SUNLIGHT, LIMELIGHT, DAYLIGHT
I
Easter fell early that year; the last days of March held its festival
and the winds and rains of that blustering month attended the birth of
its primroses.
Young Peter spent his days in preparation for the swift coming of Easter
Wednesday and in varying moods of exultation, terror, industry and
idleness. He did not see Mr. Zanti during this period--that gentleman
was, he was informed, away on business--and it was characteristic of
him that he asked Zachary Tan no questions whether of the mysterious
bookshop, of London generally, or of any possible news about Stephen,
the latter a secret that he was convinced the dark little curiosity shop
somewhere contained.
But he had an amazing number of things to think about and the
solicitor's office was the barest background for his chasing thoughts.
He spoke to no one of his approaching freedom--but the thought of it
hung in rich and burning colour ever at the back of his thoughts.
Meanwhile the changing developments at Scaw House were of a nature to
frighten any boy who was compelled to share in them. It could not be
denied that Mr. Westcott had altered very strangely since his wife's
death. The grim place with its deserted garden had never seen many
callers nor friendly faces but the man with the milk, the boy with the
butcher's meat, the old postman with the letters stayed now as brief a
time over their business as might be and hurried down the grass-grown
paths with eager haste. Since the departure of the invaluable
Mrs. Trussit a new order reigned--red-faced Mrs. Pascoe, her dress
unfastened, her hair astray, her shoes at heel, her speech thick and
uncertain, was queen of the kitchen, and indeed of other things had they
but known all. But to Peter there was more in this than the arrival of
Mrs. Pascoe. With every day his father was changing--changing so swiftly
that when Peter's mother had been buried only a month, that earlier Mr.
Westcott, cold, stern, reserved, terrible, seemed incredible; he was
terrible now but with how different a terror.
To Peter this new figure was a thing of the utmost horror. He had known
how to brace himself for that other authority--there had, at any rate,
been consistency and even a kind of chiselled magnificence in that
stiff brutality--now there was degradation, crawling devilry, things
unmentionable....
This new terror broke upon him at supper two nights after he had first
spoken about London. The meal had not been passed, as usual, in silence.
His father had talked strangely to himself--his voice was thick, and
uncertain--his hand shook as he cut the bread. Mrs. Pascoe had come,
in the middle of the meal, to give food to the old grandfather who
displayed his usual trembling greed. She stood with arms akimbo,
watching them as they sat at table and smiling, her coarse face flushed.
“Pudding,” said Mr. Westcott.
“Ye'll be 'aving the pudding when it's ready,” says she.
“Damn” from Mr. Westcott but he sits still looking at the table-cloth
and his hand shaking.
To Peter this new thing was beyond all possibility horrible. This new
shaking creature--
“I didn't kill her, you know, Peter,” Mr. Westcott says quite smoothly,
when the cloth had been cleared and they are alone. And then suddenly,
“Stay where you are--I have stories to tell you.”
Peter, white to the lips, was held in his place. He could not move or
speak. Then during the following two hours, his father, without moving
from his place, poured forth a stream of stories--foul, filthy, horrible
beyond all telling. He related them with no joy or humour or bestial
gloating over their obscenities--only with a staring eye and his fingers
twisting and untwisting on the table-cloth. At last Peter, his head
hanging, his cheeks flaming, crept to his attic.
At breakfast his father was again that other man--stern, immovable, a
rock-where was that trembling shadow of the night before?
And Mrs. Pascoe--once more in her red-faced way, submissive--in her
place.
The most abiding impression with Peter, thinking of it afterwards in the
dark lanes that run towards the sea, when the evening was creeping along
the hill, was of a fiery eye gleaming from old grandfather Westcott's
pile of rugs. Was it imagined or was there indeed a triumph there--a
triumph that no age nor weakness could obscure?
And from the induction of that first terrible evening Peter stepped into
a blind terror that gave the promised deliverance of that approaching
Easter Wednesday an air of blind necessity. Also about the house the
dust and neglect crept and increased as though it had been, in its
menace and evil omen, a veritable beast of prey. Doors were off their
hinges, windows screamed to their clanging shutters, the grime lay, like
sand, about the sills and corners of the rooms. At night the house was
astir with sound but with no human voices.
II
But it was only at night that Terror crept from its cupboard and leapt
on to Peter's shoulders. He defied it even then with set lips and the
beginning of a conception of the duties that Courage demands of its
worshippers. He would fight it, let it develop as it would--but, during
these weeks, in the sunlight, he thought nothing of it at all, but only
with eager eyes watched his father.
His reading had, in these latter years, been slender enough. It was
seldom that he had any money, there was no circulating library in
Treliss at that time and he knew no one who could lend him books. He
fell back, perforce, on the few that he had and especially on the three
“Henry Galleons.” But he had in his head--and he had known it without
putting it into words, for a very long time--“The Thousand and One
Nights of Peter Westcott, Esq.”--stories that would go on night after
night before he went to sleep, stories that were concerned with enormous
families whose genealogies had to be worked out on paper (here was
incipient Realism)--or again, stories concerning Treasure and Masses
of it--banks of diamonds, mountains of pearls, columns of rubies, white
marble temples, processions of white elephants, cloth of gold (here
was incipient Romance). Never, be it noticed, at this time, incipient
Humour; life had been too heavy a thing for that.
But these stories, formerly racing through his brain because they must,
because indeed they were there against his own will or any one else's,
had now a most definite place and purpose in their existence. They
were there now because they were to be trained, to be educated, to be
developed, until they were fit to appear in public. He had, even in
these early days, no false idea of the agonies and tortures of this
gift of his. Was it not in “Henry Lessingham”?... “and so with this
task before him he knew that words were of many orders and regiments and
armies, and those that were hard of purchase and difficult of discipline
were the possessions of value, for nothing that is light and easy in its
production is of any duration or lasting merit.”
And so, during these weeks, when he should have attended to the duties
of a solicitor his mind was hunting far away in those forests where very
many had hunted before him. And, behold, he was out for Fame....
Spring was blown across the country by the wildest storms that the
sea-coast had known for very many years. For days the seas rose against
the rocks in a cursing fury--the battle of rock and wave gave pretty
spectacle to the surrounding country and suddenly the warriors,
having proved the mettle of their hardihood, turned once again to good
fellowship. But the wind and the rain had done their work. In the week
before Easter, with the first broadening sweep of the sun across the
rich brown earth and down into the depths of the twisting lanes the
spring was there--there in the sweet smell of the roots as they stirred
towards the light, there in the watery gleam of the grass as it caught
diamonds from the sun, but there, above all, in the primrose clump
hidden in the clefts of the little Cornish woods--so with a cry of
delight Spring had leapt from the shoulders of that roaring wind and
danced across the Cornish hills.
On Good Friday there was an incident. Peter was free of the office for
the day and had walked towards Truro. There was a little hill that stood
above the town. It was marked by a tree clump black against the blue
sky--at its side was a chalk pit, naked white--beyond was Truro huddled,
with the Fal a silver ribbon in the sun. Peter stood and watched and sat
down because he liked the view. He had walked a very long way and was
tired and it was an afternoon as hot as Summer.
Suddenly there was a cry: “Help, please--oh--help to get Crumpet.”
He looked up and saw standing in front of him a little girl in a
black hat and a short black frock--she had red hair that the sun was
transforming into gold. Her face was white with terror, and tears were
making muddy marks on it and her hands were black with dirt. She was
a very little girl. She appealed to him between her sobs, and he
understood that Crumpet was a dog, that it had fallen some way down the
chalk-pit and that “Miss Jackson was reading her Bible under a tree.”
He jumped up immediately and went to find Crumpet. A little way down the
chalk-pit a fox-terrier puppy was balancing its fat body on a ledge of
chalk and looking piteously up and down. Peter clambered down, caught
the little struggling animal in his arms, and restored it to its
mistress. And now followed an immense deal of kissing and embracing. The
dog was buried in red hair and only once and again a wriggling paw might
be observed--also these exclamations--“Oh, the umpty-rumpty--was it
nearly falling down the great horrid pit, the darling--oh, the little
darling, and was it scratched, the pet? But it was a wicked little
dog--yes, it was, to go down that nasty place when it was told not
to”--more murmurings, and then the back was straightened, the red, gold
hair flung back, and a flushed face turned to the rather awkward Peter
who stood at attention.
“Thank you--thanks, most awfully--oh, you darling” (this to the puppy).
“You see, Miss Jackson was reading her Bible aloud to herself, and I
can't stand that, neither can Crumpet, and she always forgets all about
us, and so we go away by ourselves--and reading the Bible makes her
sleep--she's asleep now--and then Crumpet wouldn't stay at heel although
I was telling him ever so hard, and he would go over the cliff--and if
you hadn't been there...” at the thought of the awful disaster the puppy
was again embraced. Apparently Crumpet was no sentimentalist, and had
had enough of feminine emotion--he wriggled out of his mistress' arms,
flopped to the ground, shook himself, and, advancing to Peter, smelt his
boots.
“He likes you. I'm so glad--he only does that to people he likes, and
he's very particular.” The small girl flung her hair back, smiled at
Peter, and sat down on the grass.
“It may be rather damp,” Peter said, feeling very old and cautious and
thinking that she really was the oddest child he'd even seen in his
life. “It's only March you know.”
“It's nothing to do with months, it's whether it's rained or not--and it
hasn't--sit down with me. Old Jackson won't be here for ages.”
Peter sat down. The puppy was a charming specimen of its kind--it had
enormous ears, huge flat feet, and a round fat body like a very small
barrel. It was very fond of Peter, and licked his cheek and his hands,
and finally dragged off his cap, imagined it a rabbit, and bit it with a
great deal of savagery and good-humour.
There followed conversation.
“I like you most awfully. I like your neck and your eyes and your
hair--it's stiff, like my father's. My name is Clare Elizabeth Rossiter.
What's yours?”
“Peter Westcott.”
“Do you live here?”
“No--a good long way away--by the sea.”
“Oh, I'm staying at Kenwyn--my uncle lives at Kenwyn, but I live in
London with father and mother and Aunt Grace--it's nice here. I think
you're such a nice boy. Will you come and see father and mother in
London?”
Peter smiled. It would not be the thing for some one in a bookshop to
go and call on the parents of any one who could afford Crumpet and Miss
Jackson, but the thought of London, the very name of it, sent his blood
tingling to his face.
“Perhaps we shall meet,” he said. “I'm going to London soon.”
“Oh! are you? Oh! How nice! Then, of course, you will come to tea. Every
one comes to tea.”
Crumpet, tired of the rabbit, worn out with adventure and peril,
struggled into Peter's lap and slumbered with one ear lying back across
his eyes. The sun slipped down upon the town and touched the black
cathedral with flame, and turned the silver of the river into burning
gold. On the bend of the hill against the sky came a black gaunt figure.
“Miss Jackson!” Clare Elizabeth Rossiter leapt to her feet, clutched
Crumpet, held him upside down, and turned to go.
But for an instant she stayed, and Peter was rewarded with a very
wonderful smile.
“I am so glad you were here--she generally sleeps longer, but perhaps
it was New Testament to-day, and that's more exciting. It is a pity,
because there were such lots of things--I like you most awfully.”
She gave him a very dirty hand, and then her black stockings vanished
over the hill.
Peter turned, through a flaming sunset, towards his home ... the end of
the incident.
III
But he came home, on that Good Friday evening with an idea that that
afternoon on the hill had given him. It was an idea that came to
him from the little piece of superstition that he carried about with
him--every Cornishman carries it. Treliss was always a place of many
customs, and, although now these ceremonies drag themselves along with
all the mercenary self-consciousness that America and cheap trips from
Manchester have given to the place, at this stage of Peter's history
they were genuine and honest enough. To see from the top of the Grey
Hill, the rising of the sun on Easter morning was one of them--a charm
that brought the most infallible good luck until next Easter Day came
round again, and, good for you, if you could watch that sunrise with the
lad or lass of your choice, for to pass round the Giant's Finger as
the beams caught the stone made the success of your union beyond all
question. There was risk about it, for if mists veiled the light or if
clouds dimmed the rising then were your prospects but gloomy--but a fine
Easter morning had decided many a wedding in Treliss.
Peter had known of this for many years, but, in earlier times, he had
not been at liberty, and of late there had been other things to think
about. But here was a fine chance! Was he not flinging himself into
the world under the very hazardous patronage of Mr. Zanti on Easter
Wednesday, and would he not therefore need every blessing that he could
get? And who knew, after all, whether these things were such nonsense?
They were old enough, these customs, and many wise people believed in
them. Moreover, one had not been brought up in the company of Frosted
Moses and Dicky the Fool without catching some of their fever! “There
was a little star rolling down hill like a button,” says Dicky, with his
eyes staring....' Well, and why not?
And indeed here was Peter at this stage of things, a mad I bundle of
contradictions--old as a judge when up against the Realities, young as
Crumpet the puppy when staring at Romance. Give him bread and you have
him of cast-iron--stern, cold, hard of muscle, grim frown, stiff back,
no smiles. Give him jam and you have credulity, simplicity, longing for
friendship, tenderness, devotion to a small girl in a black frock, a
heart big as the world. See him on Good Friday afternoon, laughing,
eagerly questioning, a boy--see him on Good Friday night, grim, legs
stiff, eyes cold as stones, a man--no easy thing for Mrs. Pascoe's
blowzy thunderings to conquer, but something vastly amusing apparently
to grandfather Westcott to watch.
He discovered that the sun rose about six o'clock, and therefore five
o'clock on Easter morning found him shivering, in the desolate garden
with his nose pressed to the little wooden gate. The High Road crossed
the moor at no great distance from him, but the faint grey light that
hung like gauze about him was not yet strong enough to reveal it. He
would hear them as they passed and they must all go up that road on the
way to the hill. In the garden there was darkness, and beyond it in the
high shadow of the house and the surrounding trees, blackness. He could
smell the soil, and his cheeks were wet with beads of moisture; very
faintly the recurrent boom of the sea came through the mist, dimmed as
though by thick folds of hanging carpet.
Suddenly the dark trees by the house, moved by a secret wind, would
shudder. The little black gate slowly revealed its bars against the sky
as the grey shadows lightened. Then there were voices, coming through
the dark shut off, like the sea, by the mist--strange voices, not human,
but sharing with the soil and the trees the mysterious quality of the
night. The voices passed up the road--silence and then more voices.
Peter unlatched the gate and stole out to the road, stumbling over the
rough moorland path and clambering across the ditch to safer ground.
Figures were moving like shadows and voices fell echoing and re-echoing
like notes of music--this was dissociated from all human feeling,
and the mists curled up like smoke and faded into the air. Peter, in
silence, followed these shadows and knew that there were other shadows
behind him. It would not take long to climb the Grey Hill--they would be
at the top by half-past five.
There was a voice in his ear:
“Hallo! You--Westcott! Why, who would have thought it?”
He turned round and found at his side the peaked face of Willie Daffoll,
now a young man of eighteen, with an affection for bright ties and
socks, once the small child who had fought with Peter at old Parlow's
years ago. Peter had not seen very much of him during those years. They
had met in the streets of Treliss, had spoken a word or two, but no
friendship or intimacy. But this early hour, this mysterious dawn, bred
confidence, and Peter having grown, under the approaching glitter of
London, more human, during the last few weeks than he had been in all
his life before, was glad to talk to him.
“Oh, I've often wanted to go,” he said. “It brings good luck, you know.”
“Well, fancy your believing that. I never thought you'd believe in rot
like that.”
“Why are you going, then?”
The young man of ties and waistcoats dropped his voice. “Oh--a girl.
She's here somewhere--she said she'd come--thinks there's something in
it. Anyhow she wants it--she's stunning....”
A girl! Peter's mind flew absurdly back to a small child in a short
black frock. “Oh! Crumpet!” ... A girl! Young Daffoll had spoken as
though it were indeed something to get up at four in the morning for!
Peter wanted to hear more. Young Daffoll was quite ready to tell him.
No names, of course, but they were going to be married one day. His
governor would be furious, of course, and they might have to run away,
but she was game for anything. No, he'd only known her a fortnight, but
it had been a matter of love at first sight--extraordinary thing--he'd
thought he'd been head over ears before, but never anything like
this--yes, as a matter of fact she was in a flower-shop--Trunter's
in the High Street--her people had come down in the world--and so the
golden picture unfolded as the gauze curtains were drawn back from the
world, and the shoulder of the Grey Hill rose, like a cloud, before
them.
Peter's heart beat faster as he listened to this story. Here was one of
his dreams translated into actual fact. Would he one day also have
some one for whom he would be ready to run to the end of the world, if
furious parents demanded it? She would have, he was sure, red-gold hair
and a wonderful smile.
They climbed the Grey Hill. There was with them now quite a company of
persons--still shadow-shapes, for the mists were thick about the road,
but soon all the butchers and bakers of the world--and, let it be
remembered, all the lovers, would be revealed. Now, as they climbed the
hill, silence fell--even young Daffoll was quiet; that, too, it seemed,
was part of the ceremony.
The hill top was swiftly gained. The Giant's Finger, black and straight,
like a needle, stood through the shadows. Beyond there would be the sea,
and that was where the sun would rise, at present darkness. They all
sat down on the stones that covered the summit--on either side of Peter
there were figures, but Daffoll had vanished--it seemed that he had
discovered his lady.
Peter, sitting meditating on the story that he had heard and feeling,
suddenly, lonely and deserted, was conscious of a small shoe that
touched his boot. It was, beyond argument, a friendly shoe--he could
feel that in the inviting tap that it gave to him. He was aware also
that his shoulder was touching another shoulder, and that that shoulder
was soft and warm. Finally his hand touched another hand--fingers were
intertwined.
There was much conversation out of the mist:
“Law, chrisy! Well, it's the last Easter morning for me--thiccy sun
hides himself right enough--it's poor trade sitting shivering your
toes.”
“Not that I care for the woman, mind ye, Mr. Tregothan, sir--with her
haverings talking--all I'm saying is that if she's to come wastin' my
time--
“Thiccy man sitting there stormin' like an old owl in a tree.”
“Oh, get along with ye--No, I won't be sitting by ye--There's--”
Now the sea, like a young web stretched at the foot of the hill, stole
out of the darkness. On the horizon a thin line of dull yellow--wouldn't
it be a fine sunrise?--the figures on the hill were gathering shape and
form, and many of them now were standing, their bodies sharp against the
grey sky.
Peter had not turned; his eyes were staring out to sea, but his body was
pressed closely against the girl at his side. He did not turn nor look
at her--she was staring at him with wonder in her eyes and a smile
on her lips. She was a very common girl with black hair and over-red
cheeks, and she was one of the dairymaids from Tregothan Farm. She did
not know whom this strange young man might be, and it was not yet light
enough to see. She did not care--such things had happened often enough
before, and she leant her fat body against his shoulder. She could feel
his heart thumping and his hands were very hot, but she thought that it
was strange that he did not turn and look at her....
There was a stir and murmur among the crowd on the hill for behold it
would be a fine sunrise! The dull yellow had brightened to gold and was
speeding like a herald across the grey. Black on the hill, gold on the
sky, a trembling whispering blue across the sea--in a moment there would
be the sun! What gods were there hiding, at that instant, on the hill,
watching, with scornful eyes this crowd of moderns? Hidden there behind
the stones, what mysteries? Screening with their delicate bodies the
faint colours of the true dawn, playing on their pipes tunes that these
citizens with their coarse voices and dull hearing could not understand,
what ancient watchers of the hill pass and repass!
Behold the butchers and bakers! Behold Mr. Winneren, hosier and
outfitter, young Robert Trefusis, farmer, Miss Bessie Waddell from the
sweet-shop!... These others fade away as the sun rises--the grey mists
pass with them.
The sun is about to leap above the rim of the sea. Peter turns and
crushes the poor dairymaid in his arms and stifles the little scream
with the first kiss of his life. His whole body burns in that kiss--and
then, as the sun streams across the sea he has sprung to his feet and
vanishes over the brow of the hill.
The dairymaid wipes her lips with the back of her hand. They have joined
hands and are already dancing round the Giant's Finger. It is black now,
but in a moment the flames of the sun will leap upon it, and good omens
will send them all singing down the hill.
IV
On Tuesday evening Peter slipped for a moment into Zachary Tan's shop
and told Mr. Zanti that he would be on the station platform at half-past
seven on the following morning. He could scarcely speak for excitement.
He was also filled with a penetrating sadness. Above all, he wished
only to exchange the briefest word with his future master. He did not
understand altogether but it was perhaps because Mr. Zanti and all his
world belonged to to-morrow.... Mr. Zanti's fat, jolly body, his laugh,
his huge soft hands ... Peter could not do more to this gentleman than
remember that he meant so much that he would be overwhelmed by him if he
did not leave him alone. So he darted in and gave his message and darted
out again. The little street was shining in the sun and the gentlest
waves were lapping the wooden jetty--Oh, this dear town! These houses,
these cobbles--all the smells and colours of the place--he was leaving
it all so easily on so perilous an adventure. Poor Peter was moved by so
many things that he could only gulp the tears back and hurry home. There
was at any rate work to be done there about which there could be no
uncertain intention.
His father had been drinking all the afternoon. Mrs. Pascoe with red
arms akimbo, watched them as they ate their supper.
When the meal was finished Peter, standing by his father, his face very
white, said:
“I am going to London to-morrow.”
Mr. Westcott had aged a great deal during the last month. His hair was
touched with grey, there were dark lines under his eyes, his cheeks were
sunken, his lip trembled. He was looking moodily at the cloth, crumbling
his bread. He did not hear Peter's remark, but continued his argument
with Mrs. Pascoe:
“It wasn't cooked, I tell you--you're growing as slack as Hell.”
“Your precious son 'as got something as 'e would like to say to yer,”
remarked that pleasant woman grimly.
Peter repeated his remark. His father grasped it but slowly--at last he
said:
“Damn you, what are you talking about?”
“I'm leaving here and going to London to-morrow.”
Mr. Westcott turned his bloodshot eyes in the direction of the
fire-place--“Curse it, I can't see straight. You young devil--I'll do
for you--” all this said rather sullenly and as though he were speaking
to himself.
Peter, having delivered his news, passed Mrs. Pascoe's broad body, and
moved to the doorway. He turned with his hand on the door.
“I'm glad I'm going,” he said, “you've always bullied me, and I've
always hated you. You killed my mother and she was a good woman. You can
have this house to yourself--you and grandfather--and that woman--” he
nodded contemptuously at Mrs. Pascoe, who was staring at him fiercely.
His grandfather was fast asleep beneath the cushions.
“Damn you,” said Mr. Westcott very quietly. “You've always been
ungrateful--I didn't kill your mother, but she was always a tiresome,
crying woman.”
He stopped crumbling the bread and suddenly picked up a table knife and
hurled it at Peter. His hand was trembling, and the knife quivering, was
fastened to the door.
Mrs. Pascoe gasped, “Gawd 'elp us!”
Peter quietly closed the door behind him and went up to his room.
He was in no way disturbed by this interview. His relations with his
father were not of the things that now mattered. They had mattered
before his mother died. They had mattered whilst his father had been
somebody strong and terrible. Even at the funeral how splendid he had
seemed! But this trembling creature who drank whisky with the cook was
some one who concerned Peter not at all--something like the house, to be
left behind.
There was an old black bag that had held his things in the Dawson's
days--it held his things now. Not a vast number--only the black suit
beside the blue serge one that he was going to wear, some under-linen,
a sponge, and a toothbrush, the books and an old faded photograph of his
mother as a girl. Nothing like that white face that he had seen,
this photograph, old, yellow, and faded, but a girl laughing and
beautiful--after all, his most precious possession.
Then, when the bag was packed, he sat on the bed, swung his legs, and
thought about everything. He was nearly eighteen, nearly a man, and as
hard as rock. He could feel the muscles swelling, there was no fat about
him, he was sound all over.
He looked back and saw the things that stood out like hills above the
plain--that night, years ago, when he was whipped, the day that he first
met Mr. Zanti, the first day at school, the day when he said good-bye to
Cards, the hour, at the end of it all, when they hissed him, that
last evening with Stephen, the day with his mother ... and then, quite
lately, that afternoon when Mr. Zanti asked him to go to London, the
little girl with the black frock on the hill ... last of all, that kiss
(never mind with whom) on Easter morning--all these things had made
him what he was--yes, and all the people--Frosted Moses, Stephen, his
father, his mother, Bobby Galleon, Cards, Mr. Zanti, the little girl. As
he swung his legs he knew that everything that he did afterwards would
be, in some way, attached to these earlier things and these earlier
people.
He had brave hopes and brave ambitions and a warm heart as he flung
himself into bed; it speaks well for him that, on the night before he
set out on his adventure, he slept like the child that he really was.
But he knew that he would wake at six o'clock. He had determined that it
should be so, and the clocks were striking as he opened his eyes. It
was very dark and the cocks crowed beyond his open window, and the misty
morning swept in and blew his lighted candle up and down. He dressed
in the blue serge suit with a blue tie fastened in a sailor's knot. He
leaned out of his window and tried to imagine, out of the darkness, the
beloved moor--then he took his black bag and crept downstairs; it was
striking half-past six as he came softly into the hall.
There he saw that the gas was flaring and that his father was standing
in his night-shirt.
“I think I'm in front of you,” he said, smiling.
“Let me go, father,” Peter said, very white, and putting down the bag.
“Be damned to you,” said his father. “You don't get through this door.”
It was all so ludicrous, so utterly absurd, that his father should
be standing, in his night-shirt, on this very cold morning, under the
flaring gas. It occurred to Peter that as he wanted to laugh at this Mr.
Zanti could not have been right about his lack of humour. Peter walked
up to his father, and his father caught him by the throat. Mr. Westcott
was still, in spite of recent excesses, sufficiently strong.
“I very much want to choke you,” he said.
Peter, however, was stronger.
His father dropped the hold of his throat, and had him, by the waist,
but his hands slipped amongst his clothes. For a moment they swayed
together, and Peter could feel the heat of his father's body beneath
the night-shirt and the violent beating of his heart. It was immensely
ludicrous; moreover there now appeared on the stairs Mrs. Pascoe, in
a flannel jacket over a night-gown, and untidy hair about her ample
shoulders.
“The Lord be kind!” she cried, and stood, staring. Mr. Westcott was
breathing very heavily in Peter's face, and their eyes were so close
together that Peter could notice how bloodshot his father's were.
“God damn you!” said his father and slipped, and they came down on to
the wood floor together. Peter rose, but his father lay there, breathing
heavily.
“God damn you,” he said again, but he did not move.
“You'd better look after him,” Peter said, turning to the astounded Mrs.
Pascoe. As he moved he saw a surprising sight, his grandfather's door
was opened and his grandfather (who had not been on his feet for a great
many years) was standing in the middle of it, cackling with laughter,
dressed in a very ugly yellow dressing-gown, his old knotted hands
clutching the sides of the door, his shrivelled body shaking, and his
feet in large red slippers.
“Dear me, that was a nasty knock,” he chattered.
And so Peter left them.
The high road was cool and fresh and dark. The sea sung somewhere below
amongst the rocks, and Peter immediately was aware that he was leaving
Cornwall.
Now he had no other thought. The streets of the town were deserted,
clean, smelling of the fields, hay-carts, and primroses, with the
darkness broken by dim lamps, and a very slender moon. His heart was
full, his throat burning. He crossed the market-place and suddenly bent
down and kissed the worn stones of the Tower. There was no one to see.
He was in the station at twenty minutes past seven. The platform was
long and cold and deserted, but in the waiting-room was Mr. Zanti
enveloped in an enormous black coat.
“Ah, my dear boy, this is indeed splendid. And 'ave you said farewell to
your father?”
“Yes, I've said good-bye to every one,” he answered slowly. Suddenly he
would have given all the wide world and his prospects in it not to be
going. The terrors of Scaw House were as nothing beside that little grey
town with the waves breaking on the jetty, the Grey Hill above it, the
twisted cobbled streets.
The morning wind blew up the platform, the train rolled in; there were
porters, but Mr. Zanti had only a big brown bag which he kept with him.
Soon they were in corners facing one another. As the train swept past
the Tower the grey dawn was breaking into blue over the houses that
rose, tier by tier, to the sky over the grey rolling breakers, over the
hills beyond ... Cornwall!
Poor Peter stared with passionate eyes as the vision passed.
“London soon,” said Mr. Zanti, gaily.