TAFFY’S CHILDHOOD COMES TO AN END.
The summer passed. There was a talk in the early part of it that the
Bishop would be coming, next spring, to consecrate the restored
church and hold a confirmation service. Taffy and Honoria were to be
confirmed, and early in August Mr. Raymond began to set apart an hour
each day for preparing them. In a week or two the boy’s head was
full of religion. He spent much of his time in the church, watching
the carpenter at work upon the new seats; his mind ran on the story
of Samuel, and he wished his mother had followed Hannah’s example and
dedicated him to God; he had a suspicion that God would be angry with
her for not doing so.
He did not observe that, as the autumn crept on, a shadow gathered on
Humility’s face. One Sunday the old Squire did not come to church;
and again on the next Wednesday, at the harvest festival, Honoria sat
alone in the Tredinnis pew. The shadow was on his mother’s face as
he chatted about this on their way home to the Parsonage; but the boy
did not perceive it. He loved his parents, but their lives lay
outside his own, and their sayings and doings passed him like a vain
show. He walked in the separate world of childhood, and it seemed an
enormous world yet, though a few weeks were to bring him abruptly to
the end of it.
But just before he came to the precipice he was given a glimpse of
the real world--and of a world beyond that, far more splendid and
romantic than any region of his dreams.
The children had no lessons during Christmas, or for three weeks
after. On the last morning before the holidays George brought a
letter for Mr. Raymond, who read it, considered for a while, and laid
it among his papers.
“It’s an invitation,” George announced in a whisper. “I wonder if
he’ll let you come.”
“Where?” whispered Taffy.
“Up to Plymouth--to the Pantomime.”
“What’s that?”
“Oh--clowns, and girls dressed up like boys, and policemen on slides,
and that sort of thing.”
Taffy sat bewildered. He vaguely remembered Plymouth as a mass of
roofs seen from the train, as it drew up for a minute or two on a
high bridge. Someone in the railway carriage had talked of an engine
called _Brutus_, which (it appeared) had lately run away and crashed
into the cloak-room at the end of the platform. He still thought of
railway engines as big, blundering animals, with wills of their own,
and of Plymouth as a town rendered insecure by their vagaries; but
the idea that its roofs covered girls dressed up like boys and
policemen on slides was new to him, and pleasant on the whole, though
daunting.
“Will you give my thanks to Sir Harry,” said Mr. Raymond, after
lessons, “and tell him that Taffy may go.”
So on New Year’s Day Taffy found himself in Plymouth. It was an
experience which he could never fit into his life except as a gaudy
interlude; for when he awoke and looked back upon it, he was no
longer the boy who had climbed up beside Sir Harry and behind Sir
Harry’s restless pair of bays. The whirl began with that drive to
the station; began again in the train; began again as they stepped
out on the pavement at Plymouth, just as a company of scarlet-coated
soldiers came down the roadway with a din of brazen music.
The crowd, the shops, the vast hotel, completely dazed him, and he
seriously accepted the waiter, in his black suit and big white
shirt-front, as a contribution to the fun of the entertainment.
“We must dine early,” Sir Harry announced at lunch; “the Pantomime
begins at seven.”
“Isn’t--isn’t this the Pantomime?” Taffy stammered.
George giggled. Sir Harry set down his glass of claret, stared at
the boy, and broke into musical laughter. Taffy perceived he had
made some ridiculous mistake and blushed furiously.
“God bless the child--the Pantomime’s at the theatre!”
“Oh!” Taffy recalled the canvas booth and wheezy cornet of his early
days with a chill of disappointment.
But with George at his side it was impossible to be anything but
happy. After lunch they sallied out, and it would have been hard to
choose the gayest of the three. Sir Harry’s radiant good-temper
seemed to gild the streets. He took the boys up to the Hoe and
pointed out the war-ships; he whisked them into the Camera Obscura;
thence to the Citadel, where they watched a squad of recruits at
drill; thence to the Barbican, where the trawling-fleet lay packed
like herring, and the shops were full of rope and oilskin suits and
marine instruments, and dirty children rolled about the roadway
between the legs of seabooted fishermen; and so up to the town again,
where he lingered in the most obliging manner while the boys stared
into the fishing-tackle shops and toy shops. On the way he led them
up a narrow passage and into a curious room, where fifteen or twenty
men were drinking, and talking at the top of their voices. The most
of them seemed to know Sir Harry well and greeted him with an odd
mixture of respect and familiarity. Their talk was full of
mysterious names and expressions, and Taffy thought at first they
must be Freemasons. “The Moor point-to-point was a walk-over for the
Milkman; Lapidary was scratched, which left it a soft thing, unless
Sir Harry fancied a fox-catcher like Nursery Governess, in which
case Billy behind the bar would do as much business as he liked at
six-to-one.” After a while Taffy discovered they were talking about
horses, and wondered why they should meet to discuss horses in a
dingy room up a back yard. “Youngster of yours is growin’,
Surrarry,” said a red-faced man. “Who’s his stable companion?” Taffy
was introduced, and to his embarrassment Sir Harry began to relate
his ridiculous mistake at lunch. The men roared with laughter.
He made another, quite as ridiculous, at the pastry-cook’s where Sir
Harry ordered tea. “What’ll you take with it? Call for what you
like, only don’t poison yourselves.” Taffy referring his gaze from
the buns and confections on the counter to the card in his hands,
which was inscribed with words in unknown tongues, made a bold plunge
and announced that he would take a “_marasheno_.”
This tickled Sir Harry mightily. He ordered the waitress with a wink
to “bring the young gentleman a _marasheno_”; and Taffy, who had
expected something in the shape of a macaroon, was confronted with a
tiny glass of a pale liquor, which, when tasted, in the most
surprising manner put sunshine into his stomach and brought tears
into his eyes. But under Sir Harry’s quizzical gaze he swallowed it
down bravely, and sat gasping and blinking.
It may have been that the maraschino induced a haze upon the rest of
the afternoon. The gas-lamps were lit when they left the
pastry-cook’s and entered a haberdasher’s where Taffy, without
knowing why, was fitted with a pair of white kid gloves. Of dinner
at the hotel he remembered nothing except that the candles on the
tables had red shades, of which the silverware gave funny
reflections; that the same waiter flitted about in the penumbra; and
that Sir Harry, who was dressed like the waiter, said, “Wake up,
young Marasheno! Do you take your coffee black?” “It’s usually pale
brown at home,” answered Taffy; at which Sir Harry laughed again.
“Black will suit you better to-night,” he said, and poured out a
small cupful, which Taffy drank and found exceedingly nasty. And a
moment later he was wide awake, and the three were following a young
woman along a passage which seemed to run in a complete circle.
The young woman flung open a door; they entered a little room with a
balcony in front; and the first glorious vision broke on the child
with a blaze of light, a crash of music, and the murmur of hundreds
of voices.
Faces, faces, faces!--faces mounting from the pit below him, up and
up to the sky-blue ceiling, where painted goddesses danced and
scattered pink roses around the enormous gasalier. Fauns piping on
the great curtain, fiddles sawing in the orchestra beneath, ladies in
gay silks and jewels leaning over the gilt balconies opposite--which
were real, and which a vision only? He turned helplessly to George
and Sir Harry. Yes, _they_ were real. But what of Nannizabuloe, and
the sand-hills, and the little parsonage to which that very morning
he had turned to wave his handkerchief?
A bell rang, and the curtain rose upon a company of russet-brown
elves dancing in a green wood. The play was _Jack the Giant-killer_;
but Taffy, who knew the story in the book by heart, found the story
on the stage almost meaningless. That mattered nothing; it was the
world, the new and unimagined world, stretching deeper and still
deeper as the scenes were lifted--a world in which solid walls
crumbled, and forests melted, and loveliness broke through the ruins,
unfolding like a rose; it was this that seized on the child’s heart
until he could have wept for its mere beauty. Often he had sought
out the trout-pools on the moors behind the towans, and lying at full
length had watched the fish moving between the stones and
water-plants; and watching through a summer’s afternoon had longed to
change places with them and glide through their grottoes or anchor
among the reed-stalks and let the ripple run over him. As long back
as he could remember, all beautiful sights had awakened this ache,
this longing--
“O, that I were where I would be!
Then would I be where I am not;
For where I am I would not be,
And where I would be, I cannot.”
It seemed to him that these bright beings on the stage had broken
through the barriers, had stepped beyond the flaming ramparts, and were
happy. Their horseplay, at which George laughed so immoderately, called
to Taffy to come and be happy, too; and when Jack the Giant-killer
changed to Jack in the Beanstalk, and when in the Transformation Scene
a real beanstalk grew and unfolded its leaves, and each leaf revealed
a fairy seated, with the limelight flashing on star and jewelled wand,
the longing became unbearable. The scene passed in a minute. The clown
and pantaloon came on, and presently Sir Harry saw Taffy’s shoulders
shaking, and set it down to laughter at the harlequinade. He could not
see the child’s face.
But, perhaps, the queerest event of the evening (when Taffy came to
review his recollections) was this: He must have fallen into a stupor
on leaving the theatre, for when he awoke he found himself on a couch
in a gas-lit room, with George beside him, and Sir Harry was shaking
him by the collar, and saying, “God bless the children, I thought
they were in bed hours ago!” A man--the same who had talked about
racehorses that afternoon--was standing by the table, on which a
quantity of cards lay scattered among the drinking-glasses; and he
laughed at this, and his laugh sounded just like the rustling of
paper. “It’s all very well--” began Sir Harry, but checked himself
and lit a candle, and led the two boys off shivering to bed.
The next morning, too, had its surprises. To begin with, Sir Harry
announced at breakfast that he must go and buy a horse. He might be
an hour or two over the business, and meanwhile the boys had better
go out into the town and enjoy themselves. Perhaps a sovereign
apiece might help them.
Taffy, who had never in his life possessed more than a shilling, was
staring at the gold piece in his hand, when the door opened, and Sir
Harry’s horse-racing friend came in to breakfast and nodded
“Good-morning.”
“Pity you’re leaving to-day,” he said, as he took his seat at a table
hard by them.
“My revenge must wait,” Sir Harry answered.
It seemed a cold-blooded thing to be said so carelessly.
Taffy wondered if Sir Harry’s search for a horse had anything to do
with this revenge, and the notion haunted him in the intervals of his
morning’s shopping.
But how to lay out his sovereign? That was the first question.
George, who within ten minutes had settled his own problem by
purchasing a doubtful fox-terrier of the Boots of the hotel, saw no
difficulty. The Boots had another pup for sale--one of the same
litter.
“But I want something for mother, and the others--and Honoria.”
“Botheration! I’d forgotten Honoria, and now the money’s gone!
Never mind; she can have my pup.”
“Oh!” said Taffy ruefully. “Then she won’t think much of my
present.”
“Yes, she will. Suppose you buy a collar for him--you can get one
for five shillings.”
They found a saddler’s and chose the dog-collar which came to four
shillings; and for eighteenpence the shopman agreed to have
“_Honoria from Taffy_,” engraved on it within an hour. Humility’s
present was chosen with surprising ease--a large, framed photograph
of the Bishop of Exeter; price, six shillings.
“I don’t suppose,” objected George, “your mother cares much for the
Bishop of Exeter.”
“Oh, yes, she does,” said Taffy; “he’s coming to confirm us next
spring. Besides,” he added, with one of those flashes of wisdom
which surely he derived from her, “mother won’t care what it is, so
long as she’s remembered. And it costs more than the collar.”
This left him with eight-and-sixpence; and for three-and-sixpence he
bought a work-box for his grandmother, with a view of Plymouth Hoe on
the lid. But now came the crux. What should he get for his father?
“It must be a book,” George suggested.
“But what kind of a book? He has so many.”
“Something in Latin.”
The bookseller’s window was filled with yellow-backed novels and
toy-books, which obviously would not do. So they marched in and
demanded a book suitable for a clergyman who had a good many books
already--“a middle-aged clergyman,” George added.
“You can’t go far wrong with this,” suggested the bookseller,
producing Crockford’s “Clerical Directory” for the current year.
But this was too expensive; “and,” said Taffy, “I think he would
rather have something in Latin.” The bookseller rubbed his chin,
went to his shelves, and took down a small _De Imitatione Christi_,
bound in limp calf. “You can’t go far wrong with this, either,” he
assured them. So Taffy paid down his money.
Just as the boys reached the hotel, Sir Harry drove up in a cab; and
five minutes later they were all rattling off to the railway station.
Taffy eyed the cab-horse curiously, never doubting it to be Sir
Harry’s new purchase; and was extremely surprised when the cabman
whipped it up and trotted off--after receiving his money, too.
But in the bustle there was no time to ask questions.
It was about three in the afternoon, and the sun already low in the
south-west, when they came in sight of the cross-roads and Sir Harry
pulled up his bays. And there, on the green by the sign-post, stood
Mrs. Raymond. She caught Taffy in her arms and hugged him till he
felt ashamed, and glanced around to see if the others were looking;
but the phaeton was bowling away down the road.
“But why are _you_ here, mother?”
Mrs. Raymond gazed a while after the carriage before speaking.
“Your father had to be at the church,” she said.
“But there’s no service--” He broke off “See what I’ve brought for
you!” And he pulled out the portrait. “Do you know who it is?”
Humility thanked him and kissed him passionately. There was
something odd with her this afternoon.
“Don’t you like your present?”
“Darling, it is beautiful,” she stooped and kissed him again,
passionately.
“I’ve a present for father, too; a book. Why are you walking so
fast?” In a little while he asked again, “Why are you walking so
fast?”
“I--I thought you would be wanting your tea.”
“Mayn’t I take father his book first?”
She did not answer.
“But mayn’t I?” he persisted.
They had reached the garden-gate. Humility seemed to hesitate.
“Yes; go,” she said at length; and he ran, with the _De Imitatione
Christi_ under his arm.
As he came within view of the church he saw a knot of men gathered
about the door. They were pulling something out from the porch.
He heard the noise of hammering, and Squire Moyle, at the back of the
crowd, was shouting at the top of his voice:
“The church is yours, is it? I’ll see about that! Pitch out the
furnitcher, my billies--_that’s_ mine, anyway!”
Still the hammers sounded within the church.
“Don’t believe in sudden convarsion, don’t ’ee? I reckon you will
when you look round your church. Bishop coming to consecrate it, is
he? Consecrate _my_ furnitcher? I’ll see you and your bishop to
blazes first!”
A heap of shattered timber came flying through the porch.
“_Your_ church, hey? _Your_ church?”
The crowd fell back and Mr. Raymond stood in the doorway, between
Bill Udy and Jim the Huntsman. Bill Udy held a brazen ewer and
paten, and Jim a hammer; and Mr. Raymond had a hand on one shoulder
of each.
For a moment there was silence. As Taffy came running through the
lych-gate a man who had been sitting on a flat tombstone and
watching, stood up and touched his arm. It was Jacky Pascoe, the
Bryanite.
“Best go back,” he said, “’tis a wisht poor job of it.”
Taffy halted for a moment. The Squire’s voice had risen to a sudden
scream--he sputtered as he pointed at Mr. Raymond.
“There he is, naybours! Get behind the varmint, somebody, and stop
his earth! Calls hisself a minister of God! Calls it _his_ church!”
Mr. Raymond took his hands off the men’s shoulders, and walked
straight up to him. “Not _my_ church,” he said, aloud and
distinctly. “God’s church!”
He stretched out an arm. Taffy, running up, supposed it stretched
out to strike. “Father!”
But Mr. Raymond’s palm was open as he lifted it over the Squire’s
head. “God’s church,” he repeated. “In whose service, sir, I defy
you. Go! or if you will, and have the courage, come and stand while
I kneel amid the ruin you have done and pray God to judge between
us.”
He paused, with his eyes on the Squire’s.
“You dare not, I see. Go, poor coward, and plan what mischief you
will. Only now leave me in peace a little.”
He took the boy’s hand and they passed into the church together.
No one followed. Hand in hand they stood before the dismantled
chancel. Taffy heard the sound of shuffling feet on the walk
outside, and looked up into Mr. Raymond’s face.
“Father!”
“Kiss me, sonny.”
The _De Imitatione Christi_ slipped from Taffy’s fingers and fell
upon the chancel step.
So his childhood ended.