It was nothing short of a debacle. He had pulled out the keystone of
an invisible edifice which had come tumbling about their ears, leaving
him in safety. Without knowing how or why, he knew he had got the
better of them all. The grins died out of the upturned faces. They
looked at him with amazement, with horror, yes--with respect.
"But you have been taught your catechism--to--to believe in God?"
"No."
"But the hymn--at least you could have sung the hymn, my poor boy. You
can read, can't you?"
"No."
The awe passed before a storm of unchecked laughter. For one
spectacular moment he had held them all helpless, every one of them, by
the sheer audacity of his admissions. Now with one word he had
fallen--an ignominious, comic outcast. The clergyman turned away,
shaken but satisfied.
"You have a great deal to learn. I doubt if Mr. Morton quite
realized---- A heavy task in front of you, too, Mr. Ricardo. One
word, please----"
They spoke in undertones. Robert slid back into his seat. He could
feel exultant glances sting and pierce him on every side. And yet when
the door closed he had to look up. He was driven by a relentless
curiosity to meet the worst. Mr. Ricardo had resumed his place. He
did not so much as glance at Robert. He clung on to the lapels of his
coat and blinked up at the window as though nothing had happened. But
there was something impish twitching at the corners of his nervous
mouth.
"My delightful young friends," he said, "you will be kind enough to
leave Stonehouse in peace both now and hereafter. I know your amiable
propensities, and my own conviction is that he is probably worth the
pack of you. Get out your history books----"
So he was a friend. A powerful friend. But not powerful enough. No
one looked at Robert again. And yet he knew, with all the certainty of
inherited instinct, that they were waiting for him.
4
He went out into the school-yard like an early Christian into the
arena. He knew exactly what to expect. It was just the Terrace over
again. He would have to fight them all until they learnt to leave him
alone. Somehow he knew for certain that to be left alone was the best
he could expect. They would never really forgive him for being
different from themselves. It was very mysterious. It couldn't be his
father or the unpaid bills any more. It seemed that if you were born
different you remained different, however hard you tried. He had
wanted so much to go to school, to run with a band again, to play games
with them and have them call out, "Hallo, Stonehouse!" as he heard
other boys call to each other across the street. He had meant to be
exactly like them at all costs. It had seemed so easy, since his
father was dead and Christine paid the butcher. But at once he had
been found out, a marked man. He hadn't got a father and mother like
ordinary people, he didn't go to church, he didn't say his prayers, he
couldn't read, and he didn't know who God was--or even Christine----
There was a moment of suspense before the attack opened. Like an old,
experienced general he made his way with apparent indifference towards
the wall. But he was not quite quick enough. Someone prodded him
sharply in the back. Someone hissed in mocking imitation:
"I don't know--I don't know!"
He was too cunning to retaliate. He waited till he had reached his
chosen ground, then he turned with his fists clenched. The storm had
already gathered. It was only a little school, and the story of the
new boy's "break" with old Jaegers had reached even the big louts who
lingered on in Form VI. They made a rough half-circle round their
intended victim, only partially malevolent in their intentions. The
fact that he had bearded a contemptible old beast like Jaegers was
rather in his favour than otherwise, but his assertion that he did not
say his prayers and knew nothing about God smacked of superiority. He
had to be taken down. And, anyhow, a new boy was an object of
curiosity and his preliminary persecution a time-honoured custom. A
fight was not in their calculations--the very idea of a new boy
venturing to fight beyond their imaginations. And Robert did not want
to fight. He felt oddly weary and disinclined. But to him there was
no other outcome possible. It was his only tradition. It blinded him
to what was kindly or only mischievous in the faces round him. He had
a momentary glimpse of the red-headed boy who stood just outside the
circle, munching an apple and staring at him with astonished blue eyes,
and then his attention fixed itself on his enemy-in-chief. There was
no mistaking him. He was a big, lumpy fellow, fifteen years of age,
with an untidy mouth, the spots of a premature adolescence and an air
of heavy self-importance. When he spoke, the rest fell into awed
attention.
"Hallo, new kid, what's your name?"
"Robert Stonehouse."
"Don't be so abrupt, my boy,"--a delighted titter from the small
fry--"say 'sir' when you answer me."
"I shan't."
The little colourless eyes widened in sheer incredulity. For a moment
the role of humorist was forgotten.
"Look here--no cheek, or I'll smack your head."
"He hasn't been properly brought up," one of the spotty youth's
companions remarked, not ill-naturedly. "Can't expect him to have
manners. He never had a father or a mother, poor darling----"
"Then where did he come from?"
"God made him."
"He told old Jaegers he'd never even heard of God."
"Dear, dear, what a naughty boy. He doesn't even say his prayers."
"But he lives with a lady called Christine----"
"How nice for him. Is she a pretty lady, Stonehouse?" Up till now
nothing had stirred in him. He hadn't cared. He had indeed felt
something of the superiority which they suspected in him. If that was
all they could do---- Now, suddenly, the blood rushed to the roots of
his fair hair.
"Shut up. You leave Christine alone."
The big boy was too delighted to be angry.
"Hoity-toity. She must be a high-stepper. No trespassers allowed--eh,
what? young cockalorum. Come on, what's she like? Who is she?
"He doesn't know."
"She isn't his mother."
"He says she isn't."
"P'r'aps he doesn't know that either. P'r'aps that's what she
says----"
The full extent of the innuendo, like the majority of the audience, he
did not understand, but he saw the wink which passed between the two
elder boys. Ever since that day when he had gathered flowers for his
mother in Kensal Green Cemetery he had known of dark things, just
beyond his understanding. He had wandered in the midst of them too
long not to be aware of them on the instant. And it was against
Christine--who had suffered from them so terribly--they dared---- A
great sigh tore itself free from him. He put his head down. He flew
at the spotty youth like a stone from a catapult, and they went down
together in a cloud of dust.
After that, as in most of his uneven, desperate encounters, he hardly
knew what happened. He felt nothing. In reality it was an absurd
spectacle. The spotty youth, bounding up from his momentary
discomfiture, caught Robert by the collar and smacked him shamefully,
severely, as the outrage merited. And when justice had been satisfied,
he released the culprit, and Robert, without pause, returned, fighting
with fists and feet and teeth, as he had learnt to do from dire
necessity. It was unprecedented. The spotty youth gasped. His
companions offered intervention.
"I'll hold the beggar."
But honour was at stake. The small fry, startled out of caution, were
tittering in hysterical excitement.
"Th-thanks--you keep out of it--I'll manage him."'
The second beating was more drastic. The third was ineffectual. The
spotty youth, besides being exhausted, was demoralized with sheer
bewilderment. He was not clever, and when events ran out of their ruts
he lost his head. He had made the same discovery that the Terrace boys
had made long since, namely that short of killing Robert Stonehouse
there was no way of beating him, and he drew back, panting,
dishevelled, his manly collar limp and his eyes wild.
"There--that'll teach you----"
Robert laughed. He put his tongue out. He knew it was vulgar but it
was the only retaliation he had breath for. His clothes were dusty and
torn, his nose bloody. He was a frightful object. But he knew that he
had won.
The spotty youth wiped his hands on his handkerchief with exaggerated
disgust.
"Dirty little beast. I wouldn't touch him again--not with the end of a
barge pole."
He never did. Nobody did. Though he did not know it, it was Robert's
last fight. But he had won immunity at a high cost. The small fry
skirted him as they went out through the school gates. It was more
than fear. They distrusted him. He was not one of them. He did not
keep their laws. His wickedness was not their wickedness, his courage
not their courage. He ought not to have fought a boy in the sixth
form. He ought to have taken his beating quietly. Even if he had
"blubbed" they might afterwards have taken him to their bosoms in
understanding and inarticulate sympathy. As it was, he was a devil--a
foreign devil, outside the caste for ever.
Only the small red-haired boy, waiting cautiously till everyone else
was out of sight, came after him as he trailed forlornly down the
street. He was still chewing meditatively at the core of his apple,
and his eyes, vividly blue amidst the freckles, considered Robert out
of their corners with solemn astonishment.
"I say, Stonehouse, you can fight."
Robert nodded. He was still breathless.
"I--I'm used to it."
"I'm glad you kicked that beast Saunders. You hurt him, too. I saw
him make a face. I wish I could fight like that. But I'm no good at
it. I'm not 'fraid--not really--but I just hate it. You like it,
don't you?"
Robert swaggered a little.
"Rather."
There was a moment's silence,
"I say--if you like it--would you mind licking Dickson Minor for me?
He's always ragging me--you see, I've a rotten time--because of my
hair, and about playing the piano. Dickson's the worst. I'd be
awfully glad, if you wouldn't mind, of course."
Robert surreptitiously wiped the blood from his nose on to his sleeve.
As usual he had no handkerchief. A warm, delicious solace flowed over
his battered spirit. His heart swelled till it hurt him. It opened
wide to the little red-haired boy. If only Francey could see him
now--the defender of the oppressed. But he did not dare to think of
that. After all, he might cry.
He nodded negligently.
"All right. I don't mind."
"P'r'aps, when he knows you're standing up for me, he'll leave me
alone."
"He'd better."
"My name's Rufus--Rufus Cosgrave. You see, I was born like this, and
my father thought it would be a good joke. I call it beastly."
"Mine's Robert."
The red-haired boy meditated a little longer. He rubbed his arm
against Robert's softly like a young pony.
"I say, let's be friends--shall we?"
Robert gulped and turned his head away.
"All right. I don't mind."
They parted shyly at the corner of Cosgrave's road--a neat double file
of vastly superior villas, as Robert realized with a faint sinking of
the heart; but Robert did not go home. He made his way out to the
dingy fields behind the biscuit factory, and watched the local rag and
bobtail play football, lying hidden in the long grass under the wall so
that they should not see him and fall upon him. Even when it grew dusk
and he knew that Christine must be almost home, he still wandered about
the streets. He was hungry and footsore, his head and body ached, but
he put off the moment when he would have to face her to the very last.
He loved her, and he was not really afraid, though he knew that the
sight of his torn, blood-stained clothes would rouse her to a queer
unreasonable despair; but he had talked so much, so proudly and so
confidently of going to school. And now, how should he tell the tale
of his disgrace, how make clear to her the misery which the
unfathomable gulf between himself and his companions caused in him, or
that because a red-haired, freckled small boy had asked him to fight
Dickson Minor he had lain in the grass with his face hidden in his arms
and wept tears of sacred happiness? There were things you could never
tell, least of all to people whom you loved. They were locked up in
you, and the key had been lost long since.
The street lamps came to life one by one. He strolled down Acacia
Grove, whistling and swinging his legs with an exaggerated
carelessness. He could see their light in the upper window of No. 14.
He was sure that Christine would watch for him, and when the hall door
opened suddenly, he stopped short, shrinking from their encounter. But
it was a man who came out of the gate towards him. For one moment an
awful, reasonless terror made him half turn to run, to run headlong,
never to come back; the next, he recognized the slight, jerky limp
which made his form master so comically bird-like, and stood still,
knowing that now Christine had heard everything, the very worst.
Probably Mr. Ricardo had come to tell her that she must take him away,
that he was too bad and too stupid to be with other boys, and a lump
gathered in his throat because he would never see Rufus Cosgrave again:
never fight for him.
Mr. Ricardo halted, peering through the dusk.
"That you, Stonehouse?"
"Yes"--he added painfully, because the little man had been kind to
him--"sir."
"Your--Miss Forsyth is getting anxious about you. Why are you so late?"
Robert muttered "Football," knowing it was a lie, and that somehow or
other his companion knew it too. He heard Mr. Ricardo sigh deeply and
wearily.
"Well, I'm very late myself. I don't know this neighbourhood. Is
there a station or a 'bus near here?"
"There's a 'bus." Robert pointed eagerly. "I'll show you if you like."
"Thanks--if it doesn't take you too long."
They walked side by side in silence, Mr. Ricardo's stick tapping
smartly on the pavement, he himself apparently deep in thought. It
seemed to Robert that he had escaped, until suddenly a thin hand took
him by the shoulder and shook him with a friendly impatience.
"Football. Nonsense. A boy like you doesn't play football. He hasn't
had the chance. Besides, it's not his line. He plays a lone game.
No. You've been moping round--crying possibly. Well, I do that myself
sometimes. It's a crying business, unless you've got nerves and guts.
But you've got that all right. I saw you fight that stupid bully
Saunders from my window, and you beat him, too. I was fighting with
you, though you didn't know it. It was I who kicked him that time you
caught him on the shin."
Robert would have laughed had he been less miserable, and had he not
caught beneath Mr. Ricardo's brief amusement a real and angry
satisfaction. In the dark, too, he had an uneasy feeling that after
all he was going to be found out.
"And then after you'd stood up to and beaten a fellow twice your size
you went away by yourself and howled. Shall I tell you why? You'll be
astonished. Probably you won't understand in the least. You cried
because you're a young idiot. You find yourself in a herd of
half-baked living creatures, and you see that they are wearing chains
round their ankles and rings through their noses so that they can't
move or breathe properly, and you think to yourself that that's the
proper thing, and you come crying home for someone to tie you up like
the rest. It's natural. It's the race instinct and has had its uses.
But it's dangerous. It kills most of us. We start out with brains to
use and eyes to see with and hands to make with and we end up by
thinking nothing and seeing nothing and making nothing that hasn't been
thought and seen and made for the last two thousand years. Most of us,
even when we know what is happening to us, are cowed and blackmailed
into surrender. We have to compromise--there are circumstances--always
circumstances--unless we are very strong--we give in--beaten out of
shape----"
His sentences, that had become painful and disjointed, broke off, and
there was another silence. Robert could say nothing. He was dazed
with the many words, half of which, it was true, he had not understood
at all. And yet they excited him. They seemed to pierce through and
touch some sleeping thing in himself which stirred and answered: "Yes,
yes, that's true--that's true."
The pressure on his shoulders increased a little.
"But you're not afraid of anything, are you, Stonehouse?"
"No--no, sir. I don't think so--not really----"
"I don't think you are, either. I liked the way you stood up to that
poor faggot of hereditary superstitions and prejudices who was trying
to frighten you into being as big a humbug as himself. He'll never get
over it. I daresay he'll make things very unpleasant for you in his
charming Christian way. How old are you, Stonehouse?"
"Ten--nearly, sir."
"You're big and precocious for your age. You'll get the better of him.
But if you'd been brought up with other children you'd have whined and
cringed--'Yes, sir,' 'No, sir'--and been a beastly canting hypocrite
all your life. You're wonderfully lucky if you only knew it,
Stonehouse. You're nearly ten, and you can't read and you don't say
your prayers and your catechism and you know nothing about God
Almighty. You've a sporting chance of becoming a man----"
Robert stumbled over his own feet. A deeper, almost overpowering,
tiredness had come over him. And yet he was fascinated. He had to try
to understand.
"Isn't there--I mean--isn't there anyone like God?"
Mr. Ricardo stopped short. He made a strange, wild gesture. Standing
there in the half-darkness he was more than ever like some poor hobbled
bird trying desperately, furiously to beat its way back to freedom.
"Superstition--superstition, Stonehouse--the most crushing, damnable
chain of all, the symbol of cowardice, of greed and vanity, the enemy
of truth and knowledge, the hot-bed on which we breed the miserable
half-men who cumber this earth, a pitiable myth----"
He had almost shouted. It was as though he had been addressing a vast
audience. His voice dropped now, and he walked on, peering about him
anxiously.
"Well--well, you are too young. There are things you can't understand.
But I shall teach you. No, there is no God, Stonehouse."
Robert was vaguely sorry. It was true that he had no clear idea of
God, and yet in some way He had been mixed up with the bands and music
and marching crowds that were always just round the corner. In his
expansive, genial moments, so rare towards the end. Dr. Stonehouse had
been known to say, "God bless you, Christine," and that had always
meant a few hours' peace. It seemed very sad.
"What are you going to be, Stonehouse?"
"A doctor, sir."
"Why?"
It was impossible to tell the whole truth--namely, that because Francey
had said she was to be a doctor he had said he would be one too, and a
better one at that. He gave half-measure.
"I want to be."
"Well, that's a good reason. It might be a great profession, but it
has its liars and tricksters like the rest. It is eaten up by little
men who wrap themselves in priestly garments and hide their ignorance
behind oracular silences. They play up to the superstitious weakness
of the mob, and replace one religion by another. They don't care what
beastly misery and evil they keep alive so long as they can pull off
their particular little stunts. You mustn't be like that, Stonehouse.
To be free--to be free--and strong enough to go one's way and trample
down the people who try to turn you aside; that is the only thing worth
while. Don't let them catch you, Stonehouse. You don't know how
cunning they can be--cunning and cruel."
He sighed again, and Robert did not try to answer. He had given up all
hope of understanding, and his tiredness was now such that he had to
set his teeth to keep the tears back. At the corner they waited in
silence watching the jolly, yellow-eyed 'bus rumble towards them down
the High Street.
"Your guardian will tell you what we have arranged," Mr. Ricardo said
abruptly and with a complete change of tone. "In a month you will read
better than any of them. As to the rest, you will have to compromise.
So long as you know what you are doing and don't humbug yourself,
there's no harm done. With the necessity you will shake yourself free.
You can say, 'I believe in God the Father Almighty' with your lips and
in your heart, as I do, damned rot--damned rot.'"
He laughed, and in the lamplight Robert saw his face, puckered with an
impish, malicious merriment. Robert laughed too. So he had guessed
right. He felt proud and pleased.
"Good night, Stonehouse."
"Good night, sir."
Robert took off his battered cap politely as did other boys. Mr.
Ricardo scrambled into the 'bus with an unexpected agility, and from
the bright interior in which he sat a huddled, faceless shadow, he
waved. Robert waved back. A fresh rush of elation had lifted him out
of his sorrowful weariness. His disgrace had been miraculously turned
to a kind of secret triumph. He was different; but then, how
different! He didn't wear chains or a ring through his nose. He was
going to know things that no one else knew. And one day he would be
big and free.
5
It did not last. By the time he had dragged himself up to the top of
their stairs there was nothing left but hunger, the consciousness of
tattered, blood-stained clothes, and a sore, tired body. After all, he
was only a small boy who had wanted to play with other boys, and had
been cast out. Even Mr. Ricardo could never make them play with him.
It was dark in the sitting-room. Against the grey, ghostly light of
the window he could see Christine bowed over her typewriter. She was
so still that she frightened him. All the terrors of night which lay
in wait for him ever since his fathers dead hand had touched his door
and opened it, rushed down upon him with a sweep of black, smothering
wings. He called out "Christine! Christine!" in a choked voice, and
she moved at once, and he saw her profile, sharp-drawn and unfamiliar.
"Is that you, Robert? What is it, dear?"
So she had not been worrying about him at all. She did not know that
it was long past their usual supper-time. She had been thinking of
something else. It made her seem a terrifyingly long way off, and he
shuffled across the room to her, and touched her to make sure of her.
And it was strange that her hand glided over him anxiously,
questioningly, as though in the darkness she too had been afraid and
uncertain.
"Your form-master, Mr. Ricardo, has been here. We've been talking
about you. Is your coat very, very torn?"
"Not--not very."
"Never mind. I'll mend it afterwards--when you've gone to bed."
Because he was so tired himself the unutterable weariness in her voice
smote him on the heart unbearably. He had never heard it before. It
made him think of her, for the first time, not just as Christine, who
looked after him and loved him, but as someone apart whom, perhaps, he
did not know at all. Hadn't they asked him, "Who is Christine?" And
he hadn't answered. He hadn't known.
"Mr. Ricardo says you will need a lot of help to pick up with the other
boys. Poor little Robert! But he takes an interest in you, and you
are to go to his house in the afternoon to be coached, and in a few
weeks you will know as much as any of them."
He did not know what "coaching" meant, but all of a sudden he had
become afraid of Mr. Ricardo. He did not want to go to him. He knew
that Mr. Ricardo would not like him to play with other boys, even if he
got a chance. He would want him to be alone and different always.
"He doesn't believe in God," Robert asserted accusingly. "He said he
didn't."
"Perhaps not, dear."
"Doesn't that matter?"
"I don't suppose God minds--if He exists."
"Don't you believe in Him, Christine?"
"I don't know. People say they believe too easily. I expect I believe
as much as the others. With most of us it's just--just a hope."
They had never talked together in that way before. It made her more
than ever someone apart from him, who had her own thoughts, and perhaps
her own secret way of being unhappy. He was frightened again, not of
the darkness now, but of something nearer--something so real and deadly
that the old spectres became almost comic, like ghosts made up of
dust-sheets and broom-handles. Supposing Christine went still further
from him--supposing she left him altogether alone? She wouldn't do it
of her free will, but there were things people couldn't help. People
died. The thought was a cruel hand twining itself into the strings of
his heart. He tried to see her face. Was she young? He didn't know.
He had never thought about it. She had been grown-up. That covered
everything. Now in the pale, unreal light her face and hair were a
strange dead gray, and she was old--old.
"Christine, how--how long do people live?"
"It depends. Sometimes to a hundred--sometimes just a minute.
"But if one is careful, Christine--I mean, really careful?"
"It doesn't always help, Robert. And even if it did, the people who
need to live most have to take risks----" She broke off, following
her thought further till it was far beyond his reach. "In fifteen
years you will be grown up. You will be able to take care of yourself.
What will you be then?"
"A doctor," he said firmly; "and I'll look after you, Christine, and
you'll live for ever and ever."
"A doctor--a doctor!" She seemed startled, almost frightened. "Yes,
of course. Your father would want it. He was always proud of his
profession, though he made fun. But it will mean more--waiting a
little longer."
She brooded, her hand covering her eyes, and he crept nearer to her,
pressing himself against her arm, trying to draw her back.
"Christine, who--who are you?"
"I don't know, Robert, I don't know----"
"I mean--why do you look after me? You're not my mother."
"Why, I love you."
"But you didn't at the beginning. You couldn't have done."
"Your father and I were friends. Yes, always--always--right through
everything--to the very end. When your mother came into our lives, I
loved her almost more. That will seem very strange to you one of these
days, but it was true. When she was dying she asked me to take care of
you both." She drew herself up, and pushed the untidy wisps of hair
out of her face, and with that gesture she seemed suddenly to grow
vigorous and young. "Why, Robert, it's better than if you were my own
son; it's as though in you I had a little of those two always with me."
"Christine, you won't ever leave me, will you?"
For now his fear had him by the throat. She didn't--she never had
belonged to him. It was his father and his mother, who were dead.
"Of course not--not so long as you need me. You mustn't worry. It's
because we're both tired and hungry. We'll get supper."
Her voice was its old self. But whilst she laid the cloth he stood
pressed against the window and looked out with blind eyes into the
darkness, so that she should not see his slow, hot tears. He was aware
of great and bitter loss. But he loved Christine more than he had ever
done. His love had ceased to be instinctive. It had become conscious
of itself and of her separateness. And it would never be quite free
again from pain.
III
1
Long before he could read words of three syllables, Robert had learnt the
Origin of Man, and had made a vivid, somewhat fanciful picture of that
personage's pathetic beginnings as a miasm floating on the earth's
surface, and of his accidental, no less pathetic progression as a Survival
of the Fittest. He gathered that even more than old Jaegers, Mr. Ricardo
hated God Almighty and Jesus Christ, the latter of whom was intimately
connected with something called a Sun Myth--chiefly, Robert supposed,
because He was the Son of God. Mr. Ricardo could not leave these two
alone. He hunted them down, he badgered and worried them, he covered them
with gibes and insults. It seemed to Robert sometimes that even the
multiplication table was really a disguised missile hurled in their
unsuspecting and non-existent faces.
Mr. Ricardo appeared to have no friends. As far as Robert could make out,
when he was not at school he sat at his desk in the untidy, stuffy attic
in the still more untidy, stuffy boarding-house where he lived, and wrote
feverishly. What he wrote Robert did not know. There was an air of
mystery about the whole business, as though he were concocting a deadly
explosive which might go off at any moment. Sometimes he seemed dated,
sometimes cast down by the results, but always doggedly resolved.
"It is a long, hard struggle, Stonehouse," he would say. "There are more
fools in this world than you could conceive possible. Thank your stars
your friend isn't one of them. A fine, intelligent woman--a unique woman."
He talked a good deal about Christine and women in general.
"When once we can get them on our side," was one of his dark sayings, "the
last trench will be in our hands."
Then, one evening, to Robert's astonished displeasure, he walked home with
him, and somehow drifted up their dark stairs to the little sitting-room
where Christine was laying supper. It appeared that he had come to give
an account of his pupil's progress, but he was oddly excited, and when
Christine invited him to share their meal--surely he could have seen there
wasn't enough to go round, Robert thought--he accepted with a transparent,
childlike eagerness that made Robert stare at him as at a stranger. And
after supper, with the self-conscious air of a man who has waited for this
moment, be produced from his coat pocket a crumpled newspaper with the
title _Unshackled_ printed in aggressive letters on its pale-green cover.
"In my leisure time I write a good deal on a subject very dear to me, Miss
Forsyth," he said and screwed up his sharp nose in a kind of nervous
anguish. "I have here an article published last week--you are a
broad-minded, intelligent woman--I thought perhaps it might interest
you--if you would care to glance over it."
Christine lay back in her chair, her face in shadow. But the lamplight
fell on her two hands. Red and misshapen as they were now, they were
still noble hands, and their repose had dignity and beauty.
"Won't you read it to us, Mr. Ricardo? My eyes are tired at night."
He cleared his throat.
"It is an answer to Bishop Crawford's recent letter to _The Times_, which
you may have seen. I have called it 'Unmasking the Oracle.'"
Robert leant out of the window and watched the sun sink into mist and
smoke. He wished Mr. Ricardo hadn't come; and that he would go away soon.
In a few minutes the light would begin to die, and the sharp black lines
of the roofs and spires, which on the ruins of their dull selves seemed to
be built anew into a witchlike fantastic city, would be lost to him for
another night. Robert did not want to hear about God and the origin of
man now. He kicked impatiently. Christine would sit up later than ever.
And, besides with Mr. Ricardo's voice rising and falling, growing shriller
and more passionate, one could not listen to that low, mysterious hum that
was so like a far-off music.
Mr. Ricardo made a sweeping, crushing gesture. "That, surely, settles the
controversy. He will hardly be able to answer that, I think."
Christine stirred, and opened her eyes, and smiled a little.
"I could not answer it, at any rate. It sounds very clever." She took
the paper from him and held it to the light, and Robert turned, hoping
that now he would really go. "But--but I didn't quite understand--have I
lost the place?--this is by E. T. Richards."
Then Robert saw an astonishing thing. Suddenly Mr. Ricardo seemed to
shrivel--to cower back into himself. His fierce, triumphant energy had
gone as at a blasting touch of magic. He looked ashamed and broken.
"A _nom de plume_--_a nom de guerre_, rather, Miss Forsyth--you
understand--in my opinion--the scholastic profession--the stronghold of
the worst bigotry and prejudice--for myself I should not care--I have
always wanted to come out into the open--but I have a sister--poor
girl!--a long, sad illness--for her sake--I can't afford----"
Christine folded the paper gently as though she were afraid of hurting it.
"Of course. It would be unwise--unnecessary. Why should one sacrifice
oneself to fight something that doesn't exist?"
He clenched his fists.
"One must fight error, Miss Forsyth."
"At any rate it's brave of you to try--to do what you think is right." And
now it seemed she was trying to find something that would comfort
him--just as she had once given Robert peppermint balls when he had hurt
himself. "If ever you feel inclined, won't you come again--and read to
us?"
He looked at her with dark, tragic eyes.
"Thank you, thank you."
Robert went with him to the door, and for a moment he wavered on the
steps, blinking, and squeezing his soft hat between his bony hands.
"A great woman--a kind woman--you must be worth her while, Stonehouse."
And then, without so much as a "good night," he limped down the steps and
along the street, flitting in and out of the lamplight like a hunted bat.
It was the first of many tiresome evening visits. But the next day he was
always himself again, and the class wilted under his merciless,
contemptuous sarcasms. Only Robert was not afraid. He knew that the lash
would never come his way, and he could feel the little man's unspoken
pride, when he showed himself quicker than his companions, like a secret
Masonic pressure of the hand. And there was something else. It was a
discovery that made him at first almost dizzy with astonishment. He
wasn't stupid. Just as he was stronger, so he was cleverer than boys
older than himself. He could do things at once over which they botched
and bungled. He outstripped them when he chose. Even his ignorance did
not handicap him for long. For Mr. Ricardo had kept his promise. He
taught well, and in those long afternoons in the hot boarding-house attic
Robert had raced over the lost ground. He did not always want to work.
He gazed out of the window, half his mind busy planning what he and Rufus
Cosgrave would do when they met at the corner of the street, but he could
not help understanding what was so obvious, and there were moments when
sheer interest swept him off his feet, and even Rufus was forgotten. He
took an audacious pleasure, too, in leaping suddenly over the heads of the
whole class to the first place. He did not always bother. He liked to
wait for some really teasing question, and then, when silence had become
hopeless, hold up his hand. Mr. Ricardo would look towards him,
apparently incredulous and satirical, but Robert could read the message
which the narrowed eyes twinkled at him.
"Of course you understand, Stonehouse."
And then he would answer and sweep the sullen class with a cool,
exasperating indifference as he sat down. For he did not want them any
more. He returned instinctive enmity with the scorn of a growing
confidence. It was rather fine to stand by yourself, especially when you
had one friend who thought you splendid whatever you did, who clung to
you, and whom you had to protect. When he walked arm in arm with Rufus
Cosgrave in the playground he trailed his coat insolently, and the
challenge was not once accepted. From the biggest boys to Dickson Minor,
no one cared to risk the limitless possibilities of an encounter, and the
word "carrots" was not so much as whispered in his hearing.
Then in the late afternoon the real day seemed to begin. Then the
hardness and distrust with which he had unconsciously armed himself fell
away, and he and Rufus Cosgrave sat side by side in the sooty grass behind
the biscuit factory, and with arms clasped about their scarred and grubby
knees planned out the vague but glorious time that waited for them. Rufus
was to be a Civil Servant. He did not seem to care much for the prospect
or even to be very clear as to what would be expected of him. He felt,
with Robert, that a Civil Servant sounded servile and romanceless, but
unfortunately the profession, whatever it was, ran in the family.
"My father's one, you know. So I've got to. I'd rather play the piano.
But, of course, I wouldn't say so to anyone but you. It sounds too
beastly silly----"
"I'd say whatever I wanted to," Robert retorted grandly, "I'll always say
what I want to and do what I jolly well like when I'm grown up anyhow.
You can if you're strong enough."
"But then people hate you," Rufus said sadly.
"That doesn't matter a bit."
"Don't you mind people not liking you?"
"Rather not."
Rufus fumbled anxiously.
"Wouldn't you be pleased if--if you were asked to play in the eleven--and
the chaps cheered you like they do Christopher when he kicks a goal?"
"I shouldn't care--not a button." But he knew even then that it was not
true. His heart had leapt at the very thought. He drew his fair brows
together in the portentous Stonehouse scowl. "It's silly to mind what
silly people think. And kicking goals is no good. I'm going to be a
doctor--not just the ordinary sort--a big doctor--and I'll discover
things--and people like Christopher'll come and beg me to keep them alive."
Rufus sighed deeply.
"I wish I was like that. I mind awfully--being ragged, and all that. I
was awfully miserable until you came. If you went away--or didn't care
any more--I don't know what I'd do. But if I went away you wouldn't
mind----"
"Yes, I would."
"But you're so much stronger."
"I like being strongest."
And then and there he expounded the doctrine of the Survival, and Rufus
began to shiver all over like a frightened pony.
"I think it's perfectly beastly. What'll happen to me? Anyone can lick
me. I wouldn't have a chance."
The tears came into his round, blue eyes and trickled down his freckled
cheeks, and a sudden choking tenderness, a dim perception of all that this
one friend meant to him, made Robert fling his arms about him and hug him
close.
"Yes--you would. Because I'll look after you--always--honest injun."
2
There was one secret that he never told to anyone--not even to Cosgrave.
He was ashamed of it. He knew it was silly--sillier than in believing in
God--and he had almost succeeded in forgetting it when it came true. It
happened. Just when he was least expecting it it came round the corner.
First the music, a long way off, but growing louder and fiercer so that it
seemed as though his fancy had suddenly jumped out of his brain and was
running about by itself, doing just what it liked; then lights, torches
with streaming flags of fire that put out the street lamps altogether, and
the shadows of people marching--running--leaping--capering.
Robert ran too. He did not stop to think what it was. He was wild with
excitement, and as he ran he bounded into the air and waved his arms in a
pent-up joy of living and moving. He never had much chance to run. You
couldn't run by yourself for nothing. People stared or were annoyed when
you bumped against them. But now there was something to run for. There
was no one to see or hear him in the deserted Grove, and with each bound
he let out an unearthly, exultant whoop.
At the corner where Acacia Grove met the High Street Rufus Cosgrave
squirmed out of the pushing, jostling crowd and caught hold of him. He
was capless, panting. His red hair stood on end. In the flickering torch
light he looked like a small, delirious Loga.
"I say--Stonehouse--I was coming for you--it's a circus--they're going all
the way down to the Green--they've got their tent there--if we could only
climb up somewhere--I can't see a thing--not even the elephant's legs."
"If we cut round by Griffith's Road we'll get there first," Robert
shouted. "Only we've got to run like mad."
He seized Rufus by the hand and they shot free of the procession, up and
down dim and decorous streets, swerving round corners and past astonished
policemen whose "Now then, you young devils" was lost in the clatter of
their feet. Cosgrave gasped, but Robert's hold was relentless,
compelling. He could have run faster by himself, but somehow he could not
let Cosgrave go. "You've got to stick it," he hissed fiercely. "It's
only a minute."
Cosgrave had no choice but to "stick it." It did not even occur to him to
resist though his eyes seemed to be bulging out of his head and his lungs
on the point of bursting. But the reward was near at hand. There, at the
bottom of Griffith's Road, they could see it--the Green, unfamiliar with
its garish lights and the ghostly, gleaming tents.
"We've done it!" Robert shouted. "Hurrah--hurrah!"
They had, in fact, time to spare. The procession was still only half-way
down the High Street, a dull red glow, like the mouth of a fiery cave,
widening with every minute as though to swallow them. There was, indeed,
a disconcerting crowd gathered round the chief entrance, but Robert was
like a general, cool and vigorous, strung up to the finest pitch of
cunning. He wormed his way under the ropes, he edged and insinuated
himself between the idle and good-natured onlookers, with Cosgrave, tossed
and buffeted, but still in tow, struggling in the backwash. At last they
were through, next to the entrance, and in the very front row of all.
"Now you'll see the elephant," Robert laughed triumphantly, "every bit of
him,"
"Oh, my word!" Cosgrave gasped. "Oh, my word!"
It was coming. It made itself felt even before it came into sight by the
sudden tensity of the crowd, the anxious pressure from behind, the
determined pushing back by the righteously indignant in front, the craning
of necks, and indistinguishable, thrilling murmur. A small boy, whom
Robert recognized as the butcher's son, evidently torn between the dignity
and excitement of his new post, stalked ahead and thrust printed notices
into the outstretched hands. Robert seized hold of one, but he was too
excited to read. He felt Rufus poke him insistently.
"What's it say--what's it say?"
"Shut up--I don't know--look for yourself."
There they were. The six torch-bearers were dressed like mediaeval pages,
or near enough. Their tight-fitting cotton hose, sagging a little at the
knees, were sky-blue, and their tunics green and slashed with yellow.
They wore jaunty velvet caps and fascinating daggers, ready to hand. As
they reached the entrance to the tent they halted, and with some uneasy
shuffling formed up on either side, making a splendid passage of fire for
the ten Moorish horsemen who rode next, fierce fellows these, armed to the
teeth, with black, shining faces and rolling eyes. A band struck up
inside the tent to welcome them, and they rode through, scarcely bending
their proud heads--much to the relief of the more timorous members of the
crowd who had eyed the rear end of their noble steeds with a natural
anxiety. Unfortunately the torches smoked a good deal, and there was some
grumbling.
"'Ere, take the stinking thing out of me eyes, can't yer?"
"Right down dangerous, I calls it. If one of them there sparks gets into
me 'at I'll be all ablaze in half a jiffy. And oo'll pay for the
feathers, I'd like to know?"
"Oh, shut up--shut up!" Robert whispered bitterly. "Why can't everyone
shut up?"
"The Biggest and Best Show in Europe," Rufus was reading aloud in a
squeaky treble; "un-pre-ce-dented spectacles--performing sea-lions--great
chariot-race--the Legless Wonder from Iceland--Warogha, the Missing
Link--the greatest living Lady Equestrian, Madame Gloria Marotti,
Mad-rad--oh, I can't read that--Gyp Labelle, the darling of the Folies
Bergeres--what's Folies Bergeres, Robert----? Oh, my word--my word!"
It was the Shetland ponies that had saved Robert the trouble of replying
that he didn't know. After the ferocious magnificence of the Moorish
gentlemen, they came as a sort of comic relief. Everyone laughed, and
even the lady with the feather hat recovered her good temper.
"Why, you could keep one of them in the back yard--not an inch bigger than
our collie, is he, 'Enry? And Jim's not full grown--not by 'alf."
"As though anyone cared about her beastly collie!" Robert thought.
The elephants, a small one and a big one together to show their absurd
proportions, came next. The earth shook under them. They waved their
trunks hopefully from side to side, and their little brown eyes, which
seemed to have no relation to their bodies, peered out like prisoners out
of the peep-holes of a monstrous moving prison. When the man next to
Robert offered the smallest of them an empty paper-bag it curled its trunk
over his head and opened its pointed mouth and let out a piercing squeal
of protest which alarmed its tormentor, and caused his neighbours to
regard him with nervous disapproval. But the big elephant seemed to
exercise a soothing influence over its companion. It waved its trunk
negligently as though in contemptuous dismissal of a commonplace incident.
"My dear," it said, "that's all you can expect of such people."
There were men seated on the big elephants' necks, their legs tucked
comfortably behind the enormous flapping ears. They looked mysterious and
proud in their position. They wore turbans and carried sticks with
pointed iron spikes at the head, and when they came to the low entrance of
the tent they prodded their huge beasts, which went down on their knees,
painfully yet with a kind of sorrowful pride, and blundered through amidst
the admiring murmur of the crowd.
"The way they manage them big brutes!" declared the lady with the
feathered hat disconsolately. "And there's our George, a proper 'uman
being, and can't be got to do a thing--nohow."
The band inside had stopped, beaten in the hard-fought contest with its
rival at the far end of the procession, which thereupon broke out into
throaty triumphant trumpet blasts and exultant roll of drums. Rufus
clutched wildly at Robert's sleeve.
"Oh, my word, just look at her! Oh, my word!"
Robert craned forward, peering round the embonpoint of the man next him.
The procession now scarcely moved, and there was a space between the last
elephant and the great coal-black horse that followed--a wide, solemn
space, that invited you to realize that this was the finest sight you had
ever seen in your life. He was indeed a splendid, terrifying creature.
As Rufus Cosgrave said loudly, he was not like a human horse at all. One
could imagine him having just burst out of hell, still breathing fire and
smoke and rolling his eyes in the anguish of his bridled wickedness. In
the glare from the tent-door he gleamed darkly, a wild thing of black
flames, and those in the front row of the crowd trod nervously on the toes
of those behind, edging out of reach of his restless, dancing hoofs. For
it seemed impossible that the woman in the saddle should be really his
master. And yet she sat upright and unconcerned. In its black,
close-fitting habit, her supple body looked a living, vital part of the
splendid beast. She was his brain, stronger than his savage instinct, and
every threatening move of his great limbs was dictated to him without a
sound, almost without a gesture. A touch of a slender, patent-leather
boot set him prancing, an imperceptible twist of the wrist and he stood
stock still, foam-necked and helpless. It was a proud--an awe-inspiring
spectacle. And it was not only her fearless strength. She was fair and
beautiful. So Robert saw her. He saw nothing else. He gazed and gazed,
heart-stricken. He did not hear Rufus speak to him, or the band which was
blaring out a Viennese waltz, an old thing, whistled and danced half to
death long since, but which, having perhaps a spark of immortal youth left
among the embers, had not lost its power to make the pulses quicken.
Indeed it even played a humble part in this great moment in Robert's life.
Though he did not hear it, it poured emotion into the heated, dusty air.
It painted the tawdry show with richer colours. It was the rider's
invisible retinue. At a touch from her heel the horse danced to it, in
perfect time, arching his great neck, and rolling his wild eyes.
She was proud, too. Robert saw how she disdained the gaping multitude.
She rode with haughtily lifted head and only once her glance, under the
white, arrogant lids, dropped for an instant. Was it chance, was it the
agonized intensity of his own gaze which drew it to the small boy almost
under her horse's hoofs? (For he had held his ground. He was not afraid.
Unlike the rest, his trust in her was limitless and unquestioning. And if
she chose to ride him down, he would not care, no more than a fanatic
worshipper beneath the wheels of a Juggernaut.) Now under her eyes his
heart stood still, his knees shook. She did not smile; she did not
recognize his naked, shameless adoration. And that too was well. A smile
would have lowered her, brought her down from her superb distance. His
happiness choked him. She was the embodiment of everything that he had
heard pass in the distance from the silent dusks of Acacia
Grove--splendour and power, laughter and music, the beat of a secret pulse
answering the tread of invisible processions. She came riding out of the
mists of his fancy into light, a living reality that he could take hold
of, and set up in his empty temple. She was not his mother, nor Francey,
nor God, but she was everything that in their vague and different ways
these three had been to him before he lost them. She was something to be
worshipped, to be died for, if necessary, with joy and pride.
But in a moment it was over. She looked away from him and rode forward,
like a monarch into a grandly illuminated castle, amidst the whispered
plaudits of her people.
A little girl on a Shetland pony rode at her heels, Robert saw her without
wanting to see her. She obtruded herself vulgarly. She was dressed as a
page, her painfully thin legs looking like sticks of peppermint in their
parti-coloured tights, and either was, or pretended to be, terrified of
her minute and tubbily good-natured mount. At its first move forward she
fell upon its neck with shrill screams and clung on grotesquely, righting
herself at last to make mock faces at the grinning crowd.
"Oh, la, la--la-la!"
She was a plain child with a large nose, slightly Jewish in line, a wide
mouth, and a mass of crinkly fair hair that stood out in a pert halo about
her head. Robert hated her for the brief moment in which she invaded his
consciousness. It was quite evident that she was trying to draw attention
from the splendid creature who had preceded her to her own puny and
outrageous self, and that by some means or other she succeeded. She
gesticulated, she drew herself up in horrible imitation of a proud and
noble bearing, she pretended that the rotund pony was prancing to the
music, and, finally, burst into fits of laughter. The crowd laughed with
her, helplessly as though at a huge joke which she shared with each one of
them in secret.
"Oh, la la, la la."
The man at Robert's side wiped his eyes.
"Well, did you see that? Upon my word----"
"A baggage--that's what I call 'er," the feathered lady retorted severely.
"Mark my words--a baggage."
Rufus jogged Robert in the side.
"Wasn't she a joke? Didn't she make you scream?"
Robert hated them all. Beastly, despicable people who liked beastly,
despicable things.
More horsemen, camels, clowns on foot and clowns on donkeys. Finally the
band, slightly winded by this time, and playing raggedly. The
torch-bearers formed up, and a large gentleman in riding boots stood for a
moment in the light.
"To-morrow evening at eight o'clock--the first performance of the Greatest
Show in Europe--a unique opportunity--better book your seats early, ladies
and gentlemen----"
Then the flaps of the tent fell and all the lights and sounds seemed to go
out at once. The crowd melted away, and only Robert and his companion
remained gazing spellbound at the closed and silent cave which had
swallowed all the enchantment.
Rufus put his hands into his hair and tugged it desperately.
"Oh, if only I could go--if only I could---- Don't you want to go,
Robert?"
Robert woke partially from his dream.
"I'm going." He turned, and with his hands thrust into his pockets began
to walk homewards. Rufus trotted feverishly at his side.
"I say, are you really? But then you've got no people; jolly for you. I
wish I hadn't. My pater's so beastly strict; I'm scared of him. I say,
when will you go?"
"To-morrow night, of course."
"Have you got the money?"
"No, but I'll get it."
"Oh, I say, I wish I could. P'r'aps I could too. I've got money--yes, I
have, even if it is in a beastly tin box. What's the good of saving till
you're grown up? I shan't want it then like I do now. It's silly. All
grown-up people are silly. When I'm grown up I'll be different. I say,
Robert, I can come with you, can't I?"
"Oh, yes--if you want to." He was indifferent. It puzzled him slightly
that Rufus should be so eager. What did he know of the true inwardness of
what he had seen? What had it got to do with him, anyway?
Rufus brooded, his freckled face puckered with anxious contriving.
"I say, I've got an idea! I'll tell the pater you've asked me to come
over and spend the evening with you at your place. It'll be sort of true,
won't it? And then he'll never think about the money. You won't mind,
will you? It'll never come out--and if it does, I'll say I made it up."
"I don't care. All right."
Rufus drew a great sigh of relief.
"Isn't it ripping? Oh, I say, I wish it was to-morrow night. I hope I
don't die first. What did you like best, Robert? Who are you keenest on?"
Robert did not answer. It would have been sacrilege to talk her over--to
drag her down into a silly controversy. He longed for the moment when
Rufus would have to leave him. He wanted to be alone and silent. Even
the thought of Christine and of her inevitable questions hurt him like the
touch of a rough, unfeeling hand.
"I liked that kid best--that girl on the funny pony. She must have been
at the Folies Bergeres, don't you think? Folies Bergeres sounds French,
and she was making sort of French noises. She made me laugh." Something
wistful and hungry came into his shrill voice. He pressed close to
Robert's side. "I like people who make me laugh. I like them better than
anything in the world, don't you? It's jolly to be able to laugh like
that--right from one's inside----"
But Robert only smiled scornfully, hugging his secret closer to himself.
3
She came on for the last time in the Final, when the whole circus,
including the Legless Wonder, paraded round the ring to the competitive
efforts of both bands. Robert's eyes followed her with anguish. It
wasn't happiness any more. He might have been a condemned man counting
the last minutes of his life. He was almost glad when it was over and her
upright figure had vanished under the arch. People began to fidget and
reach for their hats and coats. A grubby youth with a hot, red face and a
tray slung round his neck pushed his way between the benches shouting:
"Signed photographs of the c'lebrities, twopence each!" in a raucous
indifferent voice. Robert waved to him, and he took no notice.
"Hi--hi!" Robert called faintly.
The youth stopped. He was terribly bored at first, but his boredom became
a cynical amusement. There were twenty different photographs of Madame
Gloria Moretti:
Madame Moretti full face, side face, three-quarter face, on her famous
horse Arabesque, with her beautiful foot on Arabesque's prostrate form, in
evening dress, stepping into her car--a car, at any rate--and so on, with
"Gloria Moretti" scrawled nobly across every one of them. Robert bought
them all. He stuffed them into his coat pockets, into his trouser
pockets. He dropped them. He dropped the pennies and sixpences which he
tried to count into the tray with shaking fingers. He was drunk and
reckless with his despairing love. The sales-boy winked at everyone in
general.
"Takin' it 'ard, ain't 'e, the young dawg?"
People smiled tolerantly. Their smiles said as plainly as possible: "We
remember being just as silly as that," and Robert hated them. It wasn't
true. They didn't remember. They had forgotten. Or, if they remembered
at all, it was only the things they had done, not what they had felt--the
frightful pain that was an undreamed-of happiness, and the joy that tore
the heart out of you, and the wonder of a new discovery. You lost
yourself, You gave everything that you were and had. You asked nothing,
hoped for nothing. And suddenly you became strong so that you were not
afraid any more of anything in the world--not of punishment nor disgrace,
nor even laughter.
But they pretended to understand. Their pretence made you despise and
pity them. It was a horrid thing, as though a skeleton came to life and
jiggled its bones and mouthed at you, "You see, I used to do that too."
That was why you told lies to them--even to Christine.
He had forgotten his cap. The sales-boy ran after him with it and stuck
it on his thick fair hair back to front.
"There--you'll be losing your 'ead next!"
It was dusk outside. The evening performance began at once, and already a
thick black stream of people was pouring up the roped gangways and
frothing and seething at the box offices. As they came out of the
darkness they had a mystical air of suddenly returned life. They were
pilgrims' souls surging at the entrance of Paradise. In a little while
they would see her. Not that they would know what they saw. They would
not be able to understand how great, how brave and splendid she was. In
their blindness of heart they would prefer the ugly little French girl
with her shrill voice and absurd caperings; their clapping would be
half-hearted, polite, and there would be no passionate, insistent pair of
hands to beat up their flagging enthusiasm and bring her back once more
into the arena, bowing in regal scorn of them.
For he, Robert, had brought her back twice, just because he wouldn't
stop--had beaten his hands till even now they were hot and swollen. She
had not known, and he would not have had her know for the whole world.
That was part of the mystery. You yourself were as nothing.
But it did hurt intolerably to think that perhaps because he was not there
she would not be called back so often. It was as though he betrayed
her--broke his allegiance. That afternoon, when it had seemed that the
evening could never really come, he had told himself that this was the
last time; but now, standing on the dim outskirts of the crowd, the
photographs that he hadn't been able to fit into his pockets held fast in
his burning hands, he saw how impossible, how even wrong and faithless
that decision had been. So long as a shilling remained to him he had to
go, he had to take his place among her loyal people. It meant being
"found out" hopelessly and violently. They--the mysterious "they" of
authority--might destroy him utterly. That would be the most splendid
thing of all. He would have done all that he could do. He would have
laid his last tribute at her unconscious feet and gone out in fire and
thunder.
He had actually joined the box-office queue when Rufus Cosgrave found him.
Rufus had been running hard and he was out of breath, and his blue eyes
had a queer, strained look, as though they had wanted to cry and had not
had the time. And on his dead-white face the freckles stood out,
ludicrously vivid.
"Oh, I say, Robert, where have you been? I waited and waited for you.
And then I went round to your place--and Miss Forsyth said she didn't know
and she seemed awfully worried--and--and--oh, I say--you're not going
again, are you?"
Robert nodded calmly. But his heart had begun to beat thickly with the
premonition of disaster.
"Yes, I am."
"You might have told me--oh, I say, do listen--do come out a minute--I'm
in an awful hole--there's going to be an awful row--I'm--I'm so beastly
scared----"
He was shivering. He did not seem to know that people were looking at
him. His voice was squeaky and broken. He tugged at Robert's sleeve.
"Oh, I say--do come----"
Robert looked ahead of him. It meant losing his place. Instead of being
so close to her that he could smell the warm, sweet scent of her as she
passed, he would have to peer between peopled heads, and she would be a
far-off vision to him. And yet, oddly enough, it did not occur to him to
refuse. He stood out, and they walked together towards the dark, huddled
army of caravans beyond the tents.
"What is it? What's the row?"
"It's Father--he's got wind of something--Mother told me--he's going to
open my money-box when he comes home to-night. I didn't know he'd kept
count--just the sort of beastly thing he would do--and oh, Robert, when he
finds out I've been cramming him he'll kill me--he will, really----"
At another time Robert might have consoled him with the assurance that
even the beastliest sort of father might hesitate to risk his neck on such
slight provocation, but he himself was overwrought with three days of
peril, of desperate subterfuge and feverish alternations between joy and
anguish. Now, in the mysterious twilight, the most terrible, as the most
wonderful things seemed not merely possible but likely. It made it all
the more terrible that Rufus should have to endure so much because he had
taken a fancy to a silly kid who laughed like a hyena till you laughed
yourself, however much you hated her.
He held Cosgrave's sticky hand tight, and at that loyal understanding
pressure Cosgrave began to cry, shaking from head to foot, jerking out his
words between his chattering teeth.
"It's s-stupid to cry--I do w-wish I w-wasn't always c-crying about
everything--after all--he c-can't kill me more than once, can he? But
he's such a beast. He h-hates anyone else to h-have a good time and tell
lies. He's always so j-jolly glad to let into me or mother--and when he
finds out we've been stuffing him he--he goes mad--and preaches for days
and days. Mother's a brick. She gave me a shilling to put back--but
he--he keeps her short, and she has to tell about every penny. She says
she'll have to pretend she lost it. And it's not enough, anyway.
Oh--Robert, you don't know what a row there'll be."
But Robert knew. He felt the cruel familiar ruffling of the nerves. He
heard the thud of his father's step, the horrible boom of his father's
voice, "You're a born liar, Christine--you're making my son into a liar."
It was as though Dr. Stonehouse had pushed off the earth that covered him
and stood up.
It was awful that Rufus should be frightened too. It wasn't fair. He
wasn't strong enough.
"I say--we'll have to do something. How much did you take out?"
"'Bout three shillings--there was an extra penny or two--p'r'aps he
wouldn't notice that, though--I thought p'r'aps--oh, I don't know what I
thought--but I had to come to tell you--I hadn't anyone else----"
Robert nodded. He stopped and looked back towards the big central tent.
It had grown at once larger and vaguer. The lighted entrance had a sort
of halo round it like the moon before it is going to rain. There was an
empty, sinking feeling in his stomach, and he too had begun to tremble, in
little, uncontrollable gusts. He let go his hold on Rufus's hand so that
he should not know.
"I've got two bob--somewhere," he heard himself saying casually and rather
grandly.
He knew now that he would never see her again. There was no struggle in
his mind, because there did not seem to be any choice. It wasn't that
little Cosgrave counted more--he hardly counted at all in that moment.
But she, if she knew he existed, would expect him to do the right, the
fine thing. Francey would have expected it. And she was only a mere
girl. How much more this noble, wonderful woman? It was better than
clapping. Somewhere at the back of his mind was the idea that he offered
her a more gallant tribute, and that one day she would know that he had
stuck up for Cosgrave for her sake, and, remote and godlike though she
was, be just a little pleased. The comfort of it was a faint warm light
showing through his darkness. It was all he had. As he dug those last,
most precious shillings out of the chaos of his pockets he felt himself go
sick and faint, just as he had done when, in a desperate fight, a boy
bigger than himself had kicked his shin.
"There--you can put them back, can't you? He'll never know----"
Rufus stopped crying instantly, after the miraculous fashion of his years.
He cut an elfish caper. He rubbed himself against his saviour like some
small grateful animal.
"I say, you are a brick. I knew you'd help somehow. Won't he be sold,
though? I'll just love to see his beastly face! What luck--not having a
father, like you. I say, though, is that all you've got? You won't be
able to go to the show now--and you're so keen, aren't you?"
"It doesn't matter," Robert answered carelessly. "I don't mind much--not
really."
He began to walk on, Rufus tagging valiantly at his heels.
"And--and if anyone asks--you'll say I was at your place--doing
prep.--won't you?"
"Oh, rather----"
"It's awfully decent of you. You don't mind telling fibs, do you, Robert?"
"One has to," Robert answered austerely. "Everyone has to."
Now that it was all over and he turned his back on her for ever, the
splendid glow of renunciation began to fade. Life stretched before him, a
black limitless emptiness. He wished agonizedly that Arabesque had gone
mad and bolted and that he had stopped him and saved his rider's life,
dying gloriously and at once, instead of miserably and by inches, like
this. He felt that in a moment the pain in his throat would get the
better of him and he would begin to cry.
They stopped at the far end of the Green where it was dark and they could
hardly see each other. He heard Cosgrave breathing heavily through his
nose, almost snorting, and then a timid, shamefaced whisper:
"You are decent to me. I say--I do love you so, Robert."
It was an awful thing to have said. They both knew it. If anyone had
overheard them the shame would have haunted them to their death. And yet
it was wonderful too. Never to be forgotten.
"You oughtn't to say rotten, stupid things like that--like silly girls."
And then, as though it had been torn from him. "I love you too, Rufus."
After that he ran madly so that Rufus could not overtake him--above all so
that he could not hear the band which had begun to play the opening march.
4
But before he had stopped running he had begun to plot again. Even though
he had made the great renunciation he could not help hoping. It was the
kind of hope that, when one is very young, follows on the heels of
absolute despair, and is based on magical impossibilities. It was like
his birthday hopes, which had been known to rise triumphant above the most
obvious and discouraging facts. After all there was to-morrow. He would
tell Christine everything--open his heart to her as to a good and
understanding friend--and she would give him six-pence so that he could
stand in the cheap places, or perhaps a shilling so that he could go
twice. He would tell her how he had saved Cosgrave from a fearful row,
and she would approve of him and sympathize with Cosgrave, who had such
beastly, understanding people.
He would hug her and say;
"It's jolly to have someone like you, Christine!"
And she would be enormously pleased, and in the dusk they would sit close
together and he would tell her of his superb being who changed the course
of his life, who was like his mother and Francey and God rolled into one,
and for whose sake he had emptied the housekeeping purse.
Perhaps it would all have happened just as he planned it, could it have
happened then and there. But the front door was closed and he had to wait
a long time for the landlady's heavy answering tread. When she came at
last it was from upstairs--he could tell by her breathing and a familiar
creak--and a cold dead hand laid itself on his heart and squeezed the hope
out of it. They had been talking about him--those two grown-up people.
He knew the kind of things they had said: "It's very tiresome of him to be
out so late, Mrs. Withers," and, "Boys is worritting, outrageous critters,
M'am," and the cruel impossibility of reaching their far-off impervious
understanding lamed him before the door had opened.
Mrs. Withers' lumpy figure loomed up grotesquely against the yellow murk.
"Is that you, Master Robert? You'd better run up quick. Your aunt is
going to give you a jacketing, I can tell you."
"Aunt" was the term with which Mrs. Withers covered up what she considered
privately to be an ambiguous relationship.
Robert slunk past her. He crawled upstairs with an aggressive
deliberation. He would show how much he cared. He was not afraid of
Christine. He had seen her unhappy too often. In a way he knew that he
was stronger than she was. For she was old and had no one to love but
himself.
All the same he was afraid. With every step he took he seemed to climb
farther and farther into the midst of fear. It was all around him--in the
close, airless dark and in the deathly quiet light that came from the open
doorway overhead. What was waiting for him there? His father, risen
unimaginably loathsome from the grave? For he could never be in the dark
without thinking of his father. Or something else? At least he knew that
the never-really-believed-in time of peace was over and that the monster
which had lain hidden and quiescent so long was crouched somewhere close
to him, ready to leap out.
Christine sat by the table under the light. There was a drawer beside her
which she had evidently torn out of its place in panic-stricken haste, for
the floor about her was littered with its contents--gloves and
handkerchiefs and ribbons. She held a shabby, empty purse in her limp
hand, and it was as though she had sat down because she had no longer the
strength to stand. He had not known before how grey her hair was. Her
face was grey, too, and withered like a dead leaf.
He stood hesitating in the doorway and they looked at one another. There
was no question of punishment or reproof between them. It was the old
days over again when they had clung together in the face of a common
peril--helpless and horribly afraid. She tried to smile and push the
empty purse out of sight as though it were of no account at all. And all
at once he was ashamed and miserable with pity.
"I was beginning to get quite worried about you." He could hardly hear
her. "Where have you been, Robert?"
He answered heavily, not moving from the doorway where he hung like a
sullen shadow.
"At the Circus."
"Is there a Circus? Why didn't Mrs. Withers tell me? If I had known that
I shouldn't have worried. I expect you were there yesterday too--and the
day before, weren't you, dear?"
He nodded, and she began to bundle everything back into the drawer, as
though at last a tiresome question had been satisfactorily settled.
"I knew it was all right. Mr. Ricardo was here this afternoon. He
thought I was ill--he thought you had told him you couldn't come because I
was ill. I said I had had to stay at home--it was easier--I knew there
had been a mistake."
The old life again. They were confederates and she had lied to shield him
even from herself. She was looking past him as though she saw someone
standing behind him in the dark passage. He was so sure of it that he
wanted to turn round. But he did not dare.
"I wish I'd known. We--we might have gone together. I used to be very
fond of a good circus. Did they have elephants? Robert--Robert, dear,
why didn't you tell me about it?"
He shook his head. He knew now that he could never have told her or made
her understand. She would have thought him silly--or disloyal. She would
never see that this new love had nothing to do with the Robert who would
die if Christine left him. It had to do with another boy who longed for
bands and processions and worshipped happy, splendid people who did not
have to tell lies and who were so strong and fearless that even fierce
animals had to obey them. They were different. They did not live in the
same life. You could love them without pain or pity.
It was a secret thing, inside himself. If he tried to drag it out and
show it her, no one could tell what would happen to it.
She sighed deeply.
"It's this being away all day. If I had been at home you would have asked
me for the money, wouldn't you? And then you forgot to tell me. But I've
been a little worried. You didn't take it all, did you, dear?"
"Yes, I did. I spent it at the Circus. And then I gave some to Cosgrave."
He saw the blood rush up wildly into her white face. The next minute she
had laughed--a gay, unfamiliar laugh--and he winced and shivered as though
she had struck him.
"Why, that's so like your father--that's just what your father would have
done. He loved doing kind, generous things--giving money away."
And now he knew for certain who it was who stood behind him in the dark
passage. He could not bear it. He slammed the door to, closing his eyes
tight so that he should not see. He ran to her, pressing himself against
her, stammering passionately.
"I'm not like my father--I'm not--I'm not. I won't be."
She petted him tenderly. She was grave now and sure of herself.
"You mustn't say that, Robert. Your father was a wonderful man, in many
ways. People didn't understand him--only your mother and I. If your
mother had lived it would all have been quite different. He was
unfortunate and often very unhappy. The world thinks so much of money.
But he despised it. It was nothing to him. You're like that too. You
didn't realize, did you? It didn't seem a great deal. It was just a
beginning. But I have had to do without food. I've been hungry
sometimes--I think I ought to tell you this, so that you may
understand--I've looked into shop-windows at lunch-time. You see, it was
to pay for the time when you are preparing to be a doctor. It means
hundreds of pounds, Robert. But I calculated that if I saved a little
every week--I'd manage it--if I didn't die or lose my work."
"Don't, Christine--please don't! Oh, Christine!"
"If I lost my work--Mr. Percy is very kind. He is an old friend and knows
the position. But he has his business to consider. I'm not quick--my
eyes aren't strong. There are younger, cleverer people. We've got to
look things in the face, Robert. If I lost my work there would be nothing
between us and the workhouse--nothing--nothing--nothing."
He was shivering as if with bitter cold. His teeth chattered in his head.
He caught a ghost-like glimpse of a boy in the glass opposite--a strange,
unfamiliar figure with a white, tear-stained face and haggard eyes and
fair hair all on end.
"Oh, Christine--I'm frightened!"
"You think money must come from somewhere. Something will turn up. That
was what your father used to say. He was so hopeful. It wasn't possible
that it shouldn't turn up. But I was younger and stronger then--I can't
begin again.--I can't--I can't. If you're not good, Robert, I can't go
on."
"I will be good. I won't tell lies. I won't spend money ever again. I
won't love anyone but you. I won't be a doctor; I'll be something
cheap--now."
He had forgotten the photographs. He still held them in one
tight-clenched hand. But she had seen them. And all at once she braced
herself although to meet an implacable enemy. She was not tender any
more. She was the Christine who had faced bailiffs and his father's
strange, gay friends--ice-cold and bitter and relentless. She took the
pictures from him. With a terrible ironic calm she sorted them from his
pockets, and spread them out on the table like a pack of cards. He dared
not look at her. He was afraid to see what she was seeing. She had torn
open the door of his secret chamber, and there in that blasting light was
his treasure, naked, defenceless. He could have cried out in his dread,
"Only don't say anything--don't say anything!"
"So that's what you liked so much, Robert--that's what you spent the money
on. It's the old story--beginning again--only worse." She added, almost
to herself:
"A vulgar, common woman."
She put her face between her hands. He could hear her quiet crying. It
was awful. His love for her was a torture. Because she was not wonderful
at all but human and pitiful like himself, he felt her grief like a knife
turning and turning in his own heart. But he could not comfort her. He
could only stare aghast at that row of faces--grinning, smirking,
arrogant, insolent faces.
It was true. The jolly lights had been turned out. The band had stopped
playing.
A vulgar, common woman!
* * * * *
He stood with his back to the Circus entrance where he could smell the
sawdust and hear the hum of the audience crowding into their seats. The
invisible band gave funny noises like a man clearing his throat. There
was still a number of people coming in--some strolling idly, others pulled
along by their excited charges. It was queer, Robert thought, that they
should be excited. The smell of the sawdust made him feel rather sick.
He gave out his last handbill. Nobody noticed him. They took the slip of
paper which he thrust into their hands without looking at him. He went
and stood at the box-office where the big man in riding boots was counting
out his money. It was a high box-office, so that Robert had to stand on
tip-toe to be seen.
"I've finished," he said.
The man glanced at him and then remembered.
"Oh, yes, you're the young feller. Given 'em all out, eh? Not thrown 'em
on the rubbish heap? Well, what is it?"
"I want my sixpence."
"Oh, sixpence I promised you, did I? Well, here's a shilling seat.
That'll do better, eh, what? You can go in now."
"I want my sixpence."
"You don't want--don't want to go to the Circus?"
"I don't like Circuses."
The big man stared down at the white set face gazing stolidly back at him
over the wooded ledge. He tossed the coin indignantly across.
"Well, of all the unnatural, ungrateful young jackanapes----"
But he was so astonished that he had to lean out of his box and watch the
blasphemer--a quaint figure, bowed as though under a heavy burden, its
hands thrust hard into its trousers pockets--stalk away from the great
tent and without so much as a backward glance lose itself among the crowd.