THE boy discovered in London that day how much possession of a little
money helps enjoyment. One does not want very much in London, but one
does want some, and Bobbie, with four or five shillings in his pocket,
found delights that London millionaires can never encounter. Two
shillings and threepence of his fortune went to the purchase in City Road
of a hard felt hat. The proprietor of the shop urged him to purchase a
silk hat, and the boy tried one on, laughing very much at his own
reflection in the mirror, but there were several good reasons why he
should not agree with the proprietor (“A silk hat,” argued the
proprietor, “tells me that a man’s a gentleman”), of which one was that
he remembered reading a reply to a correspondent in one of the newspapers
at Collingwood Cottage, which stated that a silk hat was not “de rigueur”
for the country or the seaside; a second that he did not possess more
than half the amount required for the cheapest specimen. The bowler hat,
however, brought great content. Later in the day, finding himself in
Hyde Park, he fastened his long frock-coat as well as the existing
buttons would permit, and strolled down the Row, lifting his hat now and
again to no one with great courtesy. He became exceedingly wishful to
find some person with whom he might talk. He was getting on rather well
with a little six-year-old maid, and had made for her fair-haired doll a
couch of grass near the Achilles statue, and the little girl had told him
that she had such a booful mamma and such a horrid large nurse and such a
fearfully hard piano and such oceans of toys, when she and her doll were
whisked away magically by the large nurse referred to, and Bobbie spent
two whole hours in searching for them with no success. Out in
Knightsbridge a string of sandwich men walked along gloomily, bearing
advertisements of a new piece at one of the West End theatres; it
occurred to the boy that it would be rather a fine, lordly act to pay his
shilling and go to a first-class play, just for all the world as though
he lived in Belgravia. The idea clipped his fancy, and despite the fact
that after dinner at a cheap restaurant, whose proud boast was, “Come in
here, and you will never go anywhere else,” he found that he would only
have just enough left to pay his fare to the nearest railway station to
Brenchley, he made up his mind to go to the theatre. He had a good wash
at the cheap restaurant, and parted his hair in the middle, looking very
closely to see if there existed a suspicion of down upon his upper lip.
It was magnificent, this life of independence, but, obviously, there were
drawbacks. For instance, you had not only to arrange for your meals, but
you had also to pay them; this done, the fact remained that neither the
quantity nor the quality proved so good as in the Cottage Homes. The boy
foresaw (without troubling himself very much about it) that herein might
be found a source of inconvenience. He packed the cornet very carefully
in a borrowed newspaper; the cornet was slightly in the way, but he
remembered that it belonged to the Cottage Homes, and he meant to return
it there eventually. It was wrong to steal.
At the gallery door of the theatre that evening he found himself in a
short queue, side by side with a thoughtful-looking youth, who carried on
his arm an aged travelling rug. This youth talked very learnedly to
Bobbie about the new phases of the drama, Bobbie listening with respect
because it was a subject on which he felt himself to be not completely
informed.
“Convention,” said the thoughtful young man, covering both of his arms
with the old travelling rug and edging nearer to the two ladies in front,
“convention, my dear sir, is the curse of the modern drama. The drama is
enwrapped with iron shackles, and it screams aloud—excuse me, madam,
they’re pushing at the back—and it screams aloud, ‘Release my bonds and
give me liberty.’”
“I see,” said Bobbie.
“What we want is to see the realities of life placed upon the stage,”
went on the thoughtful youth, “not a transparent imitation. We require
the stage to give up its great services to the threshing out of some of
the world’s trying problems, and to—”
“Best piece I ever see was at the Britannia, ’Oxton,” interrupted Bobbie,
“when I was a kid. There was a man in it and a woman, and you must
understand—”
“Got change for half a sovereign?” interrupted the thoughtful youth.
“Small silver will do.”
“This is all I ’ave,” said Bobbie, showing the coins which were left to
him, “besides the bob I’ve got in me hand.”
“Ah,” said the youth regretfully. “That’s no use to me. Put it back in
your breast pocket—so. Allow me. If you place your handkerchief over it
in this way, you’ll find yourself quite safe from thieves.”
“I s’pose there are some about still.”
“Town’s full of ’em,” said the other regretfully.
The narrow crowd made a movement, and the pairs closed up. A facetious
man in the very front rapped twice at the doors, affecting to be the
post.
“What’s to-night?” asked the youth suddenly. Bobbie gave the
information. “Heavens!” exclaimed the youth, with great concern. “Here
am I wasting my time hanging about when I’ve got an engagement with a
lady of title at a reunion.”
“Say you forgot all about it,” suggested Bobbie.
“I would,” said the troubled youth confidentially, “only Lady B.’s such a
jealous woman. It’s as much as she’ll do to let me out of her sight.”
“Well,” remarked Bobbie, chaffingly, “if you will get mixed up with the
fair sex, you must put up with the consequences.” The youth went off as
the doors opened, and the short, eel-like crowd slipping in demurely,
went up the stairs.
When they were all seated it appeared that there was plenty of room for
everybody; indeed only the two front rows secured any patrons, and the
programme girl at the back, looking down at the scantily filled benches,
said something so bitter and satirical to the policeman on duty, that one
of her hairpins fell out, and tripped down the steps of the silent
gallery, quite startling the few demure people. The patrons spoke in
whispers; when Bobbie commenced to whistle, with a view of cheering them,
they said “Hush!” and frowned at him.
A few people strayed into the dress circle and into the stalls below; the
gentlemen declining to buy programmes, and the ladies pinning their tweed
caps to their petticoats. Bobbie called out very loudly, “Orders!” and
the constable up at the back interrupted his conversation with the
satirical programme girl to whisper a reproof. An important-looking
gentleman in white waistcoat came into a box, and surveyed through his
opera glasses the gallery with contemptuous air; Bobbie, chafing under
this deliberate inspection, and disregarding the indignant looks of his
neighbours, said distinctly and repeatedly,—
“Take off that—white—weskit. Take off—that—white—weskit. Take
off—that—white—”
Until the important gentleman had to retire defeated behind the hangings
of the box. Presently a small orchestra stumbled shyly in, with a
conductor, who, having looked round and yawned openly at the house, led
them through a sleepy waltz, that eventually induced Bobbie to kick
loudly at the wooden front of the gallery. The curtain went up to a few
bars of a comic song, and then Bobbie, hopeful of enjoyment, took off his
frock-coat, and leaned forward expectantly.
The bills described the play as a highly diverting original comedy
fantasy, which was so long a title that it might well have included some
of the elements of truth; but, as it proved, did not. A smart young maid
and a mild footman were discovered on the stage, and these dusting at
nothing in the elaborate breakfast-room with great energy, explained to
each other that master had not been home the previous night, that
mistress had gone to meet her aunt at Southampton, that this was a rum
household, upon their word, and that they would be glad when they should
have made enough money to take that little public-house on which they had
set their hearts. Nevertheless, the maid boxed the ears of the mild
footman soundly when he attempted to kiss her, at which moment one of the
many doors in the room opened, and a wild-eyed young man appeared in
evening dress, his necktie awry, and a hunted, affrighted look on his
face. The two servants having taken his hoarsely-whispered commands for
breakfast and disappeared, the distraught-looking master, advancing to
the footlights, told the nearly empty house the story of his trouble.
Taking advantage, it seemed, of his wife’s absence, he had been to a
fancy dress ball the night before. There he had met an exceedingly
handsome, opulent lady of South American extraction, who comported
herself with great hauteur and coldness until a sudden alarm of “Fire”
took place; on the instant he had clung to her from sheer nervousness and
she had dragged him safely from the place. Arrived outside, the lady, to
his amazement, declared him to be her preserver, disclosed her Christian
name as Evangeline; swore never to leave him, but to confer upon him her
hand in marriage, and when he attempted to fly, ran after him. The smart
maid here interrupted, announcing, “A lady to see you, sir, and please
mistress has arrived.” Entrance of a veiled lady, who, as the young
master took refuge under a table, went across and through a doorway;
entrance at that instant of young wife; ingenious but inexact explanation
of his appearance by the husband; sudden return of the strange lady, who,
giving up the veil, cried, “My preserver!” the young husband cried, “My
Evangeline!” the young wife cried, “My aunt!” and—curtain on the first
act.
“Well,” said Bobbie, looking around, “of all the dam silly plays—Ello!
Ello! Who’s pinched my oof?”
“What say, little boy?”
“Who’s took my money,” demanded the boy, his face white. He looked under
the seat, but it had not fallen out of the pocket. “Three or four bob I
had and every penny’s gone.”
He turned savagely to the lady next him, “Have you got it?”
So far from having Bobbie’s money, it appeared that the lady herself had
lost a purse which she had carried, for the better convenience of the
thoughtful young man outside with the travelling rug, in a back pocket
which everybody could get at but herself. Bobbie, sick and depressed at
his loss, sat through the rest of the play trying to think out a plan of
action, arriving just before eleven at a decision. The husband of the
lady who had been robbed of her purse became so elated and triumphant
over the event (having, it seemed, always prophesied that this would
happen, and being one not often successful in forecasts) that he gave
Bobbie sixpence, and Bobbie, after groaning in an unearthly way at the
close of the piece, went out and down the stairs into the bright,
crowded, busy street, with this coin for only monetary possession.
Charing Cross Station was filled with theatre patrons who, judging from
their pleased faces, had been more fortunate than Bobbie, and were now
hastening to suburban homes. Ladies in gossamer cloaks flew about
excitedly in search of their platform; men in evening dress imperilled
the catching of their last train by making frantic rushes to the
refreshment bar. Bobbie discovered that the last train to Paddock Wood
had gone; discovered also the platform from which the Tonbridge train
(Tonbridge being the next convenient station) started, and, taking
advantage of a sudden rush at the barrier, slipped in between the people
and was borne by them along the platform. There he found the train
waiting; found the guard’s van of the train; found a corner in the van,
and whilst the young guard collected the offertory from third-class
passengers for whom he had found room in another class of carriage,
Bobbie secreted himself behind a big square wicker basket. The young
guard whistled; the engine whistled, the doors banged to, the young guard
jumped neatly into his brake, shouting good-night to the officials on the
platform; the train went out across the bridge, and presently, after one
or two stops, away into the dark country. The boy, crouching
uncomfortably in ambuscade, consoled himself with anticipation. Once in
the Duchess’s hotel comfort and he would not again separate. Perhaps
they would put him in a uniform and make him General Commanding of the
Hall; he could see the hall lined with giant palms; polite waiters at the
far end guarding entrance to an elaborately-furnished dining-room. There
would be mirrors with (he felt sure of this) roses painted upon them. He
could imagine all this; what he could not adequately picture was the
elaborate hot breakfast which the Duchess would cause to be prepared for
him.
“And now,” said the young guard, entering the van from his compartment,
“now for a struggle.”
Bobbie, hiding low behind the square basket, trembled. He had some
thought of giving himself up and throwing himself upon the mercy of the
guard, but he decided to wait. He could hear the rustling of pages as
the young guard standing under the roof lamp commenced in a loud voice to
recite:—
“A signalman sat in his signal-box
A thinking of this and that,
When the eight-ten mail went rushing by,
And he started, for—”
The young guard made his way steadily through the verses, then closing
the book, tried to recite them without assistance, and partly succeeded,
partly failed.
“I shall be no more better perfect by Thursday,” said the young guard
hopelessly, “than my old lamp.”
At Tonbridge, when the train stopped—the hour being now near upon
one—Bobbie, who had been dozing under the effects of the guard’s recital,
warily bestirred himself. He waited until the guard had stepped out, and
then, by rushing into the centre compartment of the van, he just managed
to elude the porters who had thrown open the doors to clear out parcels.
Bobbie jumped down from the off side of the brake on to the ballast, and
intuitively made his way down the line. He had to reach the next
station, Paddock Wood, and then the course would be clear; in all he
guessed there was about a ten miles walk before him, and, by refraining
from hurry, this ought to take him through the night. He walked
carefully away from the station into the black night by the side of the
lines, but not so carefully as to avoid an occasional stumble over iron
rods connecting the points. By good chance he chose the line which would
take him to Paddock Wood, and he made his way stolidly in the darkness
along the straight rails, the cornet in his tail pocket knocking at his
ankles. Looking back he saw the red and green lights of the junction
that he had left; looking forward he saw nothing. Now and again he
struck a match for the sake of company, and then for a moment he caught
sight of the four shining rails and the tall gaunt telegraph posts;
resting at one or two of these posts, he had a talk with them, and
listened to their ceaseless humming. He was not afraid yet, because a
spirit of adventure was in the air; he knew several boys at the Homes who
would have shrieked with terror to find themselves alone like this on a
black night in a lonely country with which they were not acquainted. The
dead silence was just beginning to terrify him when far ahead he saw two
small white eyes. They came nearer and nearer and larger and larger.
The boy became nervous. He stopped and stumbled down into the dry ditch
that ran along by the side of the railway; the two white eyes came upon
him with a hissing sound, Bobbie put his hands over his face and held his
breath. A fierce tumultuous rush past; a flash of light. Bobbie
venturing to remove his hands after a full minute, saw that the engine,
out alone at a time of night when all respectable engines should have
been abed, was a distance off, its rear light showing redly.
He felt shaken by this, but he made his way doggedly along the loose
ballasted walk, through the dark, still night, trying not to think of
what he was doing; nevertheless, he still counted the gaunt telegraph
posts, and told each of them its number. He had been walking, he
thought, about an hour and a half, when he saw specks of coloured lights
in the distance, and he knew that he was nearing a station. From thence
he would have to branch off to the right.
“I’m getting on a fair treat,” he said, cheerfully.
At Paddock Wood, noise and commotion that were grateful after the silence
of the walk. Goods trains blundering about in sidings and excited men
with lamps begging them to be reasonable, but the trucks of goods trains
declining to listen to advice, and quarrelling and nudging and punching
and shoving each other in a great state of ill-temper. Engines, on the
earnest appeal of the men with lamps, hurried to restore order, and the
occasion being one demanding drastic remedy, half a dozen specially
quarrelsome trucks were selected for punishment, a masterful engine drew
them out on a middle line, and when one of the men with lamps had
uncoupled them, the engine made a sudden rush and sent them all flying
away into a distant siding where they could no longer interfere with the
general order. Something of quiet ensuing upon this, the engine-drivers
drank hot tea out of tin cans, and the shunters with lamps made a hasty
meal of thick bread and thick bacon—a meal interrupted by the arrival of
a long, overgrown goods train, which insisted upon ridding itself of a
dozen trucks, and went after a while with an exultant shriek at having
got the best of somebody. Bobbie stood away from all this, watching it
with great delight. He had begun to feel sleepy. This awakened him.
He went out through the flat, silent, straggling village, and found, by
climbing a finger-post and striking a match, the direction that he had to
take for Brenchley. There was a vague touch of lightness now in the
starless sky; passing by the quick-set hedge, bordering a churchyard, he
could see upright tombstones, dimly white, and the sight depressed the
boy, for he knew that here were those whose memory to some was dear. The
boy came to cross roads, and then found that his box of matches had
disappeared through a hole in his frock-coat pocket. He sat down with
his back against the post fixed in the grass triangle at the centre of
the roads; before he had time to warn himself to keep awake, his eyes
closed. He slept.
“Now, then!” said a voice. “Time all boys was out of bed.”
“It’s all right, mother,” said the boy sleepily. “I was just getting—”
He rubbed his eyes and looked around. Instead of the neat room with its
red-counterpaned beds, and the mother of Collingwood Cottage shaking his
shoulder—broad daylight and the open country. The person who had
awakened him was a uniformed man, with a straight-peaked cap which bore
the figure of a horse.
“Know where you are?” asked the uniformed man.
“Just beginning to guess,” said the boy blinking.
“Where you bound for?”
“What’s it got to do with you?” asked Bobbie, yawning.
“It’s got all to do with me, as it happens. I’m the constable in charge
of this district.”
“Ho, yes!” said the boy incredulously. “Where’s your ’elmet?”
“Ah!” remarked the constable, with tolerance. “You’re town bred, I can
see. What you got in your tail pocket?”
“Cornet.”
“Whose?”
“Mine,” said the boy defiantly. “Who’s did you think?”
“One minute,” said the constable sharply. “Haven’t done with you yet, my
lad. If that’s your cornet, and you’ve come by it honest, you can no
doubt play a tune on it.”
“Why should I play a tune to an amateur, ’alf-baked copper like you?”
“I’ve got you,” said the constable gleefully. “I’ve got you, my lad, on
a piece of string. Wandering about with no vis’ble means of subsistence;
also in possession of property that he is unable to account for. I’ll
borrow a dog-cart, and take you off to Tonbridge.”
“Give it a name, then,” said the boy sulkily.
“‘Dreamt I dwelt in marble ’alls,’” suggested the constable.
Bobbie played this, and the constable, much delighted, not only gave up
all idea of the dog-cart and Tonbridge, but asked for another verse.
“What time do you make it?” asked Bobbie, wiping his lips.
He felt hungry; the thought of hot coffee and hot rolls, and broiled ham
and eggs, waiting for him at the Duchess’s magnificent hotel, made him
anxious. The constable lifted a huge watch from his trousers pocket.
“Wants a quarter to six,” he said.
“’Appen to know a place up at Brenchley called ‘The Happy Retreat’?”
“Do I not.”
“Rather fine hotel, isn’t it? One of the most important places of its
kind in the district, eh?”
“Of its kind,” said the constable, “yes.”
“Do an extr’ordinary business there, don’t they?”
“Most extr’ordinary.”
“Which road do I take to get to it quickest?” The constable pointed with
his stick. “I know the landlord and the landlady, and I want to get
there for breakfast.”
“I could see you was well connected,” remarked the constable pleasantly,
“by the fit of your coat. Give my regards to ’em, and tell ’em from me
that ten o’clock’s their time for closing, not ’alf-past.”
“Right,” said Bobbie.
“Give us another verse of ‘Dreamt I dwelt,’” begged the constable, “’fore
you go.”
The country was already rousing itself, being a country that went to bed
early, and able, therefore, to rise betimes. Smoke puffed straight out
of the chimneys stuck atop of the infrequent cottages; a grateful scent
of boiling tea came from the open doors across the gardens of flowers to
the roadway. Conceited poultry strutted out to the gate and crowed;
birds up in the trees whistled and chirruped ceaselessly; rooks flew
about near a row of tall poplars trying their voices, voices which seemed
rather hoarse and out of practice. At one place by the side of the
roadway where the green border was spacious, gipsies in their
yellow-painted van were bestirring themselves, and scantily-clothed,
brown-skinned children affected to wash at the brook whilst their parents
quarrelled loudly. The male parent broke off to call to Bobbie, asking
him if he wanted a lift to London. Bobbie shook his head, and hurried on
up the hill. A postman went by on his tricycle, reading the postcards
entrusted to him as he went; at the diamond-patterned windows on the top
floor of cottages, apple-cheeked, white-shouldered girls were doing their
hair, holding a rope of it between their teeth and plaiting the rest. A
tramp who had been sleeping in a barn slouched along, picking straws from
his deplorable clothes and swearing softly to himself. Men in thick,
earth-covered boots came out of their houses to go to their work in the
fields, and small babies waved hands to them from the protected doorways.
Bobbie noticed, away from the road, a small, dilapidated house with a
vague, unintelligible sign-post, and anxious to arrive at the Duchess’s
hotel without error, he went to inquire. He pushed open the door;
stepped in on the floor of uneven bricks. A lazy smell of stale beer
pervaded the low-ceilinged passage; to the right was a room with a dirty
table, dirtier by reason of sticky rings made by pots of beer. At the
end of the table, smooth spaces caused by practice of the game of
shove-halfpenny.
“Shop!” called Bobbie.
No answer! He went through the passage. It was a beer-house evidently;
a few casks stood about and unwashed earthenware mugs lined the counter.
Dirt and untidiness everywhere. Upstairs he heard a voice crooning, and
he listened anxiously, for the song seemed familiar.
“You should see us in our landor when we’re drivin’ in the Row,
You should ’ear us chaff the dukes and belted earls.
We’re daughters of nobility—”
“The Duchess!” cried the boy.
The song stopped. A window of the room above opened and the Duchess’s
voice could be heard upbraiding Mr. Leigh.
“Fat lot of good you do pottering about in the garden and pretendin’ you
was born and bred in the country. Wish to goodness we was back in Ely
Place again.”
Mr. Leigh begged that the Duchess would hold her row and let him get on
with his scarlet runners in peace.
“Peace?” cried the Duchess, scornfully. “There’s a jolly sight too much
peace about this dead and alive ’ole. I’m a woman used to a certain
amount of seeciety.”
Mr. Leigh advised her to go downstairs and have a drop of beer and then
get back to bed again.
“Beer and bed,” complained the Duchess with great contempt. “That’s
about all there is in this place. I’d rather be Bat Miller and—”
“For goodness sake,” begged Mr. Leigh, “’ush.”
“Shan’t ’ush,” declared the Duchess, preparing to slam the window. “I
shall tell everybody why we’re come ’ere and what you—”
Mr. Leigh, speaking for once with decision, said imperatively, “Shut that
winder and shut your mouth, or else I’ll come and do both.”
The Duchess obeyed, and Bobbie stood back as he heard her coming in
slippered feet down the stairs. Few of us look our best at six o’clock
in the morning, and the Duchess formed no exception. It was not easy to
glance at her without a shudder.
The boy turned and hurried out. He ran swiftly, crying as he went, down
the hill to the gipsies’ van.