WHEN you live in a large community you feel it possible to give an enemy
a private black eye and that there the matter ends—nobody’s business
but yours and his—and it is only when you live in a little place that
you realise the extraordinary fact that there _are_ no private black
eyes—every black eye affects the universe.
Of course every one knows this, but only through the microscope of
narrow lives do you see the principle at work.
Which all means that Andy would not have met Elizabeth at Marshaven if
the young man who was her aunt’s carpenter had not been obliged to
abstain from attending upon particular widows; for Elizabeth would have
been unable to find any excuse which would possibly hold water for
coming into the little town on the day of the school-treat. And her own
self-respect—the self-respect of a girl in such matters is a queer and
chancy thing—would not permit her to come in without a decent excuse.
However, a carpenter happened to be rather urgently needed, and, as the
young man’s father was laid up with bronchitis, and the young man
himself had a black eye, Elizabeth volunteered to walk over to
Marshaven, a distance of about two miles from her aunt’s house, which
lay between Millsby and the sea.
“Take the pony-cart,” entreated the aunt.
But Elizabeth’s face assumed the expression which her family knew well,
and she walked.
* * * * *
Meantime, Gaythorpe had awakened early to the sense of an outing, which
is a vastly different thing from just going out—as different as
moonshine from electric light.
For an outing has glamour and wonder in it, and that precious atmosphere
does still hang about certain feasts and seasons in lonely places, not
because bicycles have not penetrated everywhere, but because the Spirits
of Ancient Revelry come out from their hiding-places in barns and on
deserted greens, and whisper jolly tales of days when men still had an
appetite for fun—silly, childish, inferior fun that meant nothing and
led nowhere.
And the very same spirit that had fled with a shriek of the violin from
the Attertons’ window, properly banished after making a whole roomful of
people forget that they were earnest citizens with only one purpose in
life—to do well for themselves and have a good time that should cost
money and look it—that very same spirit had the cheek to venture forth
again and tap at all the windows in Gaythorpe village in the freshness
of the early morning.
Most of the young people were used to bicycling over to Marshaven on a
Sunday afternoon, and thought nothing at all of the few hours at the sea
which had been regarded as such a treat when the School-Feast was first
started, but even they scanned the dewy, blue distance of the
pasture-lands with a feeling of joyous anticipation. And in most of the
farmhouses there was a pleasant bustle of cutting ham-sandwiches, and
packing them in cabbage leaves to keep moist and cool for the midday
meal on the sands, and packing cheesecakes in cardboard boxes for fear
the light pastry should break, and scalding cream, and corking it down
in bottles, because the milk provided at the Marshaven refreshment-rooms
was no sort of use to a woman who was dog-tired with walking about all
day, and wanted a good cup of tea to hearten her against the return
journey.
For a real outing is no brief run down to eat and back again—it is a
day stretching out full of long, sunny hours, with sandwiches on the
shore at half-past twelve, and tea, provided by the ladies of the
parish, in a bare, high room at five.
So by nine o’clock the three waggon-loads were already rumbling down the
village street. High above the horses’ heads tossed the little arches of
paper roses and trembling grass, and the tiny round bells jangled with
every step, to make a tune that the Spirit of Ancient Revelry knew well,
but which is as strange to us as a forgotten harvest-song.
The men and girls of the choir were there with the school-children and
school-teachers, but such ladies as married Thorpes and Werrits would
follow later, aristocratic in gigs and dog-carts.
Andy was in the last waggon, which had a wreath of pink paper roses and
green laurel all round the body, with a bunch in the centre of each
wheel, and pink arches above the horses’ heads. It was a common enough
sight about Marshaven between hay-time and harvest, but not to Andy; and
the sight of the fine horses and the waggons in front, one trimmed with
white, one with yellow, and the sunlight shining so fresh and gay upon
the dewy hedgerows on either side, made him feel as if he wanted to
throw up his hat and sing, in spite of his injured wrist and his other
afflictions.
“It always is fine for the School-Feast,” said Rose Werrit, who was a
Sunday-school teacher, and who sat on a bench in a glow of youth and
importance, with an arm round a fat boy of five.
Andy—it is a disgraceful thing to have to acknowledge—but Andy felt
inclined to bend over and kiss Rose’s pretty flushed cheek, and yet he
was tremendously in love with Elizabeth—perhaps _because_ he was so
tremendously in love with Elizabeth; but he caught back the wandering
impulse and felt ashamed of his own wickedness. How could he——
But from that instant he began to feel less harshly toward certain
sinners whom he had before condemned without a hearing. A little of the
tolerant humanity of Brother Gulielmus, who had loved his flock so well,
because he understood them, began to mellow Andy’s crude judgment.
However, he turned his present attention to Miss Fanny Kirke, who was
forty-nine; and they discoursed pleasantly of the weather and the
approaching holidays, and finally of Mr. Willie Kirke, who was playing
popular airs on a concertina in the first waggon to lighten the way.
“He really seems able to do anything,” said Andy, with sincere
admiration.
“Always could,” said Miss Kirke. “Tiresome about his meals, even as a
child, wouldn’t touch suet pudding or animal’s frys of any kind; but
made a windmill out of a card, a pin, and a stick of firewood when he
was five. I heard Mrs. Stamford once call him quite the Admirable
Bright’un, and indeed he is.”
Andy began to chuckle, then he turned it into a cough. Miss Kirke had
not intended a pun at all, and she added in a very low tone, glancing at
Mrs. Jebb’s gauze veil that floated like a banner from the next waggon—
“He is just the sort of man to be taken in by a designing woman.”
“Oh, I’m sure——” remonstrated Andy.
“Don’t tell me!” interrupted Miss Kirke, her refinement for once upset
by what was the obsessing fear of her existence.
“I can’t think it possible,” said Andy, unable to pretend, in face of
that eye fixed on the floating veil, that he did not understand the
drift of her remarks.
“Anything’s possible,” said Miss Fanny Kirke with some bitterness, “when
you get a widow and a man together.”
Then the waggons rumbled round that turning where there first begins to
be a cool saltiness in the air, and little Jimmy Simpson called out,
jumping up on a seat—
“I smell the sea! I smell the sea!”
“Sit down, you naughty boy. You’ll tummel into the road,” said Sally,
anxiously pulling at a sturdy leg.
He gave a kick and roared out—
“Want to tummel into the road!”
“Now, now,” said Mrs. Simpson. “Jimmy must be good, or else mother’ll
take him home again.”
Jimmy eyed the long distance behind him for a moment, then he replied—
“You touldn’t!”
But a lurch of the waggon pitched him into the midst of a little nest of
crowded baby figures, and he condescended to sit down again.
Sally looked across at Andy, because she and her Vicar had become
friends, and she said with resignation—
“He’ll get drownded in the sea if I don’t have him tied to me. Can you
lend me a bit of string?”
“He’ll drown you too,” remonstrated Andy, but he handed out the required
string. It was impossible to treat Sally as though she were a very
little girl.
“Oh, no,” she replied. “I should call out. And I’ve a very loud skreek,
haven’t I, mother?”
“You make out Jimmy’s such a bad boy. I’m sure he isn’t, the lamb,” said
his mother, burying her cheek in his curls.
But the lamb was disinclined for demonstrative affection at that moment,
and he fought her off.
“You don’t want boys to sit still,” said Mrs. Simpson, glancing round
proudly.
“N-no,” said Andy, as no one else replied. “He’s a splendid little
chap!”
And indeed, as he struggled up again to stand unsteadily in the sunshine
above the other children, with the full light on his bright hair and
merry face, he did seem the very embodiment of joy and hope and roguish
bravery—the things that belong to the clean dawn of life.
“I hope he’ll do well. I hope he’ll grow into a splendid man,” said Andy
suddenly.
Or rather the words said themselves as he watched the little laughing
lad with his curls all gold against the summer sky. Thus was the father
born in Andy.
“It’ll be getting on or the gallows with him, bless him,” said Mrs.
Simpson placidly.
Then the sea came in sight between a dip of the sand-hills, and after a
little more creaking and jolting the waggons stopped outside the long
refreshment-rooms known all over the countryside as ‘Walkers’,’ and
every one went down to the sands.
Andy walked in the midst of a group of choirmen and lads to the coco-nut
shy, where it was agreeable to the feelings of the Gaythorpe youth that
their Vicar knocked off no less than five coconuts; they would have been
ashamed of him if he had missed. But after a while they dispersed in
different directions, and Andy walked sedately along the shore with Mr.
Kirke, discussing the news of the day.
Little groups encountered and chatted with them, and considered them
important, and they considered themselves more important still, and
everything was as it should be.
But it is just in those placid moments that you want to look out—for
something nearly always lurks round the next corner. In this case it was
Elizabeth. Not that she was lurking in any actual sense, that being a
thing she would disdain to do, but she came along round a bend in the
sand-hills with the free wind blowing her blue gown about her and the
sunshine on her face.
“Bless me—Miss Elizabeth Atterton!” said Mr. Kirke.
“Is it?” said the Vicar. “Dear me, yes, I see it is.”
Oh, Andy—when the world went golden like the sands beneath her feet at
the very sight of her!
“Mr. Deane! How very strange,” said Miss Atterton with great aplomb, but
with a colour in her cheeks that had not been there when she walked the
shore alone.
“Ha-ha! Yes. Just happened to be down with the School-Feast,” said Andy,
laughing at nothing at all.
“Oh—the School-Feast—of course,” said Elizabeth, as if it had that
moment entered her head. “And how are you getting on, Mr. Kirke? Is Miss
Kirke here?”
“Yes, Miss Elizabeth. I—er—promised to join her. I must hasten back
now, I am sorry to say.”
So did Mr. Willie Kirke prove himself to be a man and a brother as he
skimmed back with a light step by the damp edge of the waves, and Andy
remarked with heartfelt sincerity—
“Awfully good chap—the heart of a true gentleman.”
“And so marvellously versatile,” added Elizabeth.
Then they strolled slowly along until they encountered Sally, who had
strayed from a group of children round a shallow pool and was searching
the shore with her usual earnestness of purpose.
“I’m not looking for shells—I’m looking for money,” said Sally in a
serious voice; and she disengaged herself from Elizabeth’s detaining
hand to plod on again in a business-like manner.
“There’s no money on the sands, goosey,” said Elizabeth, kneeling down
to bring her own bright head in a line with the little anxious face.
Sally looked at Elizabeth with that questioning gaze by which children
try to separate truth from what are called jokes in a puzzling, grown-up
world.
“I heard Miss Kirke telling mother there was heaps of pennies lost on
the sands,” she said; “and mother doesn’t know how she’s ever going to
keep me and Jimmy in boots—we kick them out so. She says we shall have
to wear wooden ones like little foreign boys and girls, and I don’t
w-want to. The others would s-shout us so!”
Poor little Sally’s voice broke at the prospect of such unpleasant
notoriety, and Elizabeth put her arms round that dear, pitiful thing—a
baby who has learned to think too soon.
“Mother was only joking about the wooden shoes, ducky,” she comforted.
“But I _have_ heard of people finding money on the sands; and I’m rather
a good looker. I nearly always find things. Shall I help?”
“Y-yes, please,” said Sally, smiling through the end of a sob.
And as Andy looked at them, all the dreams came back that he had known
before—only glorified because she was there; and the protecting
tenderness that marked her out always from other girls seemed to him now
so beautiful that he adored it in her, as men for ages past have adored
it in the symbol of all loving womanhood.
“I’ll search too,” was all he said, however.
“Come,” said Elizabeth, drying Sally’s eyes with a little handkerchief
that smelt of violets, “here’s Mr. Deane going to help as well. We’re
certain to find some pennies now.”
It was an entrancing game, after that, to hide pennies and then
sixpences under little brown heaps of seaweed behind Sally’s back while
one or other of them engaged her attention, and then to hear her shrieks
of joy as she pounced upon them. It might almost be said that she became
young again as she flung herself down on the sand and grubbed excitedly
under a partly decayed starfish.
“Ugh! Don’t touch that!” said Elizabeth. “Look here. Here’s another
penny.”
And that proved to be the last, for the other children were shouting
that it was time for dinner, and Mrs. Simpson was beckoning with a
peremptory umbrella from her seat on the sand-hills.
“Anyway,” said Sally, tying up the booty in her microscopic
handkerchief—“Anyway, there’ll be enough to buy real boots for Jimmy. I
don’t know _what_ we should do with him if he had to wear anything that
people shouted—he’d never stop fighting. And the policeman might get
him after all.”
There gleamed out the preoccupation of Sally’s existence—the endeavour
to prevent Jimmy’s behaviour reaching a pass where the often-threatened
policeman really would do his duty.
“Policeman _never_ take baby boys like Jimmy. Never!” said Elizabeth
quickly.
Sally said nothing—that policeman was a secret part of her life—and
she felt vaguely that Elizabeth knew nothing of the realities of
existence.
But, queerly enough, she was happier than most children can be, as she
plodded up the sand-hills to her mother with no less a sum than three
and ninepence halfpenny in her handkerchief.
Andy and Elizabeth watched her for a moment, and then turned towards a
gap in the sand-hills whence a road ran into the open country.
“This way seems pleasanter,” said Andy.
“The sands _are_ rather heavy,” agreed Elizabeth.
And thus fortified they walked rather quickly until they reached a
turning where a great sheet of mustard-seed in flower stretched, pure
blazing yellow, beneath a cloudless blue.
It was like an unexecuted flare of silver trumpets on a still and joyous
day, and Andy felt the sudden, triumphant exhilaration of it.
“Elizabeth——” he began—face shining—eyes alight.
Then the aunt and cousins who were not expected in Marshaven until the
following week came round the corner, and the Vicar of Gaythorpe used an
expression in the presence of the lady he adored which, one second
earlier, he would have deemed himself absolutely incapable of using in
the presence of any lady at all. “I beg your pardon,” he added hastily.
But Elizabeth may have felt obliged to him.
“These,” said Andy, muddling the introduction in the agitation of his
feelings—“these are my cousins and aunt—at least my aunt, Mrs. Dixon
and the Webster girls—Miss Elizabeth Atterton.”
Then he openly mopped his brow—anybody would—even the most refined.
“How do you do? I have heard Mr. Deane speak of you very often,” said
Elizabeth, with a heightened colour but surprising composure.
Andy stared at her in astonishment, unable to understand how she did it,
for that is a thing no man can understand until he has been married for
at least a year.
“Delighted to meet any of Andy’s friends,” said Mrs. Dixon.
Andy scowled. So here was the adored learning the undignified name when
he wished her always to think of him as Andrew. That was the worst of
relatives.
“Yes, we quite look on Andy as a brother, though he is no real
relation,” added Irene Webster, swinging her sunshade with an air of
great fashion.
“Quite a nice little place—Marshaven—if you want to get away from the
rush,” said Phyllis. “You can fancy yourself a tripper, and lead the
simple life.”
She laughed, high up in the top of her head, and Andy and her family
followed suit, though there was nothing to laugh at, because she
considered herself smart, and they had formed a habit of applause.
Then Elizabeth thought she must be going, as she had to make a call in
Marshaven—she did not say that the call was upon the carpenter—and
Andy said he would walk part of the way with her, because he was due to
lunch on the sands with Mrs. Thorpe, who had arrived with an overflowing
dog-cart at 12.30.
But Elizabeth said that the call was exactly in the opposite direction
to the sands, and that she could not, and would not, separate Andy from
his new-found relatives, so they all walked together to the dip in the
sand-hills whence Mrs. Thorpe was plainly visible, large and black like
a derelict buoy that had been thrown upon the shore, with other members
of the congregation scattered near.
So the ladies stood in a group to say farewell—Mrs. Dixon, tight about
the figure and curly about the head, as she had been from Andy’s very
earliest recollections of her, with a perennial purple dusting of powder
on her face—, Irene, very like her mother, only willowy instead of
tight—and Phyllis more willowy still. Both girls had an indescribable
air of possessing more neck and more eyes and more hair than other
people, though of course this could not have been the case, and it was
only an optical delusion.
Andy really felt very proud of them now the first awkwardness of meeting
was over, and he thought Elizabeth and the girls would get on splendidly
together.
“You’re sure to meet again,” he said encouragingly. “I hope my aunt and
cousins will come to stay with me.”
“Oh—a bachelor’s household—and three women——” smiled Mrs. Dixon,
shaking her head. “But we shall often go over. You will get quite tired
of us in the neighbourhood, Miss Atterton.”
Then the Webster girls went off in one direction, while Elizabeth took
another, thinking how pleased Mr. Kirke would be if he could only get
his dancing class to willow like that; and Andy plodded down the soft
sand in the full sun to Mrs. Thorpe, realising, as he had not done
before, that he had injured his damaged arm further by the coco-nut
shying, and that it was beginning to be exceedingly uncomfortable.
After lunch there were games to be started for the children and races to
be run for prizes, and no time at all could be had for dwelling on a
certain high moment that shone in a blending glory of blue and yellow at
the back of Andy’s mind. At five o’clock followed a meat tea in the
bare, high room, where some of the young men were late owing to a
travelling circus which had put up its tent for a couple of
performances. And as everybody filed out into the open air afterwards,
very hot, and exuding ham fat quite visibly, young Sam Petch came up to
Andy with an air of mysterious importance.
“Could I have a word, sir, in private?” he said, shading his mouth with
his hand.
“What? Anything wrong?” said Andy, sharply alert—no longer a jolly boy
but a leader with precious human lives under his care—something of what
he might become shining clear and hard through the mists of youth.
“No, no, sir,” said Sam Petch soothingly. “Only you asked me to be on
the look-out for a cheap little pony and cart, and I believe I’ve got an
offer such as you’ll never see the like of again.”
“Well—I can’t now——” began Andy.
“Sir,” entreated Sam, “it’s only the matter of a minute. The circus is
doing badly this summer. Weather too fine. And the owner’s up a gum-tree
for a ten-pound note.”
“How did you hear of it?” said Andy, almost unconsciously following his
handy man round a corner.
“Oh, I always pick up news—overheard him telling somebody,” said Sam,
forbearing to mention that the information was acquired in the bar of
the Blue Tiger.
Andy glanced at him once or twice—but said no more. After all, nobody
could swear he had been drinking beer—they could only be quite certain
that he had eaten peppermints.
“Always have to eat one after a full meal,” said Sam. “Had a delicate
stomach ever since I ate some tinned lobster that had been away from the
sea a bit too long. Oh, here’s the little turnout, all ready and
waiting.”
His air of ingenuous surprise showed what he might have done had his
lines been cast in dramatic circles, and so did the honest way in which
he said to a seedy, flashy man—
“Now, mind, I’m not going to advise this gentleman to buy. He must see
for himself, and judge for himself.”
“It’s worth fifty. I’ll take twenty for it,” said the owner, rather
thickly.
Andy looked at the little brown pony and the green cart picked out with
red—it certainly was marvellous at the price.
“Look here. I’ll just ask Mr. Thorpe or Mr. Werrit——” he said, turning
to go back.
Sam put a hand on his arm.
“Excuse me, sir, but this is a private job—very private. This gentleman
doesn’t want any one to know he has to sell the cart. Says it would ruin
his circus right off. I only heard by accident, and he’s bound me over
to keep quiet. Any honourable man would keep quiet under them
circumstances.”
“Of course,” said Andy uneasily.
“Fact is,” said the man, “it’s twenty pound down now or nothing.
Theatrical business is like that—all of it. One day a thousand means
nothing to you and the next day you’ll sell your soul for a five-pound
note.”
“But I do not wish to take advantage——” began Andy with the air Sam
knew and dreaded, for it upset his calculations because it was an
unknown quantity.
“You aren’t taking advantage,” he interposed, with bluff honesty, as man
to man. “It doesn’t matter to me—only I’ve been in a bit of an ’ole
myself at times, and I thought I’d do this chap a good turn and you too,
if I could. Don’t often get such a chance. But _I_ don’t care, not for
myself, I don’t.”
He put his hands into his pockets, whistled mildly a favourite air, and,
as it were withdrew.
“I’ll own,” said the circus-owner reluctantly, “that you’ll be doing me
a good turn if you take it. So you needn’t keep back on that account.”
“But I haven’t twenty pounds with me,” objected Andy.
“If you send a cheque to-night that I can get by first post in the
morning, it’ll do,” said the owner. “Then your man can drive it back
with him to-night. But I must have the money first thing in the
morning.”
“Very well,” said Andy. “So long as you can assure me that the
transaction is perfectly honest and legal. I must have some proof that
you really are the owner of the circus.”
“Come in here,” said the man sullenly, marching into the Blue Tiger and
addressing the highly respectable landlord of that inn. “Look here. Am I
the owner of Kennington’s Royal Circus, or am I not?”
“You are,” said the landlord, whom nothing astonished any more.
“You’ll swear it?” said the man.
The landlord cocked a placid and incurious eye at Andy.
“If necessary I’ll swear it,” he said weightily. “Mr. Deane of
Gaythorpe, I believe?”
“Er—yes,” said Andy. “A little matter of business——”
“Quite so,” said the landlord. “Quite so.”
Then he went to draw three-pennyworth of whisky for a customer, and
Andy, Sam, and the circus-owner filed out again in the by-lane.
“I’ll have it,” said Andy.
“Done with you,” said the man, leading the pony and cart back into the
yard.
“My eye, you’ve got a bargain,” said Sam. “Cheapest pony and cart I ever
see.”
And indeed it was a wonderful bargain, only to be accounted for by the
fact that the circus-owner decamped next day, leaving behind a wife, a
tent, a few assorted animals, and the responsibilities of existence in
the Eastern Hemisphere.
Fortunately for himself, Andy never knew that he had provided the means
of flight, but as the wife prospered much better alone it may be assumed
that the circus-owner was no irretrievable loss to the circus or the
country.
By the time the bargain was concluded, the waggons were already rumbling
up to the door of the refreshment-rooms, and tired and happy babies
cuddled down against their mothers’ knees to sleep all the way home,
while the bigger ones sang hymns that sounded very sweet and touching,
in spite of the rough, untrained voices, as they floated back in the
still, evening air.
They were all very tired—young and old—but you want to be tired after
a real outing, for that is a part of it—and as Mr. and Mrs. Thorpe, the
solid and unemotional, followed in their dog-cart behind, they could
hear all three waggon-loads singing “Abide with me.”
“Another School-Feast over,” said Mr. Thorpe.
“Yes,” said Mrs. Thorpe.
That was all they said aloud, but one of those wonderful unspoken
conversations went on between them.
“How many more School-Feasts shall we see?” was what Mr. Thorpe’s heart
said to Mrs. Thorpe’s.
And hers said to him—
“There are more behind us, dear, than before.”
Then, clear and faint, came the end of the hymn across the quiet
fields—
“Abide with me, fast falls the eventide,
The darkness deepens, Lord, with me abide.”