Mr. Paragon was intended for a gardener. Had he been put upon the land
at an early age he would neither have read books nor misread men:
missing these opportunities for cynicism. He might have given his name
to a chrysanthemum; and in ripe age have been full of meditated wisdom.
That Mr. Paragon at this time should sensibly have softened from the
bitterness of his youth, was as much due to his large garden as to the
influence of his wife and the effect of his prosperity. In his oldest
and toughest clothes, working as English labourers worked before they
had lost the secret, Mr. Paragon in no way resembled himself as member
of the Labour church and a popular orator. The land absorbed him. He
handled his spade in an indescribable, professional manner. You
recognised the connoisseur who gathers in his palms the rarest china.
You trust the man who by mere handling of an object can convey to you a
sense of its value. In the same way you trusted Mr. Paragon with a
spade. When Mr. Paragon took a cutting it always struck. When he
selected seeds they always were fruitful. When he built a bank or
rounded the curve of a plot the result was always pleasing; and it came
of itself, without reflection or difficulty. His gift was from nature.
He had read no literature of gardening, and he had had no instruction.
It was his charming privilege that a garden naturally blossomed under
his hands.
Mrs. Paragon encouraged in every possible way her husband's love of the
soil. Instinctively she divined that here he was best, and that here he
was nearest herself. She was rarely without some of his flowers upon her
table or pinned in her dress; and when on free days Mr. Paragon spent
absorbed and laborious hours in the garden, Mrs. Paragon brought him
cheese and beer, or tea and muffins, waiting at his elbow, interested
and critical, while he discussed his plans, and asked her for advice
which he never regarded. Had Mrs. Paragon neglected to feed him on these
occasions he would not have noticed it, for he lost all count of time,
and did not remember he was hungry till darkness came.
The most striking event of the year for Mr. Paragon and his house was
the disposal of the season's rubbish. For twelve months it accumulated
in a large hole, rotting in the rain and sun. Mr. Paragon dug it
carefully into the soil at the end of the year, using it as a foundation
for beds and banks. Usually the whole family assisted at the carting of
the rubbish, with a box on wheels.
Peter was master of the convoy for carting the rubbish, and this was a
military enterprise. Miranda harassed his operations to the best of her
ability. There were ambuscades, surprises, excursions and alarms.
Mr. Smith looked upon these operations with delight. He liked to see Mr.
Paragon at work in the garden. He was proud of his successful neighbour,
and took real pleasure in his competence. Moreover, he delighted in
Peter's lively and interesting pretences. He would himself have led the
attack upon Peter's convoy had he been free of Mrs. Smith's critical and
contemptuous survey from the back-parlour window. Once he had actively
taken part, and Mrs. Smith discovered him on all fours among the
gooseberries, whence he had intended to create a diversion in Peter's
rear. The rational frigidity with which she had come from the house to
inquire what he imagined himself to be doing effectually prevented a
repetition.
This afternoon there was a sharp encounter. This was a great moment in
Peter's life owing to a brief, almost instantaneous, passage. Miranda
met Peter's onslaught in her manly fashion, and soon they were locked in
a desperate embrace. Suddenly Peter saw Miranda, as it seemed to him
afterwards, for the first time. Her head was flung back, her cheeks
crimsonly defiant, eyes shining, and hair scattered. For Peter it was a
vision. He saw with uneasy terror that Miranda was beautiful. He had a
quailing instinct to release her. It passed; but Miranda met the look
that came into his eyes and understood.
Who can say how softly and insensibly the change had been prepared? The
books they had read; the strange couples that walked in the evening,
curiously linked; the half-thoughts and surmises; queer little impulses
of cruelty or tenderness that had passed between them--all were suddenly
gathered up.
Peter realised the difference in his life that this moment had made for
him in the late evening when Mr. Paragon was showing him a transit of
Jupiter's third moon. Astronomy was a passion with Mr. Paragon.
Astronomy overthrew Genesis and confounded religion. He had picked up
cheap a six-inch reflecting telescope, and very frequently on fine
evenings he probed the heavens for uninspected nebulæ, resolved double
stars, mapped the surface of the moon, followed the fascinating mutation
of the variables. Peter was very soon attracted and absorbed into his
father's pastime. It had a breathless appeal for him. Awed and excited,
he would project his mind into the measureless dark spaces. It was an
adventure. Sometimes they would rise after midnight, and these were the
times Peter loved best. The extreme quiet of the hour; loneliness upon
earth giving a keener edge to the loneliness of heaven; the silence of
the sleeping street lending almost a terror to the imagined silence of
space; the secret flavour which crept into the enterprise from the mere
fact of waking while the world was asleep--all this gave to the
situation, for Peter, an agreeable poignancy. Already he had discovered
the appeal of Shelley, and he would repeat, pleasantly shuddering,
passages of his favourite story:
"I have made my bed
In charnels and on coffins, where black death
Keeps record of the trophies won from thee,
Hoping to still these obstinate questionings
Of thee and thine, by forcing some lone ghost,
Thy messenger, to render up the tale
Of what we are."
The contrast was striking at these times between Peter and his father.
For Mr. Paragon every double star resolved was a nail in the coffin of
the Established Church; every wonder of the skies, inspected and
verified, was a confirmation that society was built on stubble. But for
Peter these excursions were food for fancy, the stuff of his dreams. He
soared into space, not as Mr. Paragon intended, to discover the fraud of
priests and kings, but to voyage with Shelley's Mab through the
beautiful stars.
To-night the adventure had lost its edge. Nothing could be more exciting
than a transit of Jupiter's third moon. The gradual approach of the tiny
moon to the edge of the planet; its momentary extinction; the slow
passage of the little shadow on the cloud-bright surface--the loveliness
of this miniature play was sharpened for Peter by knowledge of its
immensity. Mr. Paragon gave up the telescope to Peter, and waited for
breathless exclamation. But Peter was silent.
"Well," said Mr. Paragon, "can't you see it?"
"Yes," answered Peter indifferently.
"Perhaps the focus isn't quite right," suggested Mr. Paragon. He looked
anxiously at Peter. Peter's indifference was unusual.
"It's all right, father, I can see it well. It's a black spot, and it's
moving across."
"Wonderful!" said Mr. Paragon. "Think of it, Peter. Jupiter to-night is
60,000,000 miles away. It would easily hold 1300 of us, and it's got
five moons. Looks as if it were made for lighting people to bed, don't
it?"
"Yes, father," said Peter without interest.
Peter's fancy had suddenly flown to a passage in _Romeo and Juliet_,
hitherto passed as absurd--something about cutting up Romeo into little
stars. Peter smelled the wet earth and remembered Miranda. His
imagination to-night refused the cold voyage into space. His father's
figures, after which his mind had so often adventurously strained, were
senseless.
His attention fell suddenly asleep at the telescope.
He realised that his father was asking him whether the transit was
finished. He started into watchfulness and replied, still indifferently,
that it was.
Mr. Paragon was mortified. He showed Peter the wonders of the universe
with a sort of proprietary satisfaction. He was proud of the size of
Jupiter. He was personally exalted that the distance between the earth
and the moon should be 240,000 miles. He had the pride of a
conscientious cicerone; of the native who does the honours of his town.
Peter to-night was disappointing.
"Well," said Mr. Paragon desperately, "what do you think of it?"
"It was very clear," Peter dutifully answered.
"There's not many lads your age," grumbled Mr. Paragon, "that have seen
a transit of Jupiter's third moon."
"I know," said Peter, trying to feel excited and grateful. He had been
looking forward to this evening for weeks. Why was he unable to enjoy
it?
He repeated the question to himself as, half an hour later, he lay
peacefully in bed. Then he found himself trying to remember the exact
phrase about Romeo and the little stars.