IN WHICH THE AFORESAID ADMONITUS LEADS THE AFORESAID
MEMBERS OF SOCIETY A DANCE
The two men stood there silently for some minutes; the voice died away
and the noise of the fair was softer and less discordant; past them
fluttered two white moths, the whirr of their wings, the heavy, clumsy
blundering against Tony’s coat, and then again the silence.
“I heard it last year, that song,” Maradick repeated; he puffed at his
cigar, and it gleamed for a moment as some great red star flung into the
sky a rival to the myriads above and around it. “It’s funny how things
like that stick in your brain—they are more important in a way than the
bigger things.”
“Perhaps they are the bigger things,” said Tony.
“Perhaps,” said Maradick.
He fell into silence again. He did not really want to talk, and he
wondered why this young fellow was so persistent. He was never a talking
man at any time, and to-night at any rate he would prefer to be left
alone. But after all, the young fellow couldn’t know that, and he had
offered to go. He could not think connectedly about anything; he could
only remember that he had been rude to his wife at dinner. No gentleman
would have said the things that he had said. He did not remember what he
had said, but it had been very rude; it was as though he had struck his
wife in the face.
“I say,” he said, “it’s time chaps of your age were in bed. Don’t
believe in staying up late.” He spoke gruffly, and looked over the wall
on to the whirling lights of the merry-go-round in the market-place.
“You said, you know,” said Tony, “that you wanted company; but, of
course——” He moved from the wall.
“Oh! stay if you like. Young chaps never will go to bed. If they only
knew what they were laying in store for themselves they’d be a bit more
careful. When you get to be an old buffer as I am——”
“Old!” Tony laughed. “Why, you’re not old.”
“Aren’t I? Turned forty, anyhow.”
“Why, you’re one of the strongest-looking men I’ve ever seen.” Tony’s
voice was a note of intense admiration.
Maradick laughed grimly. “It isn’t your physical strength that counts,
it’s the point of view—the way you look at things and the way people
look at you.”
The desire to talk grew with him; he didn’t want to think, he couldn’t
sleep—why not talk?
“But forty anyhow,” said Tony, “isn’t old. Nobody thinks you’re old at
forty.”
“Oh, don’t they? Wait till you are, you’ll know.”
“Well, Balzac——”
“Oh, damn your books! what do they know about it? Everyone takes things
from books nowadays instead of getting it first hand. People stick
themselves indoors and read a novel or two and think they know
life—such rot!”
Tony laughed. “I say,” he said, “you don’t think like that always, I
know—it’s only just for an argument.”
Maradick suddenly twisted round and faced Tony. He put his hand on his
shoulder.
“I say, kid,” he said, “go to bed. It doesn’t do a chap of your age any
good to talk to a pessimistic old buffer like myself. I’ll only growl
and you won’t be the better for it. Go to bed!”
Tony looked up at him without moving.
“I think I’ll stay. I expect you’ve got the pip, and it always does a
chap good, if he’s got the pip, to talk to somebody.”
“Have you been here before?” asked Tony.
“Oh yes! last year. I shan’t come again.”
“Why not?”
“It unsettles you. It doesn’t do to be unsettled when you get to my time
of life.”
“How do you mean—unsettles?”
Maradick considered. How exactly did he mean—unsettles? There was no
doubt that it did, though.
“Oh, I’m not much good at explaining, but when you’ve lived a certain
time you’ve got into a sort of groove—bound to, I suppose. I’ve got my
work, just like another man. Every morning breakfast the same time, same
rush to the station, same train, same morning paper, same office, same
office-boy, same people; back in the evening, same people again, same
little dinner, same little nap—oh, it’s like anyone else. One gets into
the way of thinking that that’s life, bounded by the Epsom golf course
and the office in town. All the rest one has put aside, and after a time
one thinks that it isn’t there. And then a man comes down here and, I
don’t know what it is, the place or having nothing to do upsets you and
things are all different.” Then, after a moment, “I suppose that’s what
a holiday’s meant for.”
He had been trying to put his feelings into words, but he knew that he
had not said at all what he had really felt. It was not the change of
life, the lazy hours and the pleasant people; besides, as far as that
went, he might at any moment, if he pleased, change things permanently.
He had made enough, he need not go back to the City at all; but he knew
it was not that. It was something that he had felt in the train, then in
the sight of the town, some vague discontent leading to that outbreak at
dinner. He was not a reading man or he might have considered the
Admonitus Locorum. He had never read of it nor had he knowledge of such
a spirit; but it _was_, it must be, the place.
“Yes,” said Tony, “of course I’ve never settled down to anything, yet,
you know; and so I can’t quite see as you do about the monotony. My
people have been very decent; I’ve been able to wander about and do as I
liked, and last year I was in Germany and had a splendid time. Simply
had a _rucksack_ and walked. And I can’t imagine settling down anywhere;
and even if I had somewhere—Epsom or anywhere—there would be the same
looking for adventure, looking out for things, you know.”
“Adventures in Epsom!”
“Why not? I expect it’s full of it.”
“Ah, that’s because you’re young! I was like that once, peering round
and calling five o’clock tea a romance. I’ve learnt better.”
Tony turned round. “It’s so absurd of you, you know, to talk as if you
were eighty. You speak as if everything was over, and you’re only
beginning.”
Maradick laughed. “Well, that’s pretty good cheek from a fellow half
your age! Why, what do you know about life, I’d like to know?”
“Oh, not much. As a matter of fact, it’s rather funny your talking like
that, because my people have been talking to me to-night about that very
thing—settling down, I mean. They say that my roving has lasted long
enough, and that I shall soon be turning into a waster if I don’t do
something. Also that it’s about time that I began to grow up. I don’t
know,” he added apologetically, “why I’m telling you this, it can’t
interest you, but they want me to do just the thing that you’ve been
complaining about.”
“Oh no, I haven’t been complaining,” said Maradick hastily. “All I’m
saying is, if you do get settled down don’t go anywhere or do anything
that will unsettle you again. It’s so damned hard getting back. But
what’s the use of my giving you advice and talking, you young chaps
never listen!”
“They sound as if they were enjoying themselves down there,” said Tony a
little wistfully. The excitement was still in his blood and a wild idea
flew into his brain. Why not? But no, it was absurd, he had only known
the man quarter of an hour. The lights of the merry-go-round tossed like
a thing possessed; whirl and flash, then motionless, and silence again.
The murmured hum of voices came to their ears. After all, why not?
“I say,” Tony touched Maradick’s arm, “why shouldn’t we stroll down
there, down to the town? It might be amusing. It would be a splendid
night for a walk, and it’s only twenty to eleven. We’d be back by
twelve.”
“Down there? Now!” Maradick laughed. But he had a strange yearning for
company. He couldn’t go back into the hotel, not yet, and he would only
lose himself in his own thoughts that led him nowhere if he stayed here
alone. A few days ago he would have mocked at the idea of wandering down
with a boy he didn’t know to see a round-about and some drunken
villagers; but things were different, some new impulse was at work
within him. Besides, he rather liked the boy. It was a long while since
anyone had claimed his companionship like that; indeed a few days ago he
would have repelled anyone who attempted it with no uncertain hand.
Maradick considered it.
“Oh, I say, do!” said Tony, his hand still on Maradick’s arm, and
delighted to find that his proposal was being seriously considered.
“After all, it’s only a stroll, and we’ll come back as soon as you wish.
We can get coats from the hotel; it might be rather amusing, you know.”
He was feeling better already. It was, of course, absurd that he should
go out on a mad game like that at such an hour, but—why not be absurd?
He hadn’t done anything ridiculous for fifteen years, nothing at all, so
it was high time he began.
“It _will_ be a rag!” said Tony.
They went in to get their coats. Two dark conspirators, they plunged
down the little crooked path that was the quickest way to the town. On
every side of them pressed the smell of the flowers, stronger and
sweeter than in the daylight, and their very vagueness of outline gave
them mystery and charm. The high peaks of the trees, outlined against
the sky, assumed strange and eerie shapes—the masts of a ship, the high
pinnacle of some cathedral, scythes and swords cutting the air; and
above them that wonderful night sky of the summer, something that had in
its light of the palest saffron promise of an early dawn, a wonderful
suggestion of myriad colours seen dimly through the curtain of dark
blue.
“By night we lingered on the lawn,
For underfoot the herb was dry;
And genial warmth, and o’er the sky
The silvery haze of summer drawn:
“And bats went round in fragrant skies,
And wheeled or lit the filmy shapes
That haunt the dusk, with ermine capes
And woolly breasts and beaded eyes:”
quoted Tony. “Tennyson, and jolly good at that.”
“Don’t know it,” said Maradick rather gruffly. “Bad for your business.
Besides, what do those chaps know about life? Shut themselves up in
their rooms and made rhymes over the fire. What could they know?”
“Oh, some of them,” said Tony, “knew a good bit. But I’m sorry I quoted.
It’s a shocking habit, and generally indulged in to show superiority to
your friends. But the sky is just like that to-night. Drawn lightly
across as though it hid all sorts of things on the other side.”
Maradick made no answer, and they walked on in silence. They reached the
end of the hotel garden, and passed through the little white gate into a
narrow path that skirted the town wall and brought you abruptly out into
the market-place by the church. It passed along a high bank that towered
over the river Ess on its way to the sea. It was rather a proud little
river as little rivers go, babbling and chattering in its early, higher
reaches, with the young gaiety suited to country vicarages and the paper
ships of village children; and then, solemn and tranquil, and even,
perhaps, a little important, as it neared the town and gave shelter to
brown-sailed herring-boats, and then, finally, agitated, excited,
tumultuous as it tumbled into its guardian, the sea.
To-night it passed contentedly under the walls of the town, singing a
very sleepy little song on its way, and playing games with the moonlight
and the stars. Here the noise of the fair was hidden and everything was
very still and peaceful. The footsteps of the two men were loud and
clear. The night air had straightened Maradick’s brain and he was more
at peace with the world, but there was, nevertheless, a certain feeling
of uneasiness, natural and indeed inevitable in a man who, after an
ordered and regulated existence of many years, does something that is
unusual and a little ridiculous. He had arrived, as was, indeed, the
case with so many persons of middle age, at that deliberate exclusion of
three sides of life in order to grasp fully the fourth side. By
persistent practice he had taught himself to believe that the other
three sides did not exist. He told himself that he was not adaptable,
that he had made his bed and must lie on it, that the moon was for
dreamers; and now suddenly, in the space of a day, the blind was drawn
from the window before which he had sat for fifteen years, and behold!
there were the stars!
Then Tony began again. It had been said of him that his worst fault was
his readiness to respond, that he did not know what it was to be on his
guard, and he treated Maradick now with a confidence and frankness that
was curiously intimate considering the length of their acquaintance. At
length he spoke of Alice Du Cane. “I know my people want it, and she’s
an awful good sort, really sporting, and the kind of girl you’d trust to
the end of your days. A girl you’d be absolutely safe with.”
“Do you care about her?” said Maradick.
“Of course. We’ve known each other for years. We’re not very sentimental
about it, but then for my part I distrust all that profoundly. It isn’t
what you want nowadays; good solid esteem is the only thing to build
on.”
Tony spoke with an air of deep experience. Maradick, with the thought of
his own failure in his mind, wondered whether, after all, that were not
the right way of looking at it. It had not been his way, fifteen years
before; he had been the true impetuous lover, and now he reaped his
harvest. Oh! these considering and careful young men and girls of the
new generation were learning their lesson, and yet, in spite of it all,
marriage turned out as many failures as ever. But this remark of the
boy’s had been little in agreement with the rest of him; he had been
romantic, impetuous, and very, very young, and this serious and rather
cynical doctrine of “good solid esteem” was out of keeping with the rest
of him.
“I wonder if you mean that,” he said, looking sharply at Tony.
“Of course. I’ve thought a great deal about marriage, in our set
especially. One sees fellows marrying every day, either because they’re
told to, or because they’re told not to, and both ways are bad. Of
course I’ve fancied I was in love once or twice, but it’s always passed
off. Supposing I’d married one of those girls, what would have come of
it? Disaster, naturally. So now I’m wiser.”
“Don’t you be too sure. It’s that wisdom that’s so dangerous. The Fates,
or whatever they are, always choose the cocksure moment for upsetting
the certainty. I shouldn’t wonder if you change your views before you’re
much older. You’re not the sort of chap, if you’ll pardon my saying so,
to do those things so philosophically. And then, there’s something in
the air of this place——”
Tony didn’t reply. He was wondering whether, after all, he was quite so
cocksure. He had been telling himself for the last month that it was
best, from every point of view, that he should marry Miss Du Cane; his
people, his future, his certainty of the safety of it, all urged him,
and yet—and yet . . . His mother’s words came back to him. “Tony, don’t
marry anybody unless you are quite certain that it is the only person.
Don’t let anything else influence you. Marriage with the wrong person is
. . .”
And then, in a moment, the fair was upon them. It had just struck eleven
and the excitement seemed at its height. The market-place was very
French in its neatness, and a certain gathering together of all the
life, spiritual and corporate, of the town; the church, Norman, and of
some historical interest, filled the right side of the square. Close at
its side, and squeezed between its grey walls and the solemn dignity of
the Town Hall, was a tall rectangular tower crowded with little slits of
windows and curious iron bars that jutted out into the air like pointing
fingers.
There was something rather pathetically dignified about it; it protested
against its modern neglect and desertion. You felt that it had, in an
earlier day, known brave times. Now the ground floor was used by a
fruiterer; apples and plums, cherries and pears were bought and sold,
and the Count’s Tower was Harding’s shop.
There were several other houses in the Square that told the same tale,
houses with fantastic bow-windows and little pepper-pot doors, tiny
balconies and quaintly carved figures that stared at you from hidden
corners; houses that were once the height of fashion now hid themselves
timidly from the real magnificence of the Town Hall. Their day was over,
and perhaps their very life was threatened. The Town Hall, with its
dinners and its balls and its speeches, need fear no rivalry.
But to-night the Town Hall was pushed aside and counted for nothing at
all. It was the one occasion of the year on which it was of no
importance, and the old, despised tower was far more in keeping with the
hour and the scene.
Down the centre of the Square were rows of booths lighted by gas-jets
that flamed and flared in the night-air with the hiss of many serpents.
These filled the middle line of the market. To the right was the
round-about; its circle of lights wheeling madly round and round gave it
the vitality of a living thing—some huge Leviathan on wheels bawling
discordantly the latest triumph of the Halls, and then, excited by its
voice, whirling ever swifter and swifter as though it would hurl itself
into the air and go rioting gaily through the market, and then suddenly
dropping, dead, exhausted, melancholy at the ceasing of its song:—
Put me amongst the—girls!
Those wi-th the curly curls!
and then a sudden vision of dark figures leaping up and down into the
light and out of it again, the wild waving of an arm, and the red, green
and yellow of the horses as they swirled up and down and round to the
tune.
In another corner, standing on a plank laid upon two barrels, his arms
raised fantastically above his head, was a preacher. Around him was
gathered a small circle of persons with books, and faintly, through the
noise of the merry-go-round and the cries of those that bought and sold,
came the shrill, wavering scream of a hymn:—
So like little candles
We shall shine,
You in your small corner
And I in mine.
Down the central alley passed crowds of men and women, sailors and their
sweethearts, for the most part; and strangely foreign looking a great
many of them were—brown and swarthy, with black curling hair and dark,
flashing eyes.
There were many country people wearing their Sunday clothes with an
uneasiness that had also something of admitted virtue and pride about
it. Their ill-fitting and absurdly self-conscious garments hung about
them and confined their movements; they watched the scene around them
almost furtively, and with a certain subdued terror. It was the day, the
night of the year to them; it had been looked forward to and counted and
solemnised with the dignity of a much-be-thumbed calendar, and through
the long dreary days of winter, when snow and the blinding mist hemmed
in solitary farms with desolation, it had been anticipated and foreseen
with eager intensity. Now that it was here and was so soon to stand, a
lonely pillar in the utterly uneventful waste-land of the year, they
looked at it timorously, fearfully, and yet with eager excitement. These
lights, this noise, this crowd, how wonderful to look back upon it all
afterwards, and how perilous it all was! They moved carefully through
the line of booths, wondering at the splendour and magnificence of them,
buying a little once or twice, and then repenting of what they had done.
Another hour and it would be over; already they shuddered at the
blackness of to-morrow.
With the townspeople, the fishermen and sailors from Penzance, it was an
old affair; something amusing and calculated to improve materially
matters financial and matters amatory, but by no means a thing to wonder
at. The last night of the three days fair was, however, of real
importance. According to ancient superstition, a procession was formed
by all the citizens of the town, and this marched, headed by flaming
torches and an ancient drum, round the walls. This had been done, so
went the legend, ever since the days of the Celts, when naked invaders
had marched with wild cries and derisive gestures round and round the
town, concluding with a general massacre and a laying low of the walls.
The town had soon sprung to life again, and the ceremony had become an
anniversary and the anniversary a fair. The last dying screams of those
ancient peoples were turned, now, into the shrieking of a merry-go-round
and the sale of toffy and the chattering of many old women; and there
were but few in the place who remembered what those origins had been.
Excitement was in the air, and the Square seemed to grow more crowded at
every moment. The flaring of the gas flung gigantic shadows on the
walls, and the light was on the town so that its sides shone as though
with fire. The noise was deafening—the screaming of the roundabout, the
shouts of the riders, the cries and laughter of the crowd made a
confused babel of sound, and in the distance could be heard the beating
of the drum. It was the hour of the final ceremony.
“I wonder,” said Maradick, “what the people in those houses think of it.
Sleep must be a difficulty under the circumstances.”
“I should think,” said Tony, laughing, “that they are all out here. I
expect that most of the town is here by this time.” And, indeed, there
was an enormous crowd. The preacher was in danger of being pushed off
his plank; the people surged round dancing, singing, shouting, and his
little circle had been caught in the multitude and had been swallowed
up. Very few of the people seemed to be listening to him; but he talked
on, waving the book in his hand, standing out sharply against the
shining tower at his back.
Words came to them: “To-morrow it will be too late. I tell you, my
friends, that it is now and now only that . . . And the door was shut
. . . We cannot choose . . .”
But the drum was in the Square. Standing on the steps of the Town Hall,
clothed in his official red, the Town Clerk, a short, pompous man,
saluted the fair. No words could penetrate the confusion, but people
began to gather round him shouting and singing. The buying and selling
entered into the last frenzied five minutes before finally ceasing
altogether. Prices suddenly fell to nothing at all, and wise and
cautious spirits who had been waiting for this moment throughout the day
crowded round and swept up the most wonderful bargains.
The preacher saw the crowd had no ears for him now, and so, with a last
little despairing shake of the arm, he closed his book and jumped off
his plank. The round-about gave a last shriek of enthusiasm and then
dropped exhausted, with the happy sense that it had added to the gaiety
of the nations and had brought many coppers into the pockets of its
master.
The crowd surged towards the little red beadle with the drum, and
Maradick and Tony surged with it. It was beyond question a very lively
crowd, and it threatened to be livelier with every beat of the drum. The
sound was intoxicating beyond a doubt, and when you had already paid a
visit to the “Red Lion” and enjoyed a merry glass with your best friend,
of course you entered into the spirit of things more heartily than ever.
And then, too, this dance round the town was the moment of the year. It
was the one occasion on which no questions were asked and no surprise
ever shown. Decorum and propriety, both excellent things, were for once
flung aside; for unless they were discarded the spirit of the dance was
not enjoyed. It was deeply symbolic; a glorious quarter of an hour into
which you might fling all the inaction of the year—disappointment,
revenge, jealousy, hate went, like soiled and useless rags, into the
seething pot, and were danced away for ever. You expressed, too, all
your joy and gratitude for a delightful year and a most merry fair, and
you drank in, as it were wine, encouragement and hope for the year to
come. There had been bad seasons and disappointing friends, and the sad
knowledge that you weren’t as strong as you had once been; but into the
pot with it all! Dance it away into limbo! and, on the back of that
merry drum, sits a spirit that will put new heart into you and will send
your toes twinkling down the street.
And then, best of all, it was a Dance of Hearts. It was the great moment
at which certainty came to you, and, as you followed that drum down the
curving street, you knew that the most wonderful thing in the world had
come to you, and that you would never be quite the same person again;
perhaps she had danced with you down the street, perhaps she had watched
you and listened to the drum and known that there was no question any
more. I do not know how many marriages in Treliss that drum had been
answerable for, but it knew its business.
The crowd began to form into some kind of order with a great deal of
pushing and laughter and noise. There were whistles and little flags and
tin horns. It was considered to bring good luck in the succeeding year,
and so every kind of person was struggling for a place. If you had not
danced then your prospects for the next twelve months were poor indeed,
and your neighbours marked you down as some one doomed to misfortune.
Very old women were there, their skirts gathered tightly about them,
their mouths firm set and their eyes on the drum. Old men were pushed
aside by younger ones and took it quietly and with submission,
contenting themselves with the thought of the years when they had done
their share of the fighting and had had a place with the best. Towards
the front most of the young men were gathered. The crowd wound round the
market, serpent-wise, coiling round and over the booths and stalls,
twisting past the grey tower, and down finally into grey depths where
the pepper-pot houses bent and twisted under the red flare of the
lights.
Maradick and Tony were wedged tightly between flank and rear; as things
were it was difficult enough to keep one’s feet. At Maradick’s side was
an old woman, stout, with her bonnet whisked distractingly back from her
forehead, her grey hairs waving behind her, her hands pressed tightly
over a basket that she clasped to her waist.
“Eh sirs . . . eh sirs!” pantingly, breathlessly she gasped forth, and
then her hand was hurriedly pressed to her forehead; with that up flew
the lid of the basket and the scraggy lean neck of a hen poked miserably
into the air and screeched frantically. “Down, Janet; but the likes of
this . . . never did I see.” But nevertheless something triumphant in it
all; at least she kept her place.
Already feet were beating to the tune of the drum; a measured stamp,
stamp on the cobbles spoke of an itching to be off, a longing for the
great moment. Waves of excitement surged through the crowd. For a moment
it seemed as though everyone would be carried away, feet would lose
their hold of the pavement and the multitude would tumble furiously down
the hill; but no, the wave surged to the little red drum and then surged
back again. The drum was not ready; everyone was not there.
“Patience”—you could hear it speak, stolidly, resolutely, in its
beats—“Patience, the time is coming if you will only be patient. You
must trust me for the great moment.”
Maradick was crushed against the old lady with the basket; for an
instant, a movement in the crowd flung him forward and he caught at the
basket to steady himself. Really, it was too ridiculous! His hat had
fallen to the back of his head, he was hot and perspiring, and he wanted
to fling off his overcoat, but his hands were pressed to his sides.
Mechanically his feet were keeping time with the drum, and suddenly he
laughed. An old man in front of him was crushed sideways between two
stalwart youths, and every now and again he struggled to escape, making
pathetic little movements with his hands and then sinking back again,
resigned. His old, wrinkled face, with a crooked nose and an expression
of timid anxiety, seemed to Maradick infinitely diverting. “By Jove,” he
cried, “look at that fellow!” But Tony was excited beyond measure.
He was crushed against Maradick, his cap balancing ridiculously on the
back of his head; his mouth was smiling and his feet were beating time.
“Isn’t it a rag? I say, isn’t it? Such fun! Oh, I beg your pardon, I’m
afraid that I stepped on you. But there is a crowd, isn’t there? It’s
really awfully hard to help it. Oh! let me pick it up for you—a
cucumber, you said? Oh, there it is, rolled right away under that man
there.” “Oh thank you, if you wouldn’t mind!” “No, it’s none the worse,
missis. I say, Maradick, aren’t they decent; the people, I mean?”
And then suddenly they were off. The red coat of the town-crier waved in
the wind and the drum moved.
For a moment a curious silence fell on the crowd. Before, there had been
Babel—a very ocean of voices mingled with cries and horns and the
blaring of penny whistles—you could scarcely hear yourself speak. But
now there was silence. The drum beat came clearly through the air—one,
two, one, two—and then, with a shout the silence was broken and the
procession moved.
There was a sudden linking of arms down the line and Tony put his
through Maradick’s. With feet in line they passed down the square,
bending forward, then back; at one moment the old woman’s basket jumped
suddenly into Maradick’s stomach, then he was pushed from behind. He
felt that his cap was wobbling and he took it off, and, holding it
tightly to his chest, passed on bareheaded.
At the turning of the corner the pace became faster. The beat of the
drum, heard faintly through the noise of the crowd, was now “two, three,
two, three.” “Come along, come along, it’s time to move, I’m tired of
standing still!”
A delirium seemed to seize the front lines, and it passed like a flame
down the ranks. Faster, faster. For heaven’s sake, faster! People were
singing, a strange tune that seemed to have no words but only a
crescendo of sound, a murmur that rose to a hum and then to a scream,
and then sank again back into the wind and the beat of the drum.
They had left the market-place and were struggling, pressing, down the
narrow street that led to the bay. Some one in front broke into a kind
of dance-step. One, two, three, then forward bending almost double, your
head down, then one, two, three, and your body back again, a leg in air,
your head flung behind. It was the dance, the dance!
The spirit was upon them, the drum had given the word, and the whole
company danced down the hill, over the cobbles. One, two, three, bend,
one, two, three, back, leg in air! “Oh, but I can’t!” Maradick was
panting. He could not stop, for they were pressing close behind him. The
old woman had lost all sense of decorum. She waved her basket in the
air, and from its depths came the scream of the hen. Tony’s arm was
tight through his, and Tony was dancing. One, two, three, and everyone
bent together. One, two, three, legs were in the air. Faces were flushed
with excitement, hands were clenched, and the tune rose and fell. For an
instant Maradick resisted. He must get out of it; he tried to draw his
arm away. It was held in a vice and Tony was too excited to listen, and
then propriety, years, tradition went hustling to the winds and he was
dancing as the others. He shouted wildly, he waved his cap in the air;
then he caught the tune and shouted it with the others.
A strange hallucination came upon him that he was some one else, that
he, as Maradick, did not exist. Epsom was a lie and the office in town a
delusion. The years seemed to step off his back, like Pilgrim’s pack,
and so, shouting and singing, he danced down the street.
They reached the bottom of the hill and turned the corner along the path
that led by the bay. The sea lay motionless at their feet, the path of
the moon stretching to the horizon.
The tune was wilder and wilder; the dance had done its work, and enough
marriages were in the making to fill the church for a year of Sundays.
There was no surprise at the presence of Tony and Maradick. This was an
occasion in which no one was responsible for their actions, and if
gentlemen chose to join, well, there was nothing very much to wonder at.
To Tony it seemed the moment of his life. This was what he had been born
to do, to dance madly round the town. It seemed to signify comradeship,
good fellowship, the true equality. It was the old Greek spirit come to
life again; that spirit of which he had spoken to Alice—something that
Homer had known and something that Whitman had preached. And so up the
hill! madly capering, gesticulating, shouting. Some one is down, but no
one stops. He is left to pick himself up and come limping after. Mr.
Trefusis the butcher had been for a twelvemonth at war with Mr. Curtis
the stationer, now they are arm in arm, both absurdly stout; the collar
of Mr. Curtis is burst at the neck, but they are friends once more. Mrs.
Graham, laundress, had insulted Miss Penny, dressmaker, four months ago,
and they had not spoken since; now, with bonnets awry and buttons
bursting down the back, it is a case of “Mary” and “Agnes” once again.
Oh! the drum knew its work.
And then it was suddenly over. The top of the hill completed the circle
and the market was reached again. The drum beat a frantic tattoo on the
steps of the Town Hall, the crowd surged madly round the square, and
then suddenly the screams died away, a last feeble beat was heard, and
there was silence. People leaned breathlessly against any support that
might be there and thought suddenly of the disorder of their dress.
Everyone was perhaps a little sheepish, and some had the air of those
who had suddenly awaked from sleep.
Maradick came speedily to his senses. He did not know what he had been
doing, but it had all been very foolish. He straightened his tie, put on
his cap, wiped his forehead, and drew his arm from Tony’s. He was very
thankful that there was no one there who knew him. What would his clerks
have said had they seen him? Fancy the office-boy! And then the Epsom
people. Just fancy! Louie, Mrs. Martin Fraser, old Tom Craddock.
Maradick, James Maradick dancing wildly down the street with an old
woman. It was incredible!
But there was still that strange, half-conscious feeling that it had not
been Maradick at all, or, at any rate, some strange, curious Maradick
whose existence until to-night had never been expected. It was not the
Maradick of Epsom and the City. And then the Admonitus Locorum, perched
gaily on his shoulder, laughed hilariously and winked at the Tower.
Tony was excited as he had never been before, and was talking eagerly to
an old deaf man who had managed to keep up with the company but was
sadly exhausted by the doing of it.
“My last,” sighed the old man between gasps for breath. “Don’t ’ee tell
me, young feller, I shan’t see another.”
“Nonsense,” Tony waved his arms in the air, “why, you’re quite young
still. You’re a fisherman, aren’t you? How splendid. I’d give anything
to be a fisherman. I’ll come down and watch you sometimes and you must
come up and have tea.”
At this point Maradick intervened.
“I say, let’s get out of this, it’s so hot. Come away from the crowd.”
He pulled Tony by the arm.
“All right.” Tony shook the old man by the hand. “Good-bye, I’ll come
and watch you fish one morning. By Jove, it is hot! but what fun! Where
shall we go?”
“I propose bed,” said Maradick, rather grimly. He felt suddenly out of
sympathy with the whole thing. It was as though some outside power had
slipped the real Maradick, the Maradick of business and disillusioned
forty, back into his proper place again. The crowd became something
common and even disgusting. He glanced round to assure himself that no
one who mattered had been witness of his antics as he called them; he
felt a little annoyed with Tony for leading him into it. It all arose,
after all, from that first indiscreet departure from the hotel. He now
felt that an immediate return to his rooms was the only secure method of
retreat. The dance stood before him as some horrible indiscretion
indulged in by some irresponsible and unauthorised part of him. How
could he! The ludicrous skinny neck of the shrieking hen pointed the
moral of the whole affair. He felt that he had, most horribly, let
himself down.
“Yes, bed,” he said. “We’ve fooled enough.” But for Tony the evening was
by no means over. The dance had been merely the symbol of a new order of
things. It was the physical expression of something that he had been
feeling so strangely, so beautifully, during these last few days. He had
called it by so many names—Sincerity, Simplicity, Beauty, the Classical
Spirit, the Heroic Age—but none of these names had served, for it was
made up of all these things, and, nevertheless, was none of them alone.
He had wondered at this new impulse, almost, indeed, new knowledge; and
yet scarcely new, because he felt as if he had known it all, the impulse
and the vitality and the simplicity of it, some long time before.
And now that dance had made things clearer for him. It was something
that he had done in other places, with other persons, many hundreds,
nay, thousands of years ago; he had found his place in the golden chain
that encircled the world. And so, of course, he did not wish to go back.
He would never go back; he would never go to sleep again, and so he told
Maradick.
“Well, I shall go,” said Maradick, and he led the way out of the crowd.
Then Tony felt that he had been rude. After all, he had persuaded
Maradick to come, and it was rather discourteous now to allow him to
return alone.
“Perhaps,” he said regretfully, “it would be better. But it is such a
splendid night, and one doesn’t get the chance of a game like that very
often.”
“No,” said Maradick, “perhaps it’s as well. I don’t know what led me;
and now I’m hot, dusty, beastly!”
“I say a drink,” said Tony. They had passed out of the market-place and
were turning up the corner of the crooked street to their right. A
little inn, the “Red Guard,” still showed light in its windows. The door
flung open and two men came out, and, with them, the noise of other
voices. Late though the hour was, trade was still being driven; it was
the night of the year and all rules might be broken with impunity.
Maradick and Tony entered.
The doorway was low and the passage through which they passed thick with
smoke and heavy with the smell of beer. The floor was rough and uneven,
and the hissing gas, mistily hanging in obscure distance, was utterly
insufficient. They groped their way, and at last, guided by voices,
found the door of the taproom. This was very full indeed, and the air
might have been cut with a knife. Somewhere in the smoky haze there was
a song that gained, now and again, at chorus point, a ready assistance
from the room at large.
Tony was delighted. “Why, it’s Shelley’s Inn!” he cried. “Oh! you know!
where he had the bacon,” and he quoted: “‘. . . A Windsor chair, at a
small round beechen table in a little dark room with a well-sanded
floor.’ It’s just as though I’d been here before. What ripping chaps!”
There was a small table in a corner by the door, and they sat down and
called for beer. The smoke was so thick that it was almost as though
they had the room to themselves. Heads and boots and long sinewy arms
appeared through the clouds and vanished again. Every now and again the
opening of the door would send the smoke in whirling eddies down the
room and the horizon would clear; then, in a moment, there was mist
again.
“‘What would Miss Warne say?’” quoted Tony. “You know, it’s what
Elizabeth Westbrook was always saying, the sister of Harriet; but poets
bore you, don’t they? Only it’s a Shelley night somehow. He would have
danced like anything. Isn’t this beer splendid? We must come here
again.”
But Maradick was ill at ease. His great overwhelming desire was to get
back, speedily, secretly, securely. He hated this smelly, smoky tavern.
He had never been to such a place in his life, and he didn’t know why he
had ever suffered Tony to lead him there. He was rather annoyed with
Tony, to tell the truth. His perpetual enthusiasm was a trifle wearisome
and he had advanced in his acquaintanceship with a rapidity that
Maradick’s caution somewhat resented. And then there was a lack of scale
that was a little humiliating. Maradick had started that evening with
the air of one who confers a favour; now he felt that he was flung, in
Tony’s brain, into the same basket with the old fisherman, the landlord
of the “Red Guard,” and the other jovial fellows in the room. They were
all “delightful,” “charming,” “the best company”; there was, he felt
resentfully, no discrimination. The whole evening had been, perhaps, a
mistake, and for the future he would be more careful.
And then suddenly he noticed that some one was sitting at their little
table. It was strange that he had not seen him before, for the table was
small and they were near the door. But he had been absorbed in his
thoughts and his eyes had been turned away. A little man in brown sat at
his side, quite silently, his eyes fixed on the window; he did not seem
to have noticed their presence. His age might have been anything between
forty and fifty, but he had a prosperous air as of one who had found
life a pleasant affair and anything but a problem; a gentleman, Maradick
concluded.
And then he suddenly looked up and caught Maradick’s gaze. He smiled. It
was the most charming smile that Maradick had ever seen, something that
lightened not only the face but the whole room, and something incredibly
young and engaging. Tony caught the infection of it and smiled too.
Maradick had no idea at the time that this meeting was, in any way, to
be of importance to him; but he remembered afterwards every detail of
it, and especially that beautiful sudden smile, the youth and frankness
in it. In other days, when the moment had assumed an almost tragic
importance in the light of after events, the picture was, perhaps, the
most prominent background that he possessed; the misted, entangled light
struck the little dark black table, the sanded floor, the highraftered
ceiling: then there were the dark spaces beyond peopled with mysterious
shapes and tumultuous with a hundred voices. And finally the quiet
little man in brown.
“You have been watching the festival?” he said. There was something a
little foreign in the poise and balance of the sentence; the English
pronunciation was perfect? but the words were a little too distinct.
Maradick looked at him again. There _was_, perhaps, something foreign
about his face—rather sallow, and his hair was of a raven blackness.
“Yes,” said Maradick. “It was most interesting. I have never seen
anything quite like it before.”
“You followed it?” he asked.
“Yes.” Maradick hesitated a little.
“Rather!” Tony broke in; “we danced as well. I never had such fun. We’re
up at the hotel there; we saw the lights and were tempted to come down,
but we never expected anything like that. I wish there was another night
of it.”
He was leaning back in his chair, his greatcoat flung open and his cap
tilted at the back of his head. The stranger looked at him with
appreciation.
“I’m glad you liked it. It’s _the_ night for our little town, but it’s
been kept more or less to ourselves. People don’t know about it, which
is a good thing. You needn’t tell them or it will be ruined.”
“Our town.” Then the man belonged to the place. And yet he was surely
not indigenous.
“It’s not new to you?” said Maradick tentatively.
“New! Oh! dear me, no!” the man laughed. “I belong here and have for
many years past. At least it has been my background, as it were. You
would be surprised at the amount that the place contains.”
“Oh, one can see that,” said Tony. “It has atmosphere more than any
place I ever knew—medieval, and not ashamed of it, which is unusual for
England.”
“We have been almost untouched,” said the other, “by all this
modernising that is ruining England. We are exactly as we were five
hundred years ago, in spite of the hotel. For the rest, Cornwall is
being ruined. Look at Pendragon, Conister, and hundreds of places. But
here we have our fair and our dance and our crooked houses, and are not
ashamed.”
But Maradick had no desire to continue the conversation. He suddenly
realised that he was very tired, sleepy—bed was the place, and this
place with its chorus of sailors and smoke. . . . He finished his beer
and rose.
“I’m afraid that we must be getting back,” he said. “It’s very late. I
had no intention really of remaining as late.” He suddenly felt foolish,
as though the other two were laughing at him. He felt strangely
irritated.
“Of course,” he said to Tony, “it’s only myself. Don’t you hurry; but
old bones, you know——” He tried to carry it off with a laugh.
“Oh! I’m coming,” said Tony. “We said we’d be back by twelve, and we’ve
got five minutes. So we’ll say good night, sir.”
He held out his hand to the man in brown. The stranger took out a
card-case and handed his card.
“In case you would care to see round the place—there’s a good deal that
I could show you. I should be very pleased at any time if you are making
a lengthy stay; I shall be here for some months now, and am entirely at
your service.”
He looked at Maradick as he spoke and smiled, but it was obviously Tony
for whom the invitation was meant. Maradick felt absurdly out of it.
“Oh, thank you,” said Tony, “I should be awfully glad. I think that we
shall be here some time; I will certainly come if I may.”
They smiled at each other, the stranger bowed, and they were once more
in the cooler air.
Under the light of the lamp Tony read the card:—
“Mr. Andreas Morelli,
_19 Trevenna Street, Treliss_.”
“Ah! a foreigner, as I thought,” said Tony. “What an awfully nice man.
Did you ever see such a smile?”
“Rather a short acquaintance!” said Maradick. “We only spoke to him for
a minute, and then he offered his card. One has to be a little careful.”
“Oh! you could tell he was all right,” said Tony; “look at his eyes. But
what fun it’s all been. Aren’t you glad you came down?”
Maradick couldn’t honestly say that he was, but he answered in the
affirmative. “Only, you know,” he said, laughing, “it’s an unusual
evening for a man like myself. We run along on wheels and prefer
sticking to the rails.”
They were climbing the hill. “Why, this is Trevenna Street!” cried Tony,
catching sight of the name on one of the houses. “The man lives here.”
The street was quaint and picturesque, and on some of the walls there
was ancient carving; heads leered at them from over the doors and
window-ledges. Then it struck twelve from somewhere in the town, and
immediately all the lights went out; the street was in darkness, for, at
the moment, the clouds were over the moon.
“We’re in the provinces,” said Tony, laughing. “We ought to have
link-boys.”
Suddenly above their heads there was a light. A window was flung up and
some one was standing there with a candle. It was a girl; in the
candle-light she stood out brilliantly against the black background. She
leaned out of the window.
“Is that you, father?” she called.
Then some one spoke from inside the room. There was a petulant “Oh
bother! Miss Minns!” and then the window closed.
Maradick had scarcely noticed the affair. He was hurrying up the hill,
eager to reach the hotel.
But Tony stood where he was. “By Jove!” he cried. “Did you see her eyes?
Wonderful! Why, you never in all your life——!”
“Candle-light is deceptive,” said Maradick.
“She was wonderful! Glorious! Just for a moment like that out of the
darkness! But this is indeed a city of miracles!” He looked back; the
house was in absolute darkness.
“She doesn’t like Miss Minns,” he added, “I expect Miss Minns is a
beast; I, too, hate Miss Minns.”
At last, in the dark, mysterious hall they parted. “Oh! for bed!” said
Maradick.
“But what a night!” cried Tony. “By heaven! what a night!”
And the Admonitus Locorum smiled, very knowingly, from the head of the
stairs.