YOUNG JOHN SCARLETT
I
That fatal September--the September that was to see young John take his
adventurous way to his first private school--surely, steadily
approached.
Mrs. Scarlett, an emotional and sentimental little woman, vibrating and
taut like a telegraph wire, told herself repeatedly that she would make
no sign. The preparations proceeded, the date--September 23rd--was
constantly evoked, a dreadful ghost, by the careless, light-hearted
family. Mr. Scarlett made no sign.
From the hour of John's birth--nearly ten years ago--Mrs. Scarlett had
never known a day when she had not been compelled to control her
sentimental affections. From the first John had been an adorable baby,
from the first he had followed his father in the rejection of all
sentiment as un-English, and even if larger questions are involved,
unpatriotic, but also from the first he had hinted, in surprising,
furtive, agitating moments, at poetry, imagination, hidden, romantic
secrets. Tom, May, Clare, the older children, had never been known to
hint at anything--hints were not at all in their line, and of
imagination they had not, between them, enough to fill a silver
thimble--they were good, sturdy, honest children, with healthy stomachs
and an excellent determination to do exactly the things that their class
and generation were bent upon doing. Mrs. Scarlett was fond of them, of
course, and because she was a sentimental woman she was sometimes quite
needlessly emotional about them, but John--no. John was of another
world.
The other children felt, beyond question, this difference. They deferred
to John about everything and regarded him as leader of the family, and
in their deference there was more than simply a recognition of his
sturdy independence. Even John's father, Mr. Reginald Scarlett, a K.C.,
and a man of a most decisive and emphatic bearing, felt John's
difference.
John's appearance was unengaging rather than handsome--a snub nose,
grey eyes, rather large ears, a square, stocky body and short, stout
legs. He was certainly the most independent small boy in England, and
very obstinate; when any proposal that seemed on the face of it absurd
was made to him, he shut up like a box. His mouth would close, his eyes
disappear, all light and colour would die from his face, and it was as
though he said: "Well, if you are stupid enough to persist in this thing
you can compel me, of course--you are physically stronger than I--but
you will only get me like this quite dead and useless, and a lot of good
may it do you!"
There were times, of course, when he could be most engagingly pleasant.
He was courteous, on occasion, with all the beautiful manners that, we
are told, are yielding so sadly before the spread of education and the
speed of motor-cars--you never could foretell the guest that he would
prefer, and it was nothing to him that here was an aunt, an uncle, or a
grandfather who must be placated, and there an uninvited, undesired
caller who mattered nothing at all. Mr. Scarlett's father he offended
mortally by expressing, in front of him, dislike for hair that grew in
bushy profusion out of that old gentleman's ears.
"But you could cut it off," he argued, in a voice thick with surprised
disgust. His grandfather, who was a baronet, and very wealthy, predicted
a dismal career for his grandchild.
All the family realised quite definitely that nothing could be done with
John. It was fortunate, indeed, that he was, on the whole, of a happy
and friendly disposition. He liked the world and things that he found in
it. He liked games, and food, and adventure--he liked quite tolerably
his family--he liked immensely the prospect of going to school.
There were other things--strange, uncertain things--that lay like the
dim, uncertain pattern of some tapestry in the back of his mind. He gave
_them_, as the months passed, less and less heed. Only sometimes when he
was asleep....
Meanwhile, his mother, with the heroism worthy of Boadicea, that great
and savage warrior, kept his impulses of devotion, of sacrifice, of
adoration, in her heart. John had no need of them; very long ago,
Reginald Scarlett, then no K.C., with all the K.C. manner, had told her
that _he_ did not need them either. She gave her dinner parties, her
receptions, her political gatherings--tremulous and smiling she faced a
world that thought her a wise, capable little woman, who would see her
husband a judge and peer one of these days.
"Mrs. Scarlett--a woman of great social ambition," was their definition
of her.
"Mrs. Scarlett--the mother of John," was her own.
II
On a certain night, early in the month of September, young John dreamt
again--but for the first time for many months--the dream that had, in
the old days, come to him so often. In those days, perhaps, he had not
called it a dream. He had not given it a name, and in the quiet early
days he had simply greeted, first a protector, then a friend. But that
was all very long ago, when one was a baby and allowed oneself to
imagine anything. He had, of course, grown ashamed of such confiding
fancies, and as he had become more confident had shoved away, with
stout, determined fingers, those dim memories, poignancies, regrets. How
childish one had been at four, and five, and six! How independent and
strong now, on the very edge of the world of school! It perturbed him,
therefore, that at this moment of crisis this old dream should recur,
and it perturbed him the more, as he lay in bed next morning and thought
it over, that it should have seemed to him at the time no dream at all,
but simply a natural and actual occurrence.
He had been asleep, and then he had been awake. He had seen, sitting on
his bed and looking at him with mild, kind eyes his old Friend. His
Friend was always the same, conveying so absolutely kindness and
protection, and his beard, his hands, the appealing humour of his gaze,
recalled to John the early years, with a swift, imperative urgency.
John, so independent and assured, felt, nevertheless, again that old
alarm of a strange, unreal world, and the necessity of an appeal for
protection from the only one of them all who understood.
"Hallo!" said John.
"Well?" said his Friend. "It's many months since I've been to see you,
isn't it?"
"That's not my fault," said John.
"In a way, it is. You haven't wanted me, have you? Haven't given me a
thought."
"There's been so much to do. I'm going to school, you know."
"Of course. That's why I have come now."
Beside the window a dark curtain blew forward a little, bulged as though
some one were behind it, thinned again in the pale dim shadows of a moon
that, beyond the window, fought with driving clouds. That curtain
would--how many ages ago!--have tightened young John's heart with
terror, and the contrast made by his present slim indifference drew him,
in some warm, confiding fashion, closer to his visitor.
"Anyway, I'm jolly glad you've come now. I haven't really forgotten you,
ever. Only in the day-time----"
"Oh, yes, you have," his Friend said, smiling. "It's natural enough and
right that you should. But if only you will believe always that I once
was here, if only you'll not be persuaded into thinking me impossible,
silly, absurd, sentimental--with ever so many other things--that's all
I've come now to ask you."
"Why, how should I ever?" John demanded indignantly.
"After all, I _was_ a help--for a long time when things were difficult
and you had so much to learn--all that time you wanted me, and I was
here."
"Of course," said John politely, but feeling within him that warning of
approaching sentiment that he had learnt by now so fundamentally to
dread.
Very well his friend understood his apprehension.
"That's all. I've only come to you now to ask you to make me a
promise--a very easy one."
"Yes?" said John.
"It's only that when you go off to school--before you leave this
house--you will just, for a moment, remember me just then, and say
good-bye to me. We've been a lot here in these rooms, in these passages,
up and down together, and if only, as you go, you'll think of me, I'll
be there.... Every year you've thought of me less--that doesn't
matter--but it matters more than you know that you should remember me
just for an instant, just to say good-bye. Will you promise me?"
"Why, of course," said John.
"Don't forget! Don't forget! Don't forget!" And the kindly shadow had
faded, the voice lingering about the room, mingling with the faint
silver moonlight, passing out into the wider spaciousness of the rolling
clouds.
III
With the clear light of morning came the confident certainty that it had
all been the merest dream, and yet that certainty did not sweep the
affair, as it should have done, from young John's brain and heart. He
was puzzled, perplexed, disturbed, unhappy. The "twenty-third" was
approaching with terrible rapidity, and it was essential now that he
should summon to aid all the forces of manly self-control and
common-sense. And yet, just at this time, of all others, came that
disturbing dream, and, in its train, absurd memories and fancies,
burdened, too, with an urgent prompting of gratitude to some one or
something. He shook it off, he obstinately rebelled, but he dreaded the
night, and, with a sigh of relief, hailed the morning that followed a
dreamless sleep.
Worst of all, he caught himself yielding to thoughts like these: "But he
was kind to me--awfully decent" (a phrase caught from his elder
brother). "I remember how He ..." And then he would shake himself. "It
was only a silly old dream. He wasn't real a bit. I'm not a rotten kid
now that thinks fairies and all that true."
He was bothered, too, by the affectionate sentiment (still disguised,
but ever, as the days proceeded, more thinly) of his mother and sisters.
The girls, May and Clare, adored young John. His elder brother was away
with a school friend. John, therefore, was left to feminine attention,
and very tiresome he found it. May and Clare, girls of no imagination,
saw only the drama that they might extract for themselves out of the
affair. They knew what school was like, especially at first--John was
going to be utterly wretched, miserably homesick, bullied, kept in over
horrible sums and impossible Latin exercises, ill-fed, and trodden upon
at games. They did not really believe these things--they knew that their
brother, Tom, had always had a most pleasant time, and John was
precisely the type of boy who would prosper at school, but they
indulged, just for this fortnight, their romantic sentiment, never
alluded in speech to school and its terrors, but by their pitying
avoidance of the subject filled the atmosphere with their agitation.
They were working things for John--May, handkerchiefs, and Clare, a
comforter; their voices were soft and charged with omens, their eyes
were bright with the drama of the event, as though they had been
supporting some young Christian relation before his encounter with the
lions. John hated more and more and more.
But more terrible to him than his sisters was his mother. He was too
young to understand what his departure meant to her, but he knew that
there was something real here that needed comforting. He wanted to
comfort her, and yet hated the atmosphere of emotion that he felt in
himself as well as in her. They ought to know, he argued, that the least
little thing would make him break down like an ass and behave as no man
should, and yet they were doing everything.... Oh, if only Tom were
here! Then, at any rate, would be brutal common-sense. There were
special meals for him during this fortnight, and an eager inviting of
his opinion as to how the days should be spent. On the last night of all
they were to go to the theatre--a real play this time, none of your
pantomime!
There was, moreover, all the business of clothes--fine, rich, stiff new
garments--a new Eton jacket, a round black coat, a shining bowler-hat,
new boots. He watched this stir with a brave assumption that he had
been surveying it all his life, but a horrible tight pain in the bottom
of his throat told him that he was a bravado, almost a liar.
He found himself, now that the "twenty-third" was gaping right there in
front of him, with its fiery throat wide and flaming, doing the
strangest thing. He was frightened of the dusk, he would run through the
passage and up the stairs at breathless speed, he would look for a
moment at the lamp-lit square with the lights of the opposite houses
tigers' eyes, and the trees filmy like smoke, then would hastily draw
the curtains and greet the warm inhabited room with a little gasp of
reassurance. Strangest of all, he found himself often in the old nursery
at the top of the house. Very seldom did any one come there now, and it
had the pathos of a room grown cold and comfortless. Most of the toys
were put away or given to hospitals, but the rocking-horse with his
Christmas-tree tail was there, and the doll's-house, and a railway with
trains and stations.
He was here. He was saying to himself: "Yes, it was just over there, by
the window, that He came that time. He talked to me there. That other
time it was when I was down by the doll's-house. He showed me the smoke
coming up from the chimneys when the sun stuck through, and the moon was
all red one night, and the stars."
He found himself gazing out over the square, over the twisted chimneys,
that seemed to be laughing at him, over the shining wires and glittering
roofs, out to the mist that wrapped the city beyond his vision--so vast,
so huge, so many people--March Square was nothing. He was nothing--John
Scarlett nothing at all.
Then, with a sigh, he turned back. His Friend, the other night, had been
real enough. Fairies, ghosts, goblins and dragons--everything was real.
Everything. It was all terrible, terrible to think of, but, above and
beyond all else, he must not forget, on the day of his departure, that
farewell; something disastrous would come upon him were he so
ungrateful.
And then he would go downstairs again, down to newspapers and fires,
toast and tea, the large print of Frith's "Railway Station," and the
coloured supplement of Greiffenhagen's "Idyll," and the tattered numbers
of the _Windsor_ and the _Strand_ magazines, and, behold, all these
things were real and all the things in the nursery unreal. Could it be
that both worlds were real? Even now, at his tender years, that old
business of connecting the Dream and the Business was at his throat.
"Teal Tea! Tea!" Frantic screams from May. "There's some new jam, and,
John, mother says she wants you to try on some underclothes afterwards.
Those others didn't do, she said...."
There came then the disastrous hour--an hour that John was never, in all
his after-life, to forget. On a wild stormy evening he found himself in
the nursery. A week remained now--to-day fortnight he would be in
another world, an alarming, fierce, tremendous world. He looked at the
rocking-horse with its absurd tail and the patch on its back, that had
been worn away by its faithful riders, and suddenly he was crying. This
was a thing that he never did, that he had strenuously, persistently
refrained from doing all these weeks, but now, in the strangest way, it
was the conviction that the world into which he was going wouldn't care
in the least for the doll's-house, and would mock brutally, derisively
at the rocking-horse, that defeated him. It was even the knowledge
that, in a very short time, he himself would be mocking.
He sat down on the floor and cried. The door opened; before he could
resist or make any movement, his mother's arms were about him, his
mother's cheek against his, and she was whispering: "Oh, my darling, my
darling!"
The horrible thing then occurred. He was savage, with a wild, fierce,
protesting rage. His cheeks flamed. His tears were instantly dried. That
he should have been caught thus! That, when he had been presenting so
brave and callous a front to the world, at the one weak and shameful
moment he should have been discovered! He scarcely realised that this
was his mother, he did not care who it was. It was as though he had been
delivered into the most horrible and shameful of traps. He pushed her
from him; he struggled fiercely on his feet. He regarded her with fiery
eyes.
"It isn't--I wasn't--you oughtn't to have come in. You needn't
imagine----"
He burst from the room. A shameful, horrible experience.
But it cannot be denied that he was ashamed afterwards. He loved his
mother, whereas he merely liked the rest of the family. He would not
hurt her for worlds, and yet, why _must_ she----
And strangely, mysteriously, her attitude was confused in his mind with
his dreams, and his Friend, and the red moon, and the comic chimneys.
He knew, however, that, during this last week he must be especially nice
to his mother, and, with an elaborate courtesy and strained attention,
he did his best.
The last night arrived, and, very smart and excited, they went to the
theatre. The boxes had been packed, and stood in a shining and
self-conscious trio in John's bedroom. The new play-box was there, with
its stolid freshness and the black bands at the corners; inside, there
was a multitude of riches, and it was, of course, a symbol of absolute
independence and maturity. John was wearing the new Eton jacket, also a
new white waistcoat; the parting in his hair was straighter than it had
ever been before, his ears were pink. The world seemed a confused
mixture of soap and starch and lights. Piccadilly Circus was a cauldron
of bubbling colour.
His breath came in little gasps, but his face, with its snub nose and
large mouth, was grave and composed; up and down his back little shivers
were running. When the car stopped outside the theatre he gave a little
gulp. His father, who was, for once, moved by the occasion, said an
idiotic thing;
"Excited, my son?"
With his head high he walked ahead of them, trod on a lady's dress,
blushed, heard his father say: "Look where you're going, my boy," heard
May giggle, frowned indignantly, and was conscious of the horrid
pressure of his collar-stud against his throat; arrived, hot, confused,
and very proud, in the dark splendour of the box.
The first play of his life, and how magnificent a play it was! It might
have been a rotten affair with endless conversations--luckily there were
no discussions at all. All the characters either loved or hated one
another too deeply to waste time in talk. They were Roundheads and
Cavaliers, and a splendid hero, who had once been a bad fellow, but was
now sorry, fought nine Roundheads at once, and was tortured "off" with
red lights and his lady waiting for results before a sympathetic
audience.
During the torture scene John's heart stopped entirely, his brow was
damp, his hand sought his mother's, found it, and held it very hard.
She, as she felt his hot fingers pressing against hers, began to see the
stage through a mist of tears. She had behaved very well during the past
weeks, but the soul that she adored was, to-morrow morning, to be hurled
out, wildly, helter-skelter, to receive such tarnishing as it might
please Fate to think good.
"I _can't_ let him go! I _can't_ let him go!"
The curtain came down.
John turned, his eyes wide, his cheeks pale with a pink spot on the
middle of each.
"I say, pass those chocolates along!" he whispered hoarsely. Then,
recovering himself a little: "I wonder what they did to him? They _must_
have done something to his legs, because they were all crooked when he
came out."
EPILOGUE
HUGH SEYMOUR
I
It happened that Hugh Seymour, in the month of December, 1911, found
himself in the dreamy orchard-bound cathedral city of Polchester.
Polchester, as all its inhabitants well know, is famous for its
cathedral, its buns, and its river, the cathedral being one of the
oldest, the buns being among the sweetest, and the Pol being amongst the
most beautiful of the cathedrals, buns and rivers of Great Britain.
Seymour had known Polchester since he was five years old, when he first
lived there with his father and mother, but he had only once during the
last ten years been able to visit Glebeshire, and then he had been to
Rafiel, a fishing village on the south coast. He had, therefore, not
seen Polchester since his childhood, and now it seemed to him to have
shrivelled from a world of infinite space and mystery into a toy town
that would be soon packed away in a box and hidden in a cupboard. As he
walked up and down the cobbled streets he was moved by a great affection
and sentiment for it. As he climbed the hill to the cathedral, as he
stood inside the Close with its lawns, its elm trees, its crooked
cobbled walks, its gardens, its houses with old bow windows and deep
overhanging doors, he was again a very small boy with soap in his eyes,
a shining white collar tight about his neck, and his Eton jacket stiff
and unfriendly. He was walking up the aisle with his mother, his boots
creaked, the bell's note was dropping, dropping, the fat verger with his
staff was undoing the cord of their seat, the boys of the choir-school
were looking at him and he was blushing, he was on his knees and the
edge of the kneeler was cutting into his trousers, the precentor's
voice, as remote from things human as the cathedral bell itself, was
crying, "Dearly beloved brethren." He would stop there and wonder
whether there could be any connection between that time and this,
whether those things had really happened to him, whether he might now
be dreaming and would wake up presently to find that it would be soon
time to start for the cathedral, that if he and his sisters were good
they would have a chapter of the "Pillars of the House" read to them
after tea, with one chocolate each at the end of every two pages. No, he
was real, March Square was real, Polchester was real, Glebeshire and
London were real together--nothing died, nothing passed away.
On the second afternoon of his stay he was standing in the Close, bathed
now in yellow sunlight, when he saw coming towards him a familiar
figure. One glance was enough to assure him that this was the Rev.
William Lasher, once Vicar of Clinton St. Mary, now Canon of Polchester
Cathedral. Mr. Lasher it was, and Mr. Lasher the same as he had ever
been. He was walking with his old energetic stride, his head up, his
black overcoat flapping behind him, his eyes sharply investigating in
and out and all round him. He saw Seymour, but did not recognise him,
and would have passed on.
"You don't know me?" said Seymour, holding out his hand.
"I beg your pardon, I----" said Canon Lasher.
"Seymour--Hugh Seymour--whom you were once kind enough to look after at
Clinton St. Mary."
"Why! Fancy! Indeed. My dear boy. My dear boy!" Mr. Lasher was immensely
cordial in exactly his old, healthy, direct manner. He insisted that
Seymour should come with him and drink a cup of tea. Mrs. Lasher would
be delighted. They had often wondered.... Only the other day Mrs. Lasher
was saying.... "And you're one of our novelists, I hear," said Canon
Lasher in exactly the tone that he would have used had Seymour taken to
tight-rope walking at the Halls.
"Oh, no!" said Seymour, laughing, "that's another man of my name. I'm at
the Bar."
"Ah," said the Canon, greatly relieved, "that's good! That's good! Very
good indeed!"
Mrs. Lasher was, of course, immensely surprised. "Why! Fancy! And it was
only yesterday! Whoever would have expected! I never was more
astonished! And tea just ready! How fortunate! Just fancy you meeting
the Canon!"
The Canon seemed, to Seymour, greatly mellowed by comfort and
prosperity; there was even the possibility of corpulence in the not
distant future. He was, indeed, a proper Canon.
"And who," said Seymour, "has Clinton St. Mary now?"
"One of the Trenchards," said Mr. Lasher. "As you know, a very famous
old Glebeshire family. There are some younger cousins of the Garth
Trenchards, I believe. You know of the Trenchards of Garth? No? Ah, very
delightful people. You should know them. Yes, Jim Trenchard, the man at
Clinton, is a few years senior to myself. He was priest when I was
deacon in--let me see--dear me, how the years fly--in--'pon my word, how
time goes!"
All of which gave Seymour to understand that the Rev. James Trenchard
was a failure in life, although a good enough fellow. Then it was that
suddenly, in the heart of that warm and cosy drawing-room, Hugh Seymour
was, sharply, as though by a douche of cold water, awakened to the fact
that he must see Clinton St. Mary again. It appeared to him, now, with
its lanes, its hedges, the village green, the moor, the Borhaze Road,
the pirates, yes, and the Scarecrow. It came there, across the Canon's
sumptuous Turkey carpet, and demanded his presence.
"I must go," Seymour said, getting up and speaking in a strange,
bewildered voice as though he were just awakening from a dream. He left
them, at last, promising to come and see them again.
He heard the Canon's voice in his ears: "Always a knife and fork, my
boy ... any time if you let us know." He stepped down into the little
lighted streets, into the town with its cosy security and some scent,
even then in the heart of winter, perhaps, from the fruit of its many
orchards. The moon, once again an orange feather in the sky, reminded
him of those early days that seemed now to be streaming in upon him from
every side.
Early next morning he caught the ten o'clock train to Clinton.
II
"Why," in the train he continued to say to himself, "have I let all
these years pass without returning? Why have I never returned?... Why
have I never returned?"
The slow, sleepy train (the London express never stops at Clinton)
jerked through the deep valleys, heavy with woods, golden brown at their
heart, the low hills carrying, on their horizons, white drifting clouds
that flung long grey shadows. Seymour felt suddenly as though he could
never return to London again exactly as he had returned to it before.
"That period of my life is over, quite over.... Some one is taking me
down here now--I know that I am being compelled to go. But I want to go.
I am happier than I have ever been in my life before."
Often, in Glebeshire, December days are warm and mellow like the early
days of September. It so was now; the country was wrapped in with happy
content, birds rose and hung, like telegraph wires, beyond the windows.
On a slanting brown field gulls from the sea, white and shining, were
hovering, wheeling, sinking into the soil. And yet, as he went, he was
not leaving March Square behind, but rather taking it with him. He was
taking the children too--Bim, Angelina, John, even Sarah (against her
will), and it was not her who was in charge of the party. He felt as
though, the railway carriages were full and he ought to say continually,
"Now, Bim, be quiet. Sit still and look at the picture-book I gave you.
Sarah, I shall leave you at the next station if you aren't careful," and
that she replied, giving him one of her dark sarcastic looks, "I don't
care if you do. I know how to get home all right without your help."
He wished that he hadn't brought her, and yet he couldn't help himself.
They all had to come. Then, as he looked about the empty carriage, he
laughed at himself. Only a fat farmer reading _The Glebeshire Times_.
"Marnin', sir," said the farmer. "Warm Christmas we'll be havin', I
reckon. Yes, indeed. I see the Bishop's dying--poor old soul too."
When they arrived at Clinton he caught himself turning round as though
to collect his charges; he thought that the farmer looked at him
curiously.
"Coming back again has turned my wits.... Now, Angelina, hurry up, can't
wait all day." He stopped then abruptly, to pull himself together. "Look
here, you're alone, and if you think you're not, you're mad. Remember
that you're at the Bar and not even a novelist, so that you have no
excuse."
The little platform--usually swept by all the winds of the sea, but now
as warm as a toasted bun--flooded him with memory. It was a platform
especially connected with school, with departure and return--departures
when money in one's pocket and cake in one's play-box did not compensate
for the hot pain in one's throat and the cold marble feeling of one's
legs; but when every feeling of every sort was swallowed by the great
overwhelming desire that the train would go so that one need not any
longer be agonised by the efforts of replying to Mr. Lasher's continued
last words: "Well, good-bye, my boy. A good time, both at work and
play"--the train was off.
"Ticket, please, sir!" said the long-legged young man at the little
wooden gate. Seymour plunged down into the deep, high-hedged lane that
even now, in winter, seemed to cover him with a fragrant odour of green
leaves, of flowers, of wet soil, of sea spray. He was now so conscious
of his company that the knowledge of it could not be avoided. It seemed
to him that he heard them chattering together, knew that behind his
back Sarah was trying to whisper horrid things in Bim's ear, and that he
was laughing at her, which made her furious.
"I must have eaten something," he thought. "It's the strangest feeling
I've ever had. I just won't take any notice of them. I'll go on as
though they weren't there." But the strangest thing of all was that he
felt as though he himself were being taken. He had the most comfortable
feeling that there was no need for him to give any thought or any kind
of trouble. "You just leave it all to me," some one said to him. "I've
made all the arrangements."
The lane was hot, and the midday winter sun covered the paths with pools
and splashes of colour. He came out on to the common and saw the
village, the long straggling street with the white-washed cottages and
the hideous grey-slate roofs; the church tower, rising out of the elms,
and the pond, running to the common's edge, its water chequered with the
reflection of the white clouds above it.
The main street of Clinton is not a lovely street; the inland villages
and towns of Glebeshire are, unless you love them, amongst the ugliest
things in England, but every step caught at Seymour's heart.
There was Mr. Roscoe's shop which was also the post-office, and in its
window was the same collection of liquorice sticks, saffron buns, reels
of cotton, a coloured picture of the royal family, views of Trezent
Head, Borhaze Beach, St. Arthe Church, cotton blouses made apparently
for dolls, so minute were they, three books, "Ben Hur," "The Wide, Wide
World," and "St. Elmo," two bottles of sweets, some eau-de-Cologne, and
a large white card with bone buttons on it. So moving was this
collection to Seymour that he stared at the window as though he were in
a trance.
The arrangement of the articles was exactly the same as it had been in
the earlier days--the royal family in the middle, supported by the jars
of sweets; the three books, very dusty and faded, in the very front; and
the bootlaces and liquorice sticks all mixed together as though Mr.
Roscoe had forgotten which was which.
"Look here, Bim," he said aloud, "I've left you up--I really am going
off my head!" he thought. He hurried away. "If I _am_ mad I'm awfully
happy," he said.
III
The white vicarage gate closed behind him with precisely the
old-remembered sound--the whiz, the sudden startled pause, the satisfied
click. Seymour stood on the sun-bathed lawn, glittering now like green
glass, and stared at the house. Its square front of faded red brick
preserved a tranquil silence; the only sound in the place was the
movement of some birds, his old friend the robin perhaps in the laurel
bushes behind him.
Although the sun was so warm there was in the air a foreshadowing of a
frosty night; and some Christmas roses, smiling at him from the flower
beds to right and left of the hall door, seemed to him that they
remembered him; but, indeed, the whole house seemed to tell him that.
There it waited for him, so silent, laid ready for his acceptance under
the blue sky and with no breath of wind stirring. So beautiful was the
silence, that he made a movement with his hand as though to tell his
companion to be quiet. He felt that they were crowded in an interested,
amused group behind him waiting to see what he would do. Then a little
bell rang somewhere in the house, a voice cried "Martha!"
He moved forward and pulled the wire of the bell; there was a wheezy
jangle, a pause, and then a sharp irritated sound far away in the heart
of the house, as though he had hit it in the wind and it protested. An
old woman, very neat (she was certainly a Glebeshire woman), told him
that Mr. Trenchard was at home. She took him through the dark passages
into the study that he knew so well, and said that Mr. Trenchard would
be with him in a moment.
It was the same study, and yet how different! Many of the old pieces of
furniture were there--the deep, worn leather arm-chair in which Mr.
Lasher had been sitting when he had his famous discussion with Mr.
Pidgen, the same bookshelves, the same tiles in the fireplace with Bible
pictures painted on them, the same huge black coal-scuttle, the same
long, dark writing-table. But instead of the old order and discipline
there was now a confusion that gave the room the air of a waste-paper
basket. Books were piled, up and down, in the shelves, they dribbled on
to the floor and lay in little trickling streams across the carpet; old
bundles of papers, yellow with age, tied with string and faded blue
tape, were in heaps upon the window-sill, and in tumbling cascades in
the very middle of the floor; the writing-table itself was so hopelessly
littered with books, sermon papers, old letters and new letters, bottles
of ink, bottles of glue, three huge volumes of a Bible Concordance,
photographs, and sticks of sealing-wax, that the man who could be happy
amid such confusion must surely be a kindly and benevolent creature. How
orderly had been Mr. Lasher's table, with all the pens in rows, and
little sharp drawers that clicked, marked A, B, and C, to put papers
into.
Mr. Trenchard entered.
He was what the room had prophesied--fat, red-faced, bald, extremely
untidy, with stains on his coat and tobacco on his coat, that was
turning a little green, and chalk on his trousers. His eyes shone with
pleased friendliness, but there was a little pucker in his forehead, as
though his life had not always been pleasant. He rubbed his nose, as he
talked, with the back of his hand, and made sudden little darts at the
chalk on his trousers, as though he would brush it off. He had the face
of an innocent baby, and when he spoke he looked at his companion with
exactly the gaze of trusting confidence that a child bestows upon its
elders.
"I hope you will forgive me," said Seymour, smiling; "I've come, too, at
such an awkward time, but the truth is I simply couldn't help myself. I
ought, besides, to catch the four o'clock train back to Polchester."
"Yes, indeed," said Mr. Trenchard, smiling, rubbing his hands together,
and altogether in the dark as to what his visitor might be wanting.
"Ah, but I haven't explained; how stupid of me! My name is Seymour. I
was here during several years, as a small boy, with Canon Lasher--in my
holidays, you know. It's years ago, and I've never been back. I was at
Polchester this morning and suddenly felt that I must come over. I
wondered whether you'd be so good as to let me look a little at the
house and garden."
There was nothing that Mr. Trenchard would like better. How was Canon
Lasher? Well? Good. They met sometimes at meetings at Polchester. Canon
Lasher, Mr. Trenchard believed, liked it better at Polchester than at
Clinton. Honestly, it would break Mr. Trenchard's heart if _he_ had to
leave the place. But there was no danger of that now. Would Mr.
Seymour--his wife would be delighted--would he stay to luncheon?
"Why, that is too kind of you," said Seymour, hesitating, "but there are
so many of us, such a lot--I mean," he said hurriedly, at Mr.
Trenchard's innocent stare of surprise, "that it's too hard on Mrs.
Trenchard, with so little notice."
He broke off confusedly.
"We shall only be too delighted," said Mr. Trenchard. "And if you have
friends ..."
"No, no," said Seymour, "I'm quite alone."
When, afterwards, he was introduced to Mrs. Trenchard in the
drawing-room, he liked her at once. She was a little woman, very neat,
with grey hair brushed back from her forehead. She was like some fresh,
mild-coloured fruit, and an old-fashioned dress of rather faded green
silk, and a large locket that she wore gave her a settled, tranquil air
as though she had always been the same, and would continue so for many
years. She had a high, fresh colour, a beautiful complexion and her
hands had the delicacy of fragile egg-shell china. She was cheerful and
friendly, but was, nevertheless, a sad woman; her eyes were dark and her
voice was a little forced as though she had accustomed herself to be in
good spirits. The love between herself and her husband was very pleasant
to see.
Like all simple people, they immediately trusted Seymour with their
confidence. During luncheon they told him many things, of Rasselas,
where Mr. Trenchard had been a curate, at their joy at getting the
Clinton living, and of their happiness at being there, of the kindness
of the people, of the beauty of the country, of their neighbours, of
their relations, the George Trenchards, at Garth of Glebeshire
generally, and what it meant to be a Trenchard.
"There've been Trenchards in Glebeshire," said the Vicar, greatly
excited, "since the beginning of time. If Adam and Eve were here, and
Glebeshire was the Garden of Eden, as I daresay it was, why, then Adam
was a Trenchard."
Afterwards when they were smoking in the confused study, Seymour learnt
why Mrs. Trenchard was a sad woman.
"We've had one trial, under God's grace," said Mr. Trenchard. "There
was a boy and a girl--Francis and Jessamy. They died, both, in a bad
epidemic of typhoid here, five years ago. Francis was five, Jessamy
four. 'The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away.' It was hard losing
both of them. They got ill together and died on the same day."
He puffed furiously at his pipe. "Mrs. Trenchard keeps the nursery just
the same as it used to be. She'll show it to you, I daresay."
Later, when Mrs. Trenchard took him over the house, his sight of the
nursery was more moving to him than any of his old memories. She
unlocked the door with a sharp turn of the wrist and showed him the wide
sun-lit room, still with fresh curtains, with a wall-paper of robins and
cherries, with the toys--dolls, soldiers, a big dolls'-house, a
rocking-horse, boxes of bricks.
"Our two children, who died five years ago," she said in her quiet, calm
voice, "this was their room. These were their things. I haven't been
able to change it as yet. Mr. Lasher," she said, smiling up at him, "had
no children, and you were too old for a nursery, I suppose."
It was then, as he stood in the doorway, bathed in a shaft of sunlight,
that he was again, with absolute physical consciousness, aware of the
children's presence. He could tell that they were pressing behind him,
staring past him into the room, he could almost hear their whispered
exclamations of delight.
He turned to Mrs. Trenchard as though she must have perceived that he
was not alone. But she had noticed nothing; with another sharp turn of
the wrist she had locked the door.
IV
To-morrow was Christmas Eve: he had promised to spend Christmas with
friends in Somerset. Now he went to the little village post-office and
telegraphed that he was detained; he felt at that moment as though he
would never like to leave Clinton again.
The inn, the "Hearty Cow," was kept by people who were new to
him--"foreigners, from up-country." The fat landlord complained to
Seymour of the slowness of the Clinton people, that they never could be
induced to see things to their own proper advantage. "A dead-alive
place _I_ call it," he said; "but still, mind you," he added, "it's got
a sort of a 'old on one."
From the diamond-paned windows of his bedroom next morning he surveyed a
glorious day, the very sky seemed to glitter with frost, and when his
window was opened he could hear quite plainly the bell on Trezent Rock,
so crystal was the air. He walked that morning for miles; he covered all
his old ground, picking up memories as though he were building a
pleasure-house. Here was his dream, there was disappointment, here that
flaming discovery, there this sudden terror--nothing had changed for
him, the Moor, St. Arthe Church, St. Dreot Woods, the high white gates
and mysterious hidden park of Portcullis House--all were as though it
had been yesterday that he had last seen them. Polchester had dwindled
before his giant growth. Here the moor, the woods, the roads had grown,
and it was he that had shrunken.
At last he stood on the sand-dunes that bounded the moor and looked down
upon the marbled sand, blue and gold after the retreating tide. The
faint lisp and curdle of the sea sang to him. A row of sea-gulls, one
and then another quivering in the light, stood at the water's edge; the
stiff grass that pushed its way fiercely from the sand of the dunes was
white with hoar-frost, and the moon, silver now, and sharply curved,
came climbing behind the hill.
He turned back and went home. He had promised to have tea at the
Vicarage, and he found Mrs. Trenchard putting holly over the pictures in
the little dark square hall. She looked as though she had always been
there, and as though, in some curious way, the holly, with its bright
red berries, especially belonged to her.
She asked him to help her, and Seymour thought that he must have known
her all his life. She had a tranquil, restful air, but, now and then,
hummed a little tune. She was very tidy as she moved about, picking up
little scraps of holly. A row of pins shone in her green dress. After a
while they went upstairs and hung holly in the passages.
Seymour had turned his back to her and was balanced on a little ladder,
when he heard her utter a sharp little cry.
"The nursery door's open," she said. He turned, and saw very clearly,
against the half-light, her startled eyes. Her hands were pressed
against her dress and holly had fallen at her feet. He saw, too, that
the nursery door was ajar.
"I locked it myself, yesterday; you saw me."
She gasped as though she had been running, and he saw that her face was
white.
He moved forward quickly and pushed open the door. The room itself was
lightened by the gleam from the passage and also by the moonlight that
came dimly through the window. The shadow of some great tree was flung
upon the floor. He saw, at once, that the room was changed. The
rocking-horse that had been yesterday against the wall had now been
dragged far across the floor. The white front of the dolls'-house had
swung open and the furniture was disturbed as though some child had been
interrupted in his play. Four large dolls sat solemnly round a dolls'
tea-table, and a dolls' tea service was arranged in front of them. In
the very centre of the room a fine castle of bricks had been rising, a
perfect Tower of Babel in its frustrated ambition.
The shadow of the great tree shook and quivered above these things.
Seymour saw Mrs. Trenchard's face, he heard her whisper:
"Who is it? What is it?"
Then she fell upon her knees near the tower of bricks. She gazed at
them, stared round the rest of the room, then looked up at him, saying
very quietly:
"I knew that they would come back one day. I always waited. It must have
been they. Only Francis ever built the bricks like that, with the red
ones in the middle. He always said they _must_ be...."
She broke off and then, with her hands pressed to her face, cried, so
softly and so gently that she made scarcely any sound.
Seymour left her.
V
He passed through the house without any one seeing him, crossed the
common, and went up to his bedroom at the inn. He sat down before his
window with his back to the room. He flung the rattling panes wide.
The room looked out across on to the moor, and he could see, in the
moonlight, the faint thread of the beginning of the Borhaze Road. To
the left of this there was some sharp point of light, some cottage
perhaps. It flashed at him as though it were trying to attract his
attention. The night was so magical, the world so wonderful, so without
bound or limit, that he was prepared now to wait, passively, for his
experience. That point of light was where the Scarecrow used to be, just
where the brown fields rise up against the horizon. In all his walks
to-day he had deliberately avoided that direction. The Scarecrow would
not be there now; he had always in his heart fancied it there, and he
would not change that picture that he had of it. But now the light
flashed at him. As he stared at it he knew that to-day he had completed
that adventure that had begun for him many years ago, on that Christmas
Eve when he had met Mr. Pidgen.
They were whispering in his ear, "We've had a lovely day. It was the
most beautiful nursery.... Two other children came too. They wore
_their_ things...."
"What, after all," said his Friend's voice, "does it mean but that if
you love enough we are with you everywhere--for ever?"
And then the children's voices again:
"She thought they'd come back, but they'd never gone away--really, you
know."
He gazed once more at the point of light, and then turned round and
faced the dark room....
THE END