I
Kenyon had been more unmanageable than usual. Unsettled and excitable
from the moment he awoke and remembered who was coming in the evening,
he had remained in an unsafe state all day. That evening found him with
unbroken bones was a miracle to Ethel his sister, and to his great
friend John, the under-gardener. Poor Ethel was in charge; and sole
charge of Kenyon, who was eleven, was no light matter for a girl with
her hair still down. Her brother was a handful at most times; to-day he
would have filled some pairs of stronger hands than Ethel's. They had
begun the morning together, with snob-cricket, as the small boy called
it; but Kenyon had been rather rude over it, and Ethel had retired.
She soon regretted this step; it had made him reckless; he had spent
the most dangerous day. Kenyon delighted in danger. He had a mania for
walking round the entire premises on the garden wall, which was high
enough to kill him if he fell, and for clambering over the greenhouses,
which offered a still more fascinating risk. Not only had he done both
this morning, he had gone so far as to straddle a gable of the house
itself, shrieking good-tempered insults at Ethel, who appealed to him
with tears and entreaties from the lawn below. Ethel had been quite
disabled from sitting at meat with him; and in the afternoon he had
bothered the gardeners, in the potting-shed, to such an extent that his
friend John had subsequently refused to bowl to him. In John's words
Master Kenyon had been a public nuisance all day--though a lovable
one--at his very worst he was that. He had lovable looks, for one
thing. It was not the only thing. The boy had run wild since his young
mother's death. There were reasons why he should not go to school at
present. There were reasons why he should spend the long summer days
in the sunshine, and open only the books he cared about, despite the
oddity of his taste in books. He had dark, laughing eyes, and a face
of astonishing brightness and health: astonishing because (as he said)
his legs and arms were as thin as pipe-stems, and certainly looked as
brittle. Kenyon was indeed a delicate boy. He was small and delicate
and weak in everything but spirit. "He has the spirit," said John, his
friend, "of the deuce and all!"
Ethel forgave easily, perhaps too easily, but then she was Kenyon's
devoted slave, who cried about him half the night, and lived for him,
and longed to die for him. Kenyon had toned himself down by tea-time,
and when he sought her then as though nothing had happened, she was
only too thankful to catch his spirit. Had she reminded him of his
behaviour on the roof and elsewhere, he would have been very sorry and
affectionate; but it was not her way to make him sorry, it was her
way to show an interest in all he had to say, and at tea-time Kenyon
was still full of the thing that had excited and unsettled him in the
morning. Only now he was beginning to feel in awe, and the schoolroom
tea had never been a seemlier ceremony.
These children seldom sat at table with their father, and very, very
seldom listened for the wheels of his brougham as they were listening
to-night. In the boy's mind the sound was associated with guilty
apprehensions and a cessation of all festivities. But to-night Mr.
Harwood was to bring back with him one of Kenyon's own heroes, one of
the heroes of his favourite book, which was not a storybook. It has
been said that Kenyon's literary taste was peculiar; his favourite book
was _Lillywhite's Cricketers' Guide_; the name of the great young man
who was coming this evening had figured prominently in recent volumes
of _Lillywhite_, and Kenyon knew every score he had ever made.
"Do you think he'll talk to us?" was one of the thousand questions
which Ethel had to answer. "I'd give my nut to talk to him! Fancy
having C. J. Forrester to stay here! I've a sort of idea the governor
asked him partly to please me, though he says he's a sort of relation.
I only wish we'd known it before. Anyhow, it's the jolliest thing the
governor ever did in his life, and a wonder he did it, seeing he only
laughs at cricket. I wish he'd been a cricketer himself, then he'd
kick up less row about the glass; thank goodness I haven't broken any
to-day! I say, I wish C. J. Forrester'd made more runs yesterday; he's
certain to have the hump."
Kenyon had not picked up all his pretty expressions in the
potting-shed; he was intimate with a boy who went to a public school.
"How many did he make?" Ethel asked.
"Duck and seven. He must be sick!"
"I shouldn't be surprised if he thinks far less about it than you do,
Ken. It's only a game; I don't suppose he'll mind so very much."
"Oh, no, not at all; it's only about the swaggerest county match of
the season," scathed Kenyon, "and they only went and let Notts lick!
Besides, the _Sportsman_ says he was out to a miserable stroke second
innings. Where did I see the _Sportsman_? Oh, John and I are getting it
from the town every day; we're going halves; it comes to John, though,
so you needn't say anything. What _are_ you grinning at, Ethel? Ah,
you're not up in real cricket. You only understand snob."
Kenyon was more experienced. The public school boy hard by had given
him an innings or two at his net, where Kenyon had picked up more than
the rudiments of the game and a passion for _Lillywhite_. He had learnt
there his pretty expressions, which were anything but popular at home.
Mr. Harwood was a man of limited patience, with a still more limited
knowledge of boys. He frightened Kenyon, and the boy was at his worst
with him. A very sensitive man, of uncertain temper, he could not get
on with his children, though Ethel was his right hand already. It was
a secret trouble, an unacknowledged grief, to hard lonely Mr. Harwood.
But it was his own fault; he knew that; he knew all about it. He knew
too much of himself, and not enough of his children.
You could not blame Kenyon--Mr. Harwood would have been the last to
do so--yet it was dreadful to see him so impatient for his father's
return, for perhaps the first time in his life, and now only for the
sake of the stranger he was bringing with him; to see him peering
through the blind at this stranger, without so much as glancing at his
father or realising that he was there; to hear him talking volubly in
the drawing-room after dinner (when the children came down) to a very
young man whom he had never seen before; and to remember how little
he ever had to say to his own father. Ethel felt it--all--and was
particularly attentive to her father this evening. That peculiar man
may also have felt it, and the root of Ethel's attentions into the
bargain; for he was very snubbing to her. He never showed much feeling.
Yet it _was_ to please Kenyon that Mr. Harwood had pressed Forrester
to look him up, and not by any means (though this had been his way of
putting it to his young kinsman, whom he scarcely knew) to cheer his
own loneliness.
The cricketer was a sunburnt giant, disappointingly free from personal
lustre, and chiefly remarkable for his hands. He had an enormous
hand, and when it closed like jaws over Kenyon's little one, this
suffering student could well understand his _Lillywhite_ characterising
C. J. Forrester as "a grand field, especially in the country." They
talked cricket together from the first moment, and until Kenyon said
good-night. Upstairs he told Ethel that so far they had got no further
than the late match against Notts; that Forrester had described it
"as if he'd only _seen_ the thing;" and that she was quite right, and
C. J. was far less cut up at the result than he was. It was Kenyon's
county which had been trounced by Nottinghamshire, and he went so far
as to affirm that C. J. Forrester's disappointing form had directly
contributed to the disaster, and that he deserved to lose his place in
the team. This, however, was but a drop of bravado in the first flood
of enthusiasm for C. J.
Mr. Harwood watched and heard the frank, free, immediate intercourse
between Kenyon and the visitor. He had never known Kenyon so bright
and animated--so nearly handsome. The boy was at his best, and his
best was a revelation to Mr. Harwood, who had never in his life had
a real conversation with Kenyon such as Forrester was having now. He
had talked _to_ Kenyon, that was all. As he sat grimly listening, with
Ethel snubbed to silence, he may have felt a jealous longing to be his
small son's friend, not merely his father; to interest him, as this
complete stranger was doing, and he himself honestly interested; to
love openly, and be openly loved. The man was self-conscious enough to
feel all this, and to smile as he rose to look at the clock, and saw in
the mirror behind it no trace of such feeling in his own thin-lipped,
whiskered face. At nine the children said good-night, of their own
accord, knowing better than to stay a minute over their time. Mr.
Harwood kissed them as coldly and lightly as usual; but surprised them
with a pleasantry before they reached the door.
"Wait, Kenyon. Forrester, ask him your average. He'll tell you to a
decimal. He knows what he calls his _Lillywhite_ by heart."
Kenyon looked extremely eager, though Mr. Harwood's tone struck
Forrester as a little sarcastic.
"You've been getting it up!" the cricketer said knowingly to Kenyon.
"I haven't," declared Kenyon, bubbling over with excitement.
"You needn't ask him your own," Ethel added, quite entering into it.
"He knows them all."
"Oh, we'll have mine," said Forrester, who felt slightly ridiculous but
much amused. "What was it for the 'Varsity--my first year?"
Kenyon had to think. That was three years ago, before he had known much
about cricket; but he had read up that year's _Lillywhite_--he read as
many old _Lillywhites_ as he could borrow--and he answered in a few
moments:
"Nineteen point seven."
"You _have_ been getting it up!" cried Forrester.