I
I WAS away about five weeks. I wrote my special articles on the
condition of the Lancashire cotton industry (Severn, by the way, had
secured me the commission), and from time to time I went into Manchester
and called at the post-office for letters. Terry didn't write, but I
wasn't surprised at that. What did surprise me was a short note from
Mrs. Severn. She wanted me to dine at the End House on the twelfth, if I
were back in town on that date. Terry, she said, would be coming as
well. (Had she begun calling him "Terry," I wondered?) She went on to
inform me about the cat, and she wrote: "I think it is rather wonderful
of him to have thought of such a thing. It shows that he is _beginning_
to be human."
All the rest of that sombre Manchester day I kept repeating to myself:
He is beginning to be human....
When I returned to town I wondered if he was. _Something_ had happened
to him, at any rate; there was a difference in him, slight, indeed, but
plain enough. A sort of eagerness for something.... I reached London
late on Saturday night, and early on Sunday he presented himself at my
bedside and demanded that I should accompany him on one of his usual
Sabbath tramps. For nobody else on earth would I have roused myself that
morning, and not even for him, I believe, but for that curious, wistful
eagerness.
It was Epping Forest this time. We walked from Chingford to Loughton,
had lunch, walked on to Epping, had tea, and then walked on to
Waltham--total, fourteen miles. But I enjoyed it more than I had
expected, for the day was spring-like, full of blue sky and white clouds
and the smell of earth. Most of the way as far as Epping I talked of my
Lancashire adventures, and it was not until after tea that he spoke more
than a few consecutive sentences. The dusk sank over us as we walked the
last stage through the Forest, treading the sodden leaves of the old
year and guiding ourselves by glimpses of Waltham's white tower in the
valley below. But I think it was the bells that made him suddenly
talk--the Abbey bells that flung us their distant echo as we descended.
For he said, when a cool wave of air brought them very near to us: "It's
strange how beauty, if you're in a certain mood, comes over you. You
can't help it--it comes anyhow, just when and where it likes.... Those
bells--to hear them like this--and all this Forest with the winding
pathways through it, and the little lamp-lit town that we shall come to
in half-an-hour."
A group of men and girls approached, heralded by the glow-worm
brightness of the men's cigarettes, and he waited till they had gone
past. Then he went on: "Don't you think it's strange that I should talk
like this?"
Before I could answer he continued: "It _is_ strange. Everything is
strange. There's something strange in this Forest to-night--something
beautiful, and yet, in a way, sad. I feel that if I didn't fight against
it, it would swamp me.... Are you thinking me off my head?"
"Oh, no," I answered. "A trifle morbid, perhaps, but no more than that."
He said slowly, as if talking to himself: "_Morbid_? That's the word
_she_ used."
"Who?"
"Helen."
I think we both of us then stood suddenly still. We had entered a bright
space of moonlight, and we both looked at each other, knowing exactly
what we were thinking. I could see from his eyes that he hadn't meant to
let me know that he called her Helen.
We took the train at Waltham, and nothing else that he said was of the
least importance.