that at half-past
eleven he was standing at Kensington Church waiting to be beckoned to
once more by a 'bus-conductor. The only unnatural thing was that several
'buses bound for Ludgate Circus passed without winning the patronage of
Mr. Russell.
The conductor came. Mr. Russell saw her round face and squared hair
appear out of the confusion of the street. He noticed with surprise that
he had not borne in mind the pleasing way in which the strap of her hat
tilted her already tilted chin.
Jay had been thinking a little about Mr. Russell, not much. She had been
wondering who he was. The Family's friends and relations were always much
talked of in the Family, and much invited, and much met. Mr. Russell had
not been among them when Jay had last known the Family. An idea was in
her mind that he might be a private detective, engaged by the Family to
seek out their fugitive young relation. Mr. Russell had plainly alluded
to a search. Jay had no experience of private detectives, but she thought
it quite possible that they might disguise themselves with rather low
foreheads, and rather frowning eyes, and shut thin mouths, and shut thin
expressions. She hoped that she would see him to-day. An hour ago a young
man with a spotty complexion and bulging eyes like a rabbit's had handed
her a note with his threepence, asking for a "two-and-a-half" in a
lovelorn voice. She handed him back his halfpenny and his unopened note
at once, saying, "Your change, sir," in a kind, absent-minded voice. I am
afraid an incident like this is always a little exciting, though I admit
it ought to be insulting. That suggestive fare made Jay hope more and
more that she would meet Mr. Russell to-day. I don't exactly know why,
except that sentimentality is an infectious complaint.
Mr. Russell got happily into the 'bus. He made the worst entrance
possible. His hat slipped crooked, he left one leg behind on the road,
and only retrieved it with the help of the conductor. Jay welcomed him
with a nod that was almost a bow, a remnant of her unprofessional past.
"Told you I'd come in this 'bus again," said Mr. Russell, sitting down in
the left-hand seat next to the door. I really don't know what would have
happened if that seat had been occupied. I suppose Mr. Russell would have
sat upon the occupier.
"A good many people like this service," said Jay; "it is considered very
convenient. How is your search going?"
"It hasn't begun yet," said Mr. Russell. "We haven't got within three
hundred miles of the House we're looking for."
"You know more or less where it is, then?" asked Jay, who sometimes
wanted to know this herself.
"I do know, but I don't know how I know, nor what I know."
"How funny that you--an Older and Wiser Man--should feel that sort of
knowledge," said Jay. As an afterthought she called him Sir.
The 'bus grew fuller, and only Jay's bell punctured the silence that
followed. A lady asked Jay to "set her down at Charing Cross Post
Office." "The 'bus stops there automatically, Madam," said Jay, and the
lady told her not to be impertinent.
Jay seemed a little subdued after this, and it was only after she had
stood for a minute or two on her platform in silence that she said to Mr.
Russell, "London seems dead to-day, doesn't it? Not even fog, only a
lifeless light. What's the use of daylight in London to-day? You know, I
don't live in London."
"No," said Mr. Russell, "where do you live?"
"London," replied Jay. "I mean my heart doesn't live in London mostly. I
think it lives very far away in the same sort of place as the place you
know without knowing how you know it. The happy shore of God Knows Where
must have a great population of hearts. To-day I hate London so that I
could tear it into pieces like a rag."
"You ought to start your 'bus on the search for the happy shore," said
Mr. Russell. "You'd find the track of my tyres before you. I b'lieve
you'd find the place."
"Well, that would be the only perfect Service," said Jay. "But I don't
believe the public would use the route much. I would go on and on, and
leave all old ruts behind. I would stop for no fares, even the sea should
not stop me. I would go on to the horizon to see if that secret look just
after sunset really means that the stars are just over the brink. Why do
people end themselves on a note of despair? I would choose that way of
perpetuating my Perfect Day. The police would see the top seats of the
'bus sticking out at low tide, and the verdict would be, 'Suicide while
of even more than usually unsound mind.'"
A 'bus has an unromantic voice. The bass is a snarl, and the treble is
made up of a shrill rattle. It was curious how this 'bus managed to
retain withal its fantastic atmosphere.