A DREAM AND OTHER THINGS
It is perfectly amazing to what a degree the physical conditions of the
atmosphere appear to be bound up with one's own mental atmosphere. In the
more ordinary nature of things, the physical conditions will act on the
mental, sending your mind up to the point marked gaiety when the sun
shines, dropping it down to despair--or, at any rate, down to
dulness--when the skies are leaden. Also, in more extreme cases, the
mental conditions will act on the physical, if not actually, at least
with so good a show of reality as to appear genuine. If you are
thoroughly unhappy--no mere, light, passing depression, mind you--it
matters not at all how brilliant the sunshine may be, it is nothing but
grey fog for all you see of it. If, on the other hand, you are in the
seventh heaven of joy, the grey clouds are suffused with a golden light
of radiance. But these are extreme cases.
It was an extreme case with Antony. Despite the sunshine which lay upon
the earth, despite the singing of the birds in the early morning, and at
evening, despite the flowers which displayed their colours and lavished
their scents around him as he worked, the world might have been bathed in
fog for all he saw of its brightness. Hope had taken unto herself wings
and fled from him, and with her joy had departed.
He felt a queer bitterness towards his work, a bitterness towards the
garden and the big grey house, and most particularly towards the man who
had lived in it, and who was responsible for his present unhappiness. He
had none towards the Duchessa. But then, after all, he appeared in her
eyes as a fraud, the thing of all others he himself most detested. He
could not possibly blame her for her attitude in the matter. Yet all the
time, he had a queer feeling of something like remorse for his present
bitterness; it was almost as if the garden and the very flowers
themselves were reproaching him for it, reminding him that they were not
to blame. And then a little incident suddenly served to dispel his gloom,
at all events in a great measure.
It was a slight incident, a trivial incident, merely an odd dream.
Nevertheless, having in view its oddness, and--unlike most dreams--its
curious connectedness, also its effect on Antony's spirit, it may be well
to record it.
He dreamt he was walking in a garden. He knew it was the garden of
Chorley Old Hall, though there was something curiously unlike about it,
as there often is in dreams. The garden was full of flowers, and he could
smell their strong, sweet scent. At one side of the garden--and this, in
spite of that curious unlikeness, was the only distinctly unlike thing
about it--was a gate of twisted iron. He was standing a long way from the
gate, and he was conscious of two distinct moods within himself,--an
impulse which urged him towards the gate, and something which held him
back from approaching it.
Suddenly, from another direction, he saw a woman coming towards him.
Recognition and amazement fell upon him. She was the same small girl he
had played with in his boyhood, and whose name he could not remember, but
grown to womanhood. She came towards him, her fair hair uncovered, and
shining in the sunshine.
As she reached him she stood still.
"Antony," she cried in her old imperious way, "why don't you go to the
gate at once? She is waiting to be let in."
"Who is waiting?" he demanded.
"Go and see," she retorted. And she went off among the flowers, turning
once to laugh back at him over her shoulder.
Antony stood looking after her, till she disappeared in the distance.
Then he went slowly towards the gate. As he came near it, he saw a figure
standing outside. But he could not see it distinctly, because, curiously
enough, though the garden was full of sunshine, it was dark outside the
gate, as if it were night.
"Who are you?" asked Antony.
The figure made no reply.
"What do you want?" he asked.
Still the figure made no reply.
Antony felt his heart beating quickly, madly. And then, suddenly from a
distance behind him, he heard a gay mocking voice.
"Why don't you open the gate, silly? Can't you hear her knocking?"
Still Antony stood irresolute, though he heard little taps falling on the
iron.
"Open it, open it," came the sweet mocking voice, this time with a
suspicion of pleading in it.
Antony went towards the gate. A great key was sticking in the iron lock.
He took hold of it and found it needed the strength of both his hands to
turn. Then he flung the gate wide open. The figure moved slowly through
the gate, and into the full sunshine.
"Antony," she said smiling.
"You! You at last!" he cried.
And he woke, to find he had cried the words aloud. He sat up in bed. A
white pigeon was on the sill outside his window, tapping with its beak on
the glass.
Of course it was an entirely trifling incident, and probably he was
superstitious to attach any real importance to it. Nevertheless it had a
very marked influence on his spirits.
Doubtless it was as well it had, since about this time a certain
happening occurred, which, though it did not precisely depress him, most
assuredly caused him considerable anger and indignation.
In spite of the somewhat hermit-like life he led, he nevertheless had
something of an acquaintance with his fellow-creatures. Among these
fellow-creatures there was one, Job Grantley, a labourer on the home
farm, possessed of a pretty, rather fragile wife, and a baby of about
three months old. Antony had a kindly feeling for the fellow, and often
they exchanged the time of day when meeting on the road, or when Job
chanced to pass Antony's garden in the evening.
One evening Antony, busy weeding his small flagged path, saw Job in the
road.
"Good evening," said Antony; and then he perceived by the other's face,
that matters were not as they might be.
"Sure, what's amiss with the world at all?" demanded Antony, going down
towards the gate.
"It's that fellow Curtis," said Job briefly, leaning on the gate.
"And what'll he have been up to now?" asked Antony. It would not be the
first time he had heard tales of the agent.
Job kicked the gate.
"Says he's wanting my cottage for a chauffeur he's getting down from
Bristol, and I'm to turn out at the end of August."
"Devil take the man!" cried Antony. "Why can't his new chauffeur be
living in the room above the garage, like the old one?"
Job grunted. "Because this one's a married man."
"And where are you to go at all?" demanded a wrathful Antony.
"He says I can have the cottage over to Crossways," said Job. "He knows
'tis three mile farther from my work. But that's not all. 'Tis double the
rent, and I can't afford it. And that's the long and short of it."
Antony dug his hoe savagely into the earth.
"Why can't he be putting his own chauffeur there, and be paying him wage
enough for the higher rent?" he asked.
"Why can't he?" said Job bitterly. "Because he won't. He's had his knife
into me ever since March last, when I paid up my rent which he thought I
couldn't do. I'd been asking him for time; then the last day--well, I got
the money. I wasn't going to tell him how I got it, and he thought I'd
been crying off with no reason. See? Now he thinks he can force me to the
higher rent. 'Tis a bigger cottage, but 'tis so far off, even well-to-do
folk fight shy of the extra walk, and so it's stood empty a year and
more. Now he's thinking he'll force my hand."
Antony frowned.
"What'll you do?" he demanded.
"The Lord knows," returned Job gloomily. "If I chuck up my work here, how
do I know I'll get a job elsewhere? If I go to the other place I'll be
behind with my rent for dead certain, and get kicked out of that, and be
at the loss of ten shillings or so for the move. I've not told the wife
yet. But I can see nought for it but to look out for a job elsewhere.
Wish I'd never set foot in this blasted little Devonshire village. Wish
I'd stayed in my own parts."
Antony was making a mental survey of affairs, a survey at once detailed
yet rapid.
"Look here," said he, "I'd give a pretty good deal to get even with that
old skinflint, I would that. You and your wife just shift up along with
me. There's an extra room upstairs with nothing in it at all. We'll
manage top hole. Sure, 'twill be fine havin' me cooking done for me. You
can be giving me the matter of a shilling a week, and let the cooking go
for the rest of the rent. What'll you be thinking at all?"
Now, the offer was prompted by sheer impulsive kind-heartedness, wedded
to a keen indignation at injustice. Yet it must be confessed that a
sensation exceeding akin to dismay followed close on its heels. Of his
own free will he was flinging his privacy from him, and hugging intrusion
to his heart.
Job shook his head.
"You'll not stand it," said he briefly. "We don't say anything, but we
know right enough you're a come down. You didn't start in the same mould
as the rest of us."
"Rubbish," retorted Antony on a note of half-anger and wholly aghast at
the other's perspicacity. "I'm the same clay as yourself."
"A duke's that," declared Job, "but the mould's different."
"Saints alive!" cried Antony, "it's no matter what the mould may be.
Sure, it's just a question of what it's been used for at all. My mould
has been used for labour since I was little more than a boy, and stiffer
labour than this little smiling village has dreamt of, that's sure.
Besides, think of your wife and child, man."
Job hesitated, debated within his soul. "It's them I am thinking of," he
said; "I could fend for myself well enough, and snap my fingers at Curtis
and his like."
"Then, 'tis settled," said Antony with amazing cheerfulness.
There was a silence.
"Well," said Job at last, "if you're in the same mind a week hence, but
don't you go for doing things in a hurry-like, that you'll repent
later."
"'Tis settled now," said Antony. "Tell your wife, and snap your fingers
at that old curmudgeon."
Nevertheless despite his cheery assurance, he had a very bitter qualm at
his heart as, an hour or so later, he looked round his little cottage,
and realized, even more forcibly, precisely what he had done.
"Never mind," he told himself and Josephus with a good show of bravery,
"it's not for a lifetime. And, hang it all, a man's mere comfort ought to
give way before injustice of that kind."
Thus he buoyed himself up.
And then another aspect of affairs arose.
No one knew how the matter of the intended arrangement leaked out. Job
vowed he'd mentioned it to no one but his wife; his wife vowed she
mentioned it to no one but Job. Perhaps they spoke too near an open
window. Be that as it may, Antony, again at work in his garden one
evening, became aware of Mr. Curtis looking at him over the little
hedge.
"Good evening," said Mr. Curtis smoothly.
"Good evening," returned Antony equally smoothly, and going on with his
work.
"I hear you're thinking of taking in lodgers," said Mr. Curtis blandly.
"Sure now, that's interesting hearing," returned Antony pleasantly, and
wondering who on earth had babbled.
"Perhaps," said Mr. Curtis, still blandly, "I was misinformed. I heard
the Grantleys were moving up here. I daresay it was merely an idle
rumour."
"Sure it may have been," returned Antony nonchalantly, and sticking his
spade into the ground.
"It must have been," said Mr. Curtis thoughtfully. "All lodging houses
are rented at ten shillings a week, even unfurnished small ones, not five
shillings. Besides Grantley is only getting a pound a week wage. He can't
afford to live in apartments, unless he's come in for a fortune. If he
has I must look out for another man. Men with fortunes get a trifle above
themselves, you know. Besides he'd naturally not wish to stay on. But of
course the whole thing's merely a rumour. I'd contradict it if I were
you. Good evening."
He walked up the lane smiling.
"You bounder," said Antony softly, looking after him. "Just you wait till
next March, my friend."
He left his spade stuck into the earth, and went back into the cottage.
Half an hour later, he was walking quickly in the direction of Byestry.
* * * * *
Doctor Hilary was in his surgery, when he was told that Michael Field had
asked if he could see him. He went at once to the little waiting-room.
Antony rose at his entrance.
"Good evening, sor," he said, touching his forehead. "Can you be sparing
me five minutes' talk?"
"By all means," said Doctor Hilary. "Sit down."
Antony sat down. In a few brief words he put the Grantley affair before
him.
"Well?" said Doctor Hilary, as he finished.
"Well," queried Antony, "can nothing be done?"
Doctor Hilary shook his head. "I am not the agent. I have no voice in the
management of the estate."
"Then you can do nothing?"
"I am afraid not."
"Thank you," said Antony, "that's all I wanted to know." He got up.
"Sit down again," said Doctor Hilary.
Antony sat down.
"What do you mean to do?" asked Doctor Hilary quietly.
Antony looked directly at him.
"The only thing I can do. I'll get that extra rent to Job somehow. He
mustn't know it comes from me; I must think out how to manage. But, of
course, that's merely a make-shift in the business. I wanted the
injustice put straight."
Doctor Hilary looked through the window behind Antony.
"Let me advise you," said he, "to do nothing of the kind."
"Why not?" The words came short and rather quick.
"Because Mr. Curtis means to get rid of Grantley. He has got his knife
into him, as Grantley said. Your action would merely postpone the evil
day, and make it worse in the postponement. Job Grantley had better go."
"And how about another job?" demanded Antony.
Doctor Hilary shrugged his shoulders. "He must see what he can find."
"Well of all the--" began Antony. And then he stopped. After all, he'd
seen enough injustice in his time, to be used to it.
"You're honest in saying I would make it worse for Job if I tried to help
him?" he asked.
"Perfectly honest," said Doctor Hilary with an odd little smile.
Antony again got up from his chair.
"All right," and his voice was constrained. "I'll not be keeping you any
longer, sor."
Doctor Hilary went with him to the door.
"I'm sorry about this business," he said.
"Are you?" said Antony indifferently.
Doctor Hilary went back to his surgery.
"He didn't believe me," he said to himself, "small wonder."
He pulled out his note-book and made a note in it. Then he shut the book
and put it in his pocket.
"Anyhow," he said, "it's the kind of thing we wanted."
The memorandum he had entered, ran:--
"Write Sinclair _re_ Grantley."