The selection of presents for children is never easy, because in order
to extract real pleasure from the purchase it is necessary to find
something that excites the donor as much as it is likely to excite the
recipient. In John's case this difficulty was quadrupled by having to
find toys with an American air about them, and on top of that by the
narrowly restricted choice in the Galton shops. He felt that it would be
ridiculous, even insulting, to produce for Frida as typical of New
York's luxurious catering for the young that doll, the roses of whose
cheeks had withered in the sunlight of five Hampshire summers, and whose
smile had failed to allure as little girls those who were now
marriageable young women. Nor did he think that Harold would accept as
worthy of American enterprise those more conspicuous portions of a
diminutive Uhlan's uniform fastened to a dog's-eared sheet of cardboard,
the sword belonging to which was rusting in the scabbard and the gilt
lancehead of which no longer gave the least illusion of being metal.
Finally, however, just as the clock was striking five he unearthed from
a remote corner of the large ironmonger's shop, to which he had turned
in despair from the toys offered him by the two stationers, a toboggan,
and not merely a toboggan but a Canadian toboggan stamped with the image
of a Red Indian.
"It was ordered for a customer in 1895," the ironmonger explained.
"There was heavy snow that year, you may remember."
If it had been ordered by Methuselah when he was still in his 'teens
John would not have hesitated.
"Well, would you--er--wrap it up," he said, putting down the money.
"Hadn't the carrier better bring it, sir?" suggested the ironmonger.
"He'll be going Wrottesford way to-morrow morning."
Obviously John could not carry the toboggan five miles, but just as
obviously he must get the toboggan back to Ambles that night: so he
declined the carrier, and asked the ironmonger to order him a fly while
he made a last desperate search for Frida's present. In the end, with
twilight falling fast, he bought for his niece twenty-nine small china
animals, which the stationer assured him would enchant any child between
nine and eleven, though perhaps less likely to appeal to ages outside
that period. A younger child, for instance, might be tempted to put them
in its mouth, even to swallow them if not carefully watched, while an
older child might tread on them. Another advantage was that when the
young lady for whom they were intended grew out of them, they could be
put away and revived to adorn her mantelpiece when she had reached an
age to appreciate the possibilities of a mantelpiece. John did not feel
as happy about these animals as he did about the toboggan: there was not
a single buffalo among them, and not one looked in the least
distinctively American, but the stationer was so reassuring and time was
going by so rapidly that he decided to risk the purchase. And really
when they were deposited in a cardboard box among cotton-wool they did
not look so dull, and perhaps Frida would enjoy guessing how many there
were before she unpacked them.
"Better than a Noah's Ark," said John, hopefully.
"Oh yes, much better, sir. A much more suitable present for a young
lady. In fact Noah's Arks are considered all right for village treats,
but they're in very little demand among the gentry nowadays."
When John was within a quarter of a mile from Ambles he told the driver
of the fly to stop. Somehow he must creep into the house and up to his
room with the toboggan and the china animals; it was after six, and the
children would have been looking out for his return since five. Perhaps
the cows would have gone home by now and he should not excite their
nocturnal apprehensions by dragging the toboggan across the twenty-acre
field. Meanwhile, he should tell the fly to wait five minutes before
driving slowly up to the house, which would draw the scent and enable
him with Emily's help to reach his room unperceived by the backstairs. A
heavy mist hung upon the meadow, and the paper wrapped round the
toboggan, which was just too wide to be carried under his arm like a
portfolio, began to peel off in the dew with a swishing sound that would
inevitably attract the curiosity of the cows were they still at large;
moreover, several of the china animals were now chinking together and,
John could not help feeling with some anxiety, probably chipping off
their noses.
"I must look like a broken-down Santa Claus with this vehicle," he said
to himself. "Where's the path got to now? I wonder why people wiggle so
when they make a path? Hullo! What's that?"
The munching of cattle was audible close at hand, a munching that was
sometimes interrupted by awful snorts.
"Perhaps it's only the mist that makes them do that," John tried to
assure himself. "It seems very imprudent to leave valuable cows out of
doors on a damp night like this."
There was a sound of heavy bodies moving suddenly in unison.
"They've heard me," thought John, hopelessly. "I wish to goodness I knew
something about cows. I really must get the subject up. Of course, they
_may_ be frightened of _me_. Good heavens, they're all snorting now.
Probably the best thing to do is to keep on calmly walking; most animals
are susceptible to human indifference. What a little fool that nephew of
mine was to shoot at them this afternoon. I'm hanged if he deserves his
toboggan."
The lights of Ambles stained the mist in front; John ran the last fifty
yards, threw himself over the iron railings, and stood panting upon his
own lawn. In the distance could be heard the confused thudding of hoofs
dying away toward the far end of the twenty-acre meadow.
"I evidently frightened them," John thought.
A few minutes later he was calling down from the landing outside his
bedroom that it was time for presents. In the first brief moment of
intoxication that had succeeded his defeat of the cattle John had
seriously contemplated tobogganing downstairs himself in order to
"surprise the kids" as he put it. But from his landing the staircase
looked all wrong for such an experiment and he walked the toboggan down,
which lamplight appeared to him a typical product of the bear-haunted
mountains of Canada.
Everybody was waiting for him in the drawing-room; everybody was
flatteringly enthusiastic about the toboggan and seemed anxious to make
it at home in such strange surroundings; nobody failed to point out to
the lucky boy the extreme kindness of his uncle in bringing back such a
wonderful present all the way from America--indeed one almost had the
impression that John must often have had to wake up and feed it in the
night.
"The trouble you must have taken," Hilda exclaimed.
"Yes, I did take a good deal of trouble," John admitted. After all, so
he had--a damned sight more trouble than any one there suspected.
"When will it snow?" Harold asked. "To-morrow?"
"I hope not--I mean, it might," said John. He must keep up Harold's
spirits, if only to balance Frida's depression, about whose present he
was beginning to feel very doubtful when he saw her eyes glittering with
feverish anticipation while he was undoing the string. He hoped she
would not faint or scream with disappointment when it was opened, and he
took off the lid of the box with the kind of flourish to which waiters
often treat dish-covers when they wish to promote an appetite among the
guests.
"How sweet," Edith murmured.
John looked gratefully at his sister; if he had made his will that night
she would have inherited Ambles.
"Ah, a collection of small china animals," said Laurence, choosing a cat
to set delicately upon the table for general admiration. John wished he
had not chosen the cat that seemed to suffer with a tumor in the region
of the tail and disinclined in consequence to sit still.
"Yes, I was anxious to get her a Noah's Ark," John volunteered, seeming
to suggest by his tone how appropriate such a gift would have been to
the atmosphere of a vicarage. "But they've practically given up making
Noah's Arks in America, and you see, these china animals will serve as
toys now, and later on, when Frida is grown-up, they'll look jolly on
the mantelpiece. Those that are not broken, of course."
The animals had all been taken out of their box by now, but a few paws
and ears were still adhering to the cotton-wool.
"Frida is always very light on her toys," said Edith, proudly.
"Not likely to put them in her mouth," said John, heartily. "That was
the only thing that made me hesitate when I first saw them in Fifth
Avenue. But they don't look quite so edible here."
"Frida never puts anything in her mouth," Edith generalized, primly.
"And she's given up biting her nails since Uncle John came home, haven't
you, dear?"
"That's a good girl," John applauded; he did not believe in Frida's
sudden conquest of autophagy, but he was anxious to encourage her in
every way at the moment.
Yes, the gift-horses had shown off their paces better than he had
expected, he decided. To be sure, Frida did not appear beside herself
with joy, but at any rate she had not burst into tears--she had not
thrust the present from her sight with loathing and begged to be taken
home. And then Harold, who had been staring at the animals through his
glasses, like the horrid little naturalist that he was, said:
"I've seen some animals like them in Mr. Goodman's shop."
John hoped a blizzard would blow to-morrow, that Harold would toboggan
recklessly down the steepest slope of the downs behind Ambles, and that
he would hit an oak tree at the bottom and break his glasses. However,
none of these dark thoughts obscured the remote brightness with which he
answered:
"Really, Harold. Very likely. There is a considerable exportation of
china animals from America nowadays. In fact I was very lucky to find
any left in America."
"Let's go into Gallon to-morrow and look at Mr. Goodman's animals,"
Harold suggested.
John had never suspected that one day he should feel grateful to his
brother-in-law; but when the dinner-bell went at half-past six instead
of half-past seven solely on his account, John felt inclined to shake
him by the hand. Nor would he have ever supposed that he should one day
welcome the prospect of one of Laurence's long confidential talks. Yet
when the ladies departed after dessert and Laurence took the chair next
to himself as solemnly as if it were a fald-stool, he encouraged him
with a smile.
"We might have our little talk now," and when Laurence cleared his
throat John felt that the conversation had been opened as successfully
as a local bazaar. Not merely did John smile encouragingly, but he
actually went so far as to invite him to go ahead.
Laurence sighed, and poured himself out a second glass of port.
"I find myself in a position of considerable difficulty," he announced,
"and should like your advice."
John's mind went rapidly to the balance in his passbook instead of to
the treasure of worldly experience from which he might have drawn.
"Perhaps before we begin our little talk," said Laurence, "it would be
as well if I were to remind you of some of the outstanding events and
influences in my life. You will then be in a better position to give me
the advice and help--ah--the moral help, of which I stand in
need--ah--in sore need."
"He keeps calling it a little talk," John thought, "but by Jove, it's
lucky we did have dinner early. At this rate he won't get back to his
vicarage before cock-crow."
John was not deceived by his brother-in-law's minification of their
talk, and he exchanged the trim Henry Clay he had already clipped for a
very large Upman that would smoke for a good hour.
"Won't you light up before you begin?" he asked, pushing a box of
commonplace Murillos toward his brother-in-law, whose habit of biting
off the end of a cigar, of letting it go out, of continually knocking
off the ash, of forgetting to remove the band till it was smoldering,
and of playing miserable little tunes with it on the rim of a
coffee-cup, in fact of doing everything with it except smoke it
appreciatively, made it impossible for John, so far as Laurence was
concerned, to be generous with his cigars.
"I think you'll find these not bad."
This was true; the Murillos were not actually bad.
"Thanks, I will avail myself of your offer. But to come back to what I
was saying," Laurence went on, lighting his cigar with as little
expression of anticipated pleasure as might be discovered in the
countenance of a lodging-house servant lighting a fire. "I do not
propose to occupy your time by an account of my spiritual struggles at
the University."
"You ought to write a novel," said John, cheerfully.
Laurence looked puzzled.
"I am now occupied with the writing of a play, but I shall come to that
presently. Novels, however...."
"I was only joking," said John. "It would take too long to explain the
joke. Sorry I interrupted you. Cigar gone out? Don't take another. It
doesn't really matter how often those Murillos go out."
"Where am I?" Laurence asked in a bewildered voice.
"You'd just left Oxford," John answered, quickly.
"Ah, yes, I was at Oxford. Well, as I was saying, I shall not detain you
with an account of my spiritual struggles there.... I think I may
almost without presumption refer to them as my spiritual progress ...
let it suffice that I found myself on the vigil of my ordination after a
year at Cuddesdon Theological College a convinced High Churchman. This
must not be taken to mean that I belonged to the more advanced or what I
should prefer to call the Italian party in the Church of England. I did
not."
Laurence here paused and looked at John earnestly; since John had not
the remotest idea what the Italian party meant and was anxious to avoid
being told, he said in accents that sought to convey relief at hearing
his brother-in-law's personal contradiction of a charge that had for
long been whispered against him:
"Oh, you didn't?"
"No, I did not. I was not prepared to go one jot or one tittle beyond
the Five Points."
"Of the compass, you mean," said John, wisely. "Quite so."
Then seeing that Laurence seemed rather indignant, he added quickly,
"Did I say the compass? How idiotic! Of course, I meant the law."
"The Five Points are the Eastward Position...."
"It was the compass after all," John thought. "What a fool I was to
hedge."
"The Mixed Chalice, Lights, Wafer Bread, and Vestments, but _not_ the
ceremonial use of Incense."
"And those are the Five Points?"
Laurence inclined his head.
"Which you were not prepared to go beyond, I think you said?" John
gravely continued, flattering himself that he was re-established as an
intelligent listener.
"In adhering to these Five Points," Laurence proceeded, "I found that I
was able to claim the support of a number of authoritative English
divines. I need only mention Bishop Ken and Bishop Andrews for you to
appreciate my position."
"Eastward, I think you said," John put in; for his brother-in-law had
paused again, and he was evidently intended to say something.
"I perceive that you are not acquainted with the divergences of opinion
that unhappily exist in our national Church."
"Well, to tell you the truth--and I know you'll excuse my frankness--I
haven't been to church since I was a boy," John admitted. "But I know I
used to dislike the litany very much, and of course I had my favorite
hymns--we most of us have--and really I think that's as far as I got.
However, I have to get up the subject of religion very shortly. My next
play will deal with Joan of Arc, and, as you may imagine, religion plays
an important part in such a theme--a very important part. In addition to
the vision that Joan will have of St. Michael in the first act, one of
my chief unsympathetic characters is a bishop. I hope I'm not hurting
your feelings in telling you this, my dear fellow. Have another cigar,
won't you? I think you've dipped the end of that one in the
coffee-lees."
Laurence assured John bitterly that he had no reason to be particularly
fond of bishops. "In fact," he went on, "I'm having a very painful
discussion with the Bishop of Silchester at this moment, but I shall
come to that presently. What I am anxious, however, to impress upon you
at this stage in our little talk is the fact that on the vigil of my
ordination I had arrived at a definite theory of what I could and could
not accept. Well, I was ordained deacon by the Bishop of St. Albans and
licensed to a curacy in Plaistow--one of the poorest districts in the
East End of London. Here I worked for three years, and it was here that
fourteen years ago I first met Edith."
"Yes, I seem to remember. Wasn't she working at a girls' club or
something? I know I always thought that there must be a secondary
attraction."
"At that time my financial position was not such as to warrant my
embarking upon matrimony. Moreover, I had in a moment of what I should
now call boyish exaltation registered a vow of perpetual celibacy.
Edith, however, with that devotion which neither then nor at any crisis
since has failed me expressed her willingness to consent to an
indefinite engagement, and I remember with gratitude that it was just
this consent of hers which was the means of widening the narrow--ah--the
all too narrow path which at that time I was treading in religion. My
vicar and I had a painful dispute upon some insignificant doctrinal
point; I felt bound to resign my curacy, and take another under a man
who could appreciate and allow for my speculative temperament. I became
curate to St. Thomas's, Kensington, and had hopes of ultimately being
preferred to a living. I realized in fact that the East End was a
cul-de-sac for a young and--if I may so describe myself without being
misunderstood--ambitious curate. For three years I remained at St.
Thomas's and obtained a considerable reputation as a preacher. You may
or may not remember that some Advent Addresses of mine were reprinted in
one of the more tolerant religious weeklies and obtained what I do not
hesitate to call the honor of being singled out for malicious abuse by
the _Church Times_. Eleven years ago my dear father died and by leaving
me an independence of L417 a year enabled me not merely to marry Edith,
but very soon afterwards to accept the living of Newton Candover. I will
not detain you with the history of my financial losses, which I hope I
have always welcomed in the true spirit of resignation. Let it suffice
that within a few years owing to my own misplaced charity and some bad
advice from a relative of mine on the Stock Exchange my private income
dwindled to L152, while at the same time the gross income of Newton
Candover from L298 sank to the abominably low nett income of L102--a
serious reflection, I think you will agree, upon the shocking financial
system of our national Church. It may surprise you, my dear John, to
learn that such blows from fate not only did not cast me down into a
state of spiritual despair and intellectual atrophy, but that they
actually had the effect of inciting me to still greater efforts."
John had been fumbling with his check book when Laurence began to talk
about his income; but the unexpected turn of the narrative quietened
him, and the Upman was going well.
"You may or may not come across a little series of devotional
meditations for the Man in the Street entitled Lamp-posts. They have a
certain vogue, and I may tell you in confidence that under the pseudonym
of The Lamplighter I wrote them. The actual financial return they
brought me was slight. Barabbas, you know, was a publisher. Ha-ha! No,
although I made nothing, or rather practically nothing out of them for
my own purse, by leading me to browse among many modern works of
theology and philosophy I began to realize that there was a great deal
of reason for modern indifference and skepticism. In other words, I
discovered that, in order to keep the man in the street a Christian,
Christianity must adapt itself to his needs. Filled with a reverent
enthusiasm and perhaps half-consciously led along such a path by your
conspicuous example of success, I have sought to embody my theories in a
play, the protagonist of which is the apostle Thomas, whom when you read
the play you will easily recognize as the prototype of the man in the
street. And this brings me to the reason for which I have asked you for
this little talk. The fact of the matter is that in pursuing my studies
of the apostle Thomas I have actually gone beyond his simple rugged
agnosticism, and I now at forty-two years of age after eighteen years as
a minister of religion find myself unable longer to accept in any
literal sense of the term whatever the Virgin Birth."
Laurence poured himself out a third glass of port and waited for John to
recover from his stupefaction.
"But I don't think I'm a very good person to talk to about these
abstruse divine obstetrics," John protested. "I really haven't
considered the question. I know of course to what you refer, but I think
this is essentially an occasion for professional advice."
"I do not ask for advice upon my beliefs," Laurence explained. "I
recognize that nobody is able to do anything for them except myself.
What I want you to do is to let Edith, myself, and little Frida stay
with you at Ambles--of course we should be paying guests and you could
use our pony and trap and any of the vicarage furniture that you thought
suitable--until it has been decided whether I am likely or not to have
any success as a dramatist. I do not ask you to undertake the Quixotic
task of trying to obtain a public representation of my play about the
apostle Thomas. I know that Biblical subjects are forbidden by the Lord
Chamberlain, surely a monstrous piece of flunkeyism. But I have many
other ideas for plays, and I'm convinced that you will sympathize with
my anxiety to be able to work undisturbed and, if I may say so, in close
propinquity to another playwright who is already famous."
"But why do you want to leave your own vicarage?" John gasped.
"My dear fellow, owing to what I can only call the poisonous behavior of
Mrs. Paxton, my patron, to whom while still a curate at St. Thomas's,
Kensington, I gave an abundance of spiritual consolation when she
suffered the loss of her husband, owing as I say to her poisonous
behavior following upon a trifling quarrel about some alterations I made
in the fabric of _my_ church without consulting her, I have been subject
to ceaseless inquisition and persecution. There has been an outcry in
the more bigoted religious press about my doctrine, and in short I have
thought it best and most dignified to resign my living. I am therefore,
to use a colloquialism,--ah--at a loose end."
"And Edith?" John asked.
"My poor wife still clings with feminine loyalty to those accretions to
faith from which I have cut myself free. In most things she is at one
with me, but I have steadily resisted the temptation to intrude upon the
sanctity of her intimate beliefs. She sees my point of view. Of her
sympathy I can only speak with gratitude. But she is still an
old-fashioned believer. And indeed I am glad, for I should not like to
think of her tossed upon the stormy seas of doubt and exposed to
the--ah--hurricanes of speculation that surge through my own brains."
"And when do you want to move in to Ambles?"
"Well, if it would be convenient, we should like to begin gradually
to-morrow. I have informed the Bishop that I will--ah--be out in a
fortnight."
"But what about Hilda?" John asked, doubtfully. "She is really looking
after Ambles for me, you know."
"While we have been having our little talk in the dining-room Edith has
been having her little talk with Hilda in the drawing-room, and I think
I hear them coming now."
John looked up quickly to see the effect of that other little talk, and
determined to avoid for that night at least anything in the nature of
little talks with anybody.
"Laurence dear," said Edith mildly, "isn't it time we were going?"
John knew that not Hilda herself could have phrased more aptly what she
was feeling; he was sure that in her opinion it was indeed high time
that Edith and Laurence were going.
Laurence went over to the window and pulled aside the curtains to
examine the moon.
"Yes, my dear, I think we might have Primrose harnessed. Where is
Frida?"
"She is watching Harold arrange the animals that John gave her. They are
playing at visiting the Natural History Museum."
John was aware that he had not yet expressed his own willingness for the
Armitage family to move into Ambles; he was equally aware that Hilda was
trying to catch his eye with a questioning and indignant glance and that
he had already referred the decision to her. At the same time he could
not bring himself to exalt Hilda above Edith who was the younger and he
was bound to admit the favorite of his two sisters; moreover, Hilda was
the mother of Harold, and if Harold was to be considered tolerable in
the same house as himself, he could not deny as much of his forbearance
to Laurence.
"Well, I suppose you two girls have settled it between you?" he said.
Hilda, who did not seem either surprised or elated at being called a
girl, observed coldly that naturally it was for John to decide, but that
if the vicarage family was going to occupy Ambles extra furniture would
be required immediately.
"My dear," said Laurence. "Didn't you make it clear to Hilda that as
much of the vicarage furniture as is required can be sent here
immediately? John and I had supposed that you were settling all these
little domestic details during your little talk together."
"No, dear," Edith said, "we settled nothing. Hilda felt, and of course I
can't help agreeing with her, that it is really asking too much of John.
She reminded me that he has come down here to work."
The last icicle of opposition melted from John's heart; he could not
bear to think of Edith's being lectured all the way home by her husband
under the light of a setting moon. "I dare say we can manage," he said,
"and really, you know Hilda, it will do the rooms good to be lived in. I
noticed this afternoon a slight smell of damp coming from the
unfurnished part of the house."
"Apples, not damp," Hilda snapped. "I had the apples stored in one of
the disused rooms."
"All these problems will solve themselves," said Laurence, grandly. "And
I'm sure that John cannot wish to attempt them to-night. Let us all
remember that he may be tired. Come along, Edith. We have a long day
before us to-morrow. Let us say good-night to Mama."
Edith started: it was the first time in eleven years of married life
that her husband had adopted the Touchwood style of addressing or
referring to their mother, and it seemed to set a seal upon his more
intimate association with her family in the future. If any doubts still
lingered about the forthcoming immigration of the vicarage party to
Ambles they were presently disposed of once and for all by Laurence.
"What are you carrying?" he asked Frida, when they were gathered in the
hall before starting.
"Uncle John's present," she replied.
"Do not bother. Uncle John has invited us to stay here, and you do not
want to expose your little animals to the risk of being chipped. No
doubt Harold will look after them for you in the interim--the short
interim. Come, Edith, the moon is not going to wait for us, you know. I
have the reins. Gee-up, Primrose!"
"Fond as I am of Edith," Hilda said, when the vicarage family was out of
hearing. "Fond as I am of Edith," she repeated without any trace of
affection in accent or expression, "I do think this invasion is an
imposition upon your kindness. But clergymen are all alike; they all
become dictatorial and obtuse; they're too fond of the sound of their
own voices."
"Laurence is perhaps a little heavy," John agreed, "a little suave and
heavy like a cornflour shape, but we ought to do what we can for Edith."
He tactfully offered Hilda a share in his own benevolence, in which she
ensconced herself without hesitation.
"Well, I suppose we shall have to make the best of it. Indeed the only
thing that _really_ worries me is what we are to do with the apples."
"Oh, Harold will soon eat them up," said John; though he had not the
slightest intention of being sarcastic, Hilda was so much annoyed by
this that she abandoned all discussion of the vicarage and talked so
long about Harold's inside and with such a passionate insistence upon
what he required of sweet and sour to prevent him from dropping before
her very eyes, that John was able fairly soon to plead that the hour was
late and that he must go to bed.
In his bedroom, which was sharp-scented with autumnal airs and made him
disinclined for sleep, John became sentimental over Edith and began to
weave out of her troubles a fine robe for his own good-nature in which
his sentimentality was able to show itself off. He assured himself of
Edith's luck in having Ambles as a refuge in the difficult time through
which she was passing and began to visualize her past life as nothing
but a stormy prelude to a more tranquil present in which he should be
her pilot. That Laurence would be included in his beneficence was
certainly a flaw in the emerald of his bounty, a fly in the amber of his
self-satisfaction; but, after all, so long as Edith was secure and happy
such blemishes were hardly perceptible. He ought to think himself lucky
that he was in a position to help his relations; the power of doing kind
actions was surely the greatest privilege accorded to the successful
man. And what right had Hilda to object? Good gracious, as if she
herself were not dependent enough upon him! But there had always been
visible in Hilda this wretched spirit of competition. It had been in
just the same spirit that she had married Daniel Curtis; she had not
been able to endure her younger sister's engagement to the tall handsome
curate and had snatched at the middle-aged explorer in order to be
married simultaneously and secure the best wedding presents for herself.
But what had Daniel Curtis seen in Hilda? What had that myopic and
taciturn man found in Hilda to gladden a short visit to England between
his life on the Orinoco and his intended life at the back of the
uncharted Amazons? And had his short experience of her made him so
reckless that nothing but his spectacles were found by the rescuers?
What mad impulse to perpetuate his name beyond the numerous beetles,
flowers, monkeys, and butterflies to which it was already attached by
many learned societies had led him to bequeath Harold to humanity? Was
not his collection of humming birds enough?
"I'm really very glad that Edith is coming to Ambles," John murmured.
"Very glad indeed. It will serve Hilda right." He began to wonder if he
actually disliked Hilda and to realize that he had never really forgiven
her for refusing to be interested in his first published story. How well
he remembered that occasion--twenty years ago almost to a day. It had
been a dreary November in the time when London really did have fogs,
and when the sense of his father's approaching death had added to the
general gloom. James had been acting as his father's partner for more
than a year and had already nearly ruined the practice by his
inexperience and want of affability. George and himself were both in the
city offices--George in wool, himself in dog-biscuits. George did not
seem to mind the soul-destroying existence and was full of financial
ambition; but himself had loathed it and cared for nothing but
literature. How he had pleaded with that dry old father, whose cynical
tormented face on its pillow smeared with cigar ash even now vividly
haunted his memory; but the fierce old man had refused him the least
temporary help and had actually chuckled with delight amidst all his
pain at the thought of how his family would have to work for a living
when he should mercifully be dead. Was it surprising, when that morning
he had found at the office a communication from a syndicate of
provincial papers to inform him of his story's being accepted, that he
should have arrived home in the fog, full of hope and enthusiasm? And
then he had been met with whispering voices and the news of his father's
death. Of course he had been shocked and grieved, even disappointed that
it was too late to announce his success to the old man; but he had not
been able to resist telling Hilda, a gawky, pale-faced girl of eighteen,
that his story had been taken. He could recall her expression in that
befogged gaslight even now, her expression of utter lack of interest,
faintly colored with surprise at his own bad taste. Then he had gone
upstairs to see his mother, who was bathed in tears, though she had been
warned at least six months ago that her husband might die at any moment.
He had ventured after a few formal words of sympathy to lighten the
burden of her grief by taking the auspicious communication from his
pocket, where it had been cracking nervously between his fingers, and
reading it to her. He had been sure that she would be interested because
she was a great reader of stories and must surely derive a grateful
wonder from the contemplation of her own son as an author. But she was
evidently too much overcome by the insistency of grief and by the
prospect of monetary difficulties in the near future to grasp what he
was telling her; it had struck him that she had actually never realized
that the stories she enjoyed were written by men and women any more than
it might have struck another person that advertisements were all written
by human beings with their own histories of love and hate.
"You mustn't neglect your office work, Johnnie," was what she had said.
"We shall want every halfpenny now that Papa is gone. James does his
best, but the patients were more used to Papa."
After these two rebuffs John had not felt inclined to break his good
news to James, who would be sure to sneer, or to George, who would only
laugh; so he had wandered upstairs to the old schoolroom, where he had
found Edith sitting by a dull fire and dissuading little Hugh from
throwing coals at the cat. As soon as he had told Edith what had
happened she had made a hero of him, and ever afterwards treated him
with admiration as well as affection. Had she not prophesied even that
he would be another Dickens? That was something like sisterly love, and
he had volunteered to read her the original rough copy, which,
notwithstanding Hugh's whining interruptions, she had enjoyed as much as
he had enjoyed it himself. Certainly Edith must come to Ambles; twenty
years were not enough to obliterate the memory of that warm-hearted girl
of fifteen and of her welcome praise.
But Hugh? What malign spirit had brought Hugh to his mind at a moment
when he was already just faintly disturbed by the prospect of his
relations' increasing demands upon his attention? Hugh was only
twenty-seven now and much too conspicuously for his own good the
youngest of the family; like all children that arrive unexpectedly after
a long interval, he had seemed the pledge of his parents' renewed youth
on the very threshold of old age, and had been spoiled, even by his
cross-grained old father, in consequence: as for his mother, though it
was out of her power to spoil him extravagantly with money, she gave him
all that she did not spend on caps for herself. John determined to make
inquiries about Hugh to-morrow. Not another penny should he have from
him, not another farthing. If he could not live on what he earned in the
office of Stephen Crutchley, who had accepted the young spendthrift out
of regard for their lifelong friendship, if he could not become a
decent, well-behaved architect, why, he could starve. Not another penny
... and the rest of his relations agreed with John on this point, for if
to him Hugh was a skeleton in the family cupboard, to them he was a
skeleton at the family feast.
John expelled from his mind all misgivings about Hugh, hoped it would be
a fine day to-morrow so that he could really look round the garden and
see what plants wanted ordering, tried to remember the name of an
ornamental shrub recommended by Miss Hamilton, turned over on his side,
and went to sleep.