THE WEATHER broke suddenly; it grew chilly and heavy rain fell. It put
an end to our excursions. I was not sorry, for I did not know how I
could look Mrs. Driffield in the face now that I had seen her meeting
with George Kemp. I was not so much shocked as astonished. I could not
understand how it was possible for her to like being kissed by an old
man, and the fantastic notion passed through my mind, filled with the
novels I had read, that somehow Lord George held her in his power and
forced her by his knowledge of some fearful secret to submit to his
loathsome embraces. My imagination played with terrible possibilities.
Bigamy, murder, and forgery. Very few villains in books failed to hold
the threat of exposure of one of these crimes over some hapless female.
Perhaps Mrs. Driffield had backed a bill; I never could quite understand
what this meant, but I knew that the consequences were disastrous. I
toyed with the fancy of her anguish (the long sleepless nights when she
sat at her window in her nightdress, her long fair hair hanging to her
knees, and watched hopelessly for the dawn) and saw myself (not a boy of
fifteen with sixpence a week pocket money, but a tall man with a waxed
moustache and muscles of steel in faultless evening dress) with a happy
blend of heroism and dexterity rescuing her from the toils of the
rascally blackmailer. On the other hand, it had not looked as though she
had yielded quite unwillingly to Lord George’s fondling and I could not
get out of my ears the sound of her laugh. It had a note that I had
never heard before. It gave me a queer feeling of breathlessness.
During the rest of my holidays I only saw the Driffields once more. I
met them by chance in the town and they stopped and spoke to me. I
suddenly felt very shy again, but when I looked at Mrs. Driffield I
could not help blushing with embarrassment, for there was nothing in her
countenance that indicated a guilty secret. She looked at me with those
soft blue eyes of hers in which there was a child’s playful naughtiness.
She often held her mouth a little open, as though it were just going to
break into a smile, and her lips were full and red. There was honesty
and innocence in her face and an ingenuous frankness and though then I
could not have expressed this, I felt it quite strongly. If I had put it
into words at all I think I should have said: She looks as straight as a
die. It was impossible that she could be “carrying on” with Lord George.
There must be an explanation; I did not believe what my eyes had seen.
Then the day came when I had to go back to school. The carter had taken
my trunk and I walked to the station by myself. I had refused to let my
aunt see me off, thinking it more manly to go alone, but I felt rather
low as I walked down the street. It was a small branch line to
Tercanbury and the station was at the other end of the town near the
beach. I took my ticket and settled myself in the corner of a
third-class carriage. Suddenly I heard a voice: “There he is”; and Mr.
and Mrs. Driffield bustled gaily up.
“We thought we must come and see you off,” she said. “Are you feeling
miserable?”
“No, of course not.”
“Oh, well, it won’t last long. We’ll have no end of a time when you come
back for Christmas. Can you skate?”
“No.”
“I can. I’ll teach you.”
Her high spirits cheered me, and at the same time the thought that they
had come to the station to say good-bye to me gave me a lump in my
throat. I tried hard not to let the emotion I felt appear on my face.
“I expect I shall be playing a lot of football this term,” I said. “I
ought to get into the second fifteen.”
She looked at me with kindly shining eyes, smiling with her full red
lips. There was something in her smile I had always rather liked, and
her voice seemed almost to tremble with a laugh or a tear. For one
horrible moment I was afraid that she was going to kiss me. I was scared
out of my wits. She talked on, she was mildly facetious as grown-up
people are with schoolboys, and Driffield stood there without saying
anything. He looked at me with a smile in his eyes and pulled his beard.
Then the guard blew a cracked whistle and waved a red flag. Mrs.
Driffield took my hand and shook it. Driffield came forward.
“Good-bye,” he said. “Here’s something for you.”
He pressed a tiny packet into my hand and the train steamed off. When I
opened it I found that it was two half-crowns wrapped in a piece of
toilet paper. I blushed to the roots of my hair. I was glad enough to
have an extra five shillings, but the thought that Ted Driffield had
dared to give me a tip filled me with rage and humiliation. I could not
possibly accept anything from him. It was true that I had bicycled with
him and sailed with him, but he wasn’t a sahib (I had got that from
Major Greencourt) and it was an insult to me to give me five shillings.
At first I thought of returning the money without a word, showing by my
silence how outraged I was at the solecism he had committed, then I
composed in my head a dignified and frigid letter in which I thanked him
for his generosity, but said that he must see how impossible it was for
a gentleman to accept a tip from someone who was practically a stranger.
I thought it over for two or three days and every day it seemed more
difficult to me to part with the two half-crowns. I felt sure that
Driffield had meant it kindly, and of course he was very bad form and
didn’t know about things; it would be rather hard to hurt his feelings
by sending the money back, and finally I spent it. But I assuaged my
wounded pride by not writing to thank Driffield for his gift.
When Christmas came, however, and I went back to Blackstable for the
holidays, it was the Driffields I was most eager to see. In that
stagnant little place they alone seemed to have a connection with the
outside world which already was beginning to touch my daydreams with
anxious curiosity. But I could not overcome my shyness enough to go to
their house and call, and I hoped that I should meet them in the town.
But the weather was dreadful, a boisterous wind whistled down the
street, piercing you to the bone, and the few women who had an errand
were swept along by their full skirts like fishing boats in half a gale.
The cold rain scudded in sudden squalls and the sky, which in summer had
enclosed the friendly country so snugly, now was a great pall that
pressed upon the earth with sullen menace. There was small hope of
meeting the Driffields by chance and at last I took my courage in both
hands and one day after tea slipped out. As far as the station the road
was pitch dark, but there the street lamps, few and dim, made it easier
to keep to the pavement. The Driffields lived in a little two-story
house in a side street; it was of dingy yellow brick and had a bow
window. I knocked and presently a little maid opened the door; I asked
if Mrs. Driffield was in. She gave me an uncertain look and, saying she
would go and see, left me standing in the passage. I had already heard
voices in the next room, but they were stilled as she opened the door
and, entering, shut it behind her. I had a faint impression of mystery;
in the houses of my uncle’s friends, even if there was no fire and the
gas had to be lit as you went in, you were shown into the drawing room
when you called. But the door was opened and Driffield came out. There
was only a speck of light in the passage and at first he could not see
who it was; but in an instant he recognized me.
“Oh, it’s you. We wondered when we were going to see you.” Then he
called out: “Rosie, it’s young Ashenden.”
There was a cry and before you could say knife Mrs. Driffield had come
into the passage and was shaking my hands.
“Come in, come in. Take off your coat. Isn’t it awful, the weather? You
must be perishing.”
She helped me with my coat and took off my muffler and snatched my cap
out of my hand and drew me into the room. It was hot and stuffy, a tiny
room full of furniture, with a fire burning in the grate; they had gas
there, which we hadn’t at the vicarage, and the three burners in round
globes of frosted glass filled the room with harsh light. The air was
gray with tobacco smoke. At first, dazzled and then taken aback by my
effusive welcome, I did not see who the two men were who got up as I
came in. Then I saw they were the curate, Mr. Galloway, and Lord George
Kemp. I fancied that the curate shook my hand with constraint.
“How are you? I just came in to return some books that Mr. Driffield had
lent me and Mrs. Driffield very kindly asked me to stay to tea.”
I felt rather than saw the quizzical look that Driffield gave him. He
said something about the mammon of unrighteousness, which I recognized
as a quotation, but did not gather the sense of. Mr. Galloway laughed.
“I don’t know about that,” he said. “What about the publicans and
sinners?”
I thought the remark in very bad taste, but I was immediately seized
upon by Lord George. There was no constraint about him.
“Well, young fellow, home for the holidays? My word, what a big chap
you’re growing.”