I
This next episode in Jeremy's year has, be it thoroughly understood, no
plot nor climax to it--it is simply the chronicle of an Odyssey. Nor
can it be said to have been anything but a very ordinary Odyssey to the
outside observer who, if he be a parent, will tell you that going to the
seaside with the family is the most bothering thing in the world, and
if he is a bachelor or old maid will tell you that being in the same
carriage with other people's children who are going to the sea is an
abominable business and the Law ought to have something to say to it.
All through May, June and July Mrs. Cole slowly pulled back to something
like her natural health. The new infant, Barbara by name, was as strong
as a pony, and kicked and screamed and roared so that the house was
quite a new place. Her arrival had done a great deal for Helen, whose
gaze had hitherto been concentrated entirely upon herself; now she
suddenly discovered a new element in life, and it was found that she
was “ideal with a baby” and “a great help to nurse.” This made her more
human, and Barbara, realising as babies always do who understands and
who does not, would behave with Helen when she would behave with no one
else. Mary could not be expected to transfer her allegiance from Jeremy,
and then Barbara was frightened at her spectacles; Jeremy, having
Hamlet, did not need a baby!
There came a fine hot morning towards the end of July when Miss Jones
said, suddenly, in the middle of the history lesson: “Saturday week
we go to Rafiel.” Jeremy choked, kicked Mary under the table, and was
generally impossible during the rest of the morning. It was Miss Jones's
fault; she should have chosen her occasion more carefully. Before the
evening Jeremy was standing in the corner for drawing on his bedroom
wall-paper enormous figures in the blackest of black lead. These were
to mark the days that remained before Saturday week, and it was, Jeremy
maintained, a perfectly natural thing to do and didn't hurt the old
wall-paper which was dirty enough anyway, and Mother had said, long ago,
he should have a new one.
Meanwhile, impossible to describe what Jeremy felt about it. Each year
Cow Farm and Rafiel had grown more wonderful; this was now the fifth
that would welcome them there. At first the horizon had been limited
by physical incapacity, then the third year had been rainy, and the
fourth--ah, the fourth! There had been very little the matter with that!
But this would be better yet. For one thing, there had never been such
a summer as this year was providing--a little rain at night, a little
breeze at the hottest hour of the day--everything arranged on purpose
for Jeremy's comfort. And then, although he did not know it, this was to
be truly the wonderful summer for him, because after this he would be a
schoolboy and, as is well known, schoolboys believe in nothing save what
they can see with their own eyes and are told by other boys physically
stronger than themselves.
Five or six days before the great departure he began to worry himself
about his box. Two years ago he had been given a little imitation green
canvas luggage box exactly like his father's, except that this one was
light enough to carry in one's hand. Jeremy adored this box and would
have taken it out with him, had he been permitted, on all his walks, but
he had a way of filling it with heavy stones and then asking Miss Jones
to carry it for him; it had therefore been forbidden.
But he would, of course, take it with him to Cow Farm, and it should
contain all the things that he loved best. At first “all the things that
he loved best” had not seemed so very numerous. There would, first of
all, of course, be the Hottentot, a black and battered clown for whom
he had long ceased to feel any affection, but he was compelled by an
irritating sense of loyalty to include it in the party just as his
mother might include some tiresome old maid “because she had nowhere to
go to, poor thing.” After the Hottentot there would be his paint-box,
after the paint-box a blue writing-case, after the writing-case
the family photographs (Father, Mother, Mary and Helen), after the
photographs a toy pistol, after the pistol Hamlet's ball (a worsted
affair rendered by now shapeless and incoherent), after the ball “Alice
in Wonderland” (Mary's copy, but she didn't know), after “Alice,” “Herr
Baby,” after “Herr Baby” the Prayer Book that Aunt Amy gave him last
birthday, after the Prayer Book some dried flowers which were to be
presented to Mrs. Monk, the lady of Cow Farm (this might be called
carrying coals to Newcastle), after the flowers a Bible, after the Bible
four walnuts (very dry and hard ones), after the walnuts some transfer
papers, after the transfer papers six marbles--the box was full and
more than full, and he had not included the hammer and nails that Uncle
Samuel had once given him, nor the cigarette-case (innocent now of
cigarettes, and transformed first into a home for walking snails, second
a grave for dead butterflies, third a mouse-trap), nor the butterfly
net, nor “Struuwelpeter,” nor the picture of Queen Victoria cut from the
chocolate-box, nor--most impossible omission of all--the toy-village.
The toy-village! What must he do about that? Obviously impossible to
take it all--and yet some of it he must have. Mr. and Mrs. Noah and the
church, perhaps--or no, Mrs. Monk would want to see the garden--it would
never do not to show her the orchard with the apple-trees, and then the
youngest Miss Noah! She had always seemed to Jeremy so attractive with
her straight blue gown and hard red cheeks. He must show her to Mrs.
Monk. And the butcher's shop, and then the sheep, and the dogs and the
cows!
He was truly in despair. He sat on the schoolroom floor with his
possessions all around him. Only Helen was in the room, and he knew
that it would be no use to appeal to her--she had become so much more
conceited since Barbara's arrival--and yet he must appeal to somebody,
so he said to her very politely:
“Please, Helen, I've got my box and so many things to put into it and
it's nearly Saturday already--and I want to show the Noahs to Mrs.
Monk.”
This would have been a difficult sentence for the most clear-headed
person to unravel, and Helen was, at that moment, trying to write a
letter to an aunt whom she had never seen and for whom she had no sort
of affection, so she answered him rather roughly:
“Oh, don't bother with your box, Jeremy. Can't you see I'm busy?”
“You may be busy,” said Jeremy, rising indignantly to his feet, “but I'm
busy too, and my business is just as good as yours with your silly old
letter.”
“Oh, don't bother!” said Helen, whereupon Jeremy crept behind her and
pinched her stocking. A battle followed, too commonplace in its details
to demand description here. It need only be said that Hamlet joined in
it and ran away with Helen's letter which had blown to the ground
during the struggle, and that he ate it, in his corner, with great
satisfaction. Then, when they were at their angriest, Helen suddenly
began to laugh which she did sometimes, to her own intense annoyance,
when she terribly wanted to be enraged, then Jeremy laughed too, and
Hamlet yielded up fragments of the letter--so that all was well.
But the problem of the box was not solved--and, in the end, the only
part of the toy village that Mrs. Monk ever saw was the youngest Miss
Noah and one apple-tree for her to sit under.
II
The ritual of the journey to Cow Farm was, by this time, of course,
firmly established, and the first part of the ritual was that one should
wake up at three in the morning. This year, however, for some strange
mysterious reason Jeremy overslept himself and did not wake up until
eight o'clock, to find then that everyone was already busy packing
and brushing and rushing about, and that all his own most sacred
preparations must be squeezed into no time at all if he were to be
ready. Old Tom Collins's bus came along at twelve o'clock to catch the
one o'clock train, so that Jeremy might be considered to have the whole
morning for his labours, but that was not going to be enough for him
unless he was very careful. Grown-up people had such a way of suddenly
catching on to you and washing your ears, or making you brush
your teeth, or sitting you down in a corner with a book, that
circumnavigating them and outplotting them needed as much nerve and
enterprise as tracking Red Indians. When things were fined down to the
most naked accuracy he had apparently only two “jobs”: one to accustom
Hamlet to walking with a “lead,” the other to close the green box; but
of course Mary would want advice, and there would, in all probability,
be a dispute or two about property that would take up the time.
It was indeed an eventful morning. Trouble began with Mary suddenly
discovering that she had lost her copy of “Alice in Wonderland” and
rushing to Jeremy's box and upsetting all Jeremy's things to see whether
it were there. Jeremy objected to this with an indignation that was
scarcely in the sequel justified, because Mary found the book jammed
against the paint-box and a dry walnut nestling in its centre. She cried
and protested and then suddenly, with the disgusting sentimentality that
was so characteristic of her, abandoned her position altogether and
said that Jeremy could have it, and then cried again because he said he
didn't want it.
Then Jeremy had to put everything back into the box again, and in the
middle of this Hamlet ran off with the red-checked Miss Noah between
his teeth and began to lick the blue off her dress, looking up at the
assembled company between every lick with a smile of the loveliest
satisfaction. Then, when the box was almost closed, it was discovered by
a shocked and virtuous Helen that Jeremy had left out his Bible.
“There'll be one there,” said Jeremy in an angry agitated whisper,
hoping to escape the attention of Miss Jones.
“What's that, Jeremy dear?” said Miss Jones.
“Oh, fancy, Miss Jones!” said Helen. “He's taking all his dirty old toys
and even his old clown, and he's leaving out his Bible.”
“I'm not!” cried Jeremy, taking it and trying to squeeze it down between
three walnuts and the toy pistol.
“Oh, Jeremy clear, that's not the way to treat your Bible. I'll give you
some paper to wrap it up in, and you'd better take the things out again
and put it in at the bottom of the box.” Yes, obviously he would not be
ready in time.
The matter of Hamlet and the “lead” was also very exhausting. Hamlet had
never, in all his days, been tied to anyone or anything. Of course no
one could tell what had been his history before he came strolling on to
the Cole horizon, and it may be that once as a very small puppy he had
been tied on to something. On the whole, that is probable, his
protests on this occasion being of a kind so vehement as to argue some
reminiscences behind them. Mrs. Cole had bought a beautiful “lead” of
black leather; of course he had already a collar studded with little
silver nails, and the point was very simply to fasten the “lead” on to
the collar. Jeremy had been promised that he should conduct Hamlet, and
it had seemed, when the promise had been made, as though it would be a
very simple thing to carry out. Hamlet no sooner saw the cord than he
began his ingenious protests, sitting up and smiling at it, suddenly
darting at the recumbent Miss Noah and rushing round the room with her,
finally catching the “lead” itself in his teeth and hiding with it under
Miss Jones's skirt.
The result was that Tom Collins's bus arrived when no one in the
schoolroom was in the least prepared for it. Then what confusion there
was! Mrs. Cole, looking strange in her hat and veil, as though she were
dressed up for a play, came urging them to hurry, “because Father was
waiting.” Then Hamlet tied himself and his “lead” round the leg of the
table; then Mary said in her most tiresome manner, apropos of nothing at
all, “You do love me, Jeremy, don't you?” just at the moment when he was
trying to unlace Hamlet, and her lip began to tremble when he said, “Oh,
don't bother,” so that he was compelled to add “Of course I do”; then
Father came running up the stairs with “Really, this is too disgraceful.
We shall miss that train!”
Then Uncle Samuel appeared, looking so queer that Jeremy was compelled
to stare at him. Jeremy had seen very little of Uncle Samuel during
these last months. He had hoped, after that wonderful adventure of the
Christmas Pantomime, that they were going to be friends, but it had not
been so. He had been away somewhere, in some strange place, painting,
and then, on his return, he had hid himself and his odd affairs away in
some corner of the house where no one saw him. He had had his life and
Jeremy had had his.
Nevertheless Jeremy was delighted to see him. It would be fun to have
him at Cow Farm with his squashy brown hat, his fat cheeks, his blue
painting smock, and his short legs with huge boots. He was different, in
some way, from all the rest of the world, and Jeremy, even at that early
stage of his education, already perceived that he could learn more from
Uncle Samuel than from any other member of the family.
Now he put his head in through the door and said: “Well, you kids,
aren't you ready? It's time!” Then, seeing Miss Jones, he said: “Good
morning,” and bolted like a rabbit. Even then Jeremy noticed that he
had paint on his fingers, and that two of his waistcoat buttons were
unfastened.
Then down in the hall what confusion there was! Boxes here, there
and everywhere. Mother, Father, Aunt Amy, Uncle Samuel, and, most
interesting of all, Barbara and the new nurse. The new nurse was called
Mrs. Pateham, and she was stout, red-cheeked, and smiling. The bundle in
white called Barbara was, most happily, sleeping; but Hamlet barked at
Mrs. Pateham, and that woke Barbara, who began to cry. Then Collins came
in with his coat off, and the muscles swelling on his shoulders, and
handled the boxes as though they were paper, and the cook, and Rose, and
William, the handy-boy, and old Jordan, the gardener, and Mrs. Preston,
a lady from two doors down, who sometimes came in to help, all began to
bob and smile, and Father said: “Now, my dear. Now, my dear,” and Hamlet
wound himself and his lead round everything that he could see, and Helen
fussed and said: “Now, Jeremy,” and Miss Jones said: “Now, children,”
and last of all Collins said: “Now, mum; now, sir,” and then they all
were bundled into the bus, with the cart and the luggage coming along
behind.
The drive through the streets was, of course, as lovely as it could be;
not in the least because anyone could see anything--that was hindered by
the fact that the windows of the bus were so old that they were crusted
with a kind of glassy mildew, and no amount of rubbing on the
window-panes provided one with a view--but because the inside of the bus
was inevitably connected with adventure--partly through its motion,
partly through its noise, and partly through its lovely smell. These
were, of course, Jeremy's views, and it can't definitely be asserted
that all grown-up people shared them. But whenever Jeremy had ridden in
that bus he had always been on his way to something delightful. The
motion, therefore, rejoiced his heart, although the violence of it was
such that everyone was thrown against everyone else, so that Uncle
Samuel was suddenly hurled against the bonnet of Miss Jones, and Helen
struck Aunt Amy in the chest, and Jeremy himself dived into his sister
Barbara. As to the smell, it was that lovely well-known one that has in
it mice and straw, wet umbrellas and whisky, goloshes and candle-grease,
dust and green paint! Jeremy loved it, and sniffed on this occasion so
often that Miss Jones told him to blow his nose. As to the noise, who is
there who does not remember that rattle and clatter, that sudden,
deafening report as of the firing of a hundred firearms, the sudden
pause when every bolt and bar and hinge sighs and moans like the wind or
a stormy sea, and then that sudden scream of the clattering windows,
when it is as though a frenzied cook, having received notice to leave,
was breaking every scrap of china in the kitchen? Who does not know
that last maddened roar as the vehicle stumbles across the last piece of
cobbled road--a roar that drowns, with a savage and determined triumph,
all those last directions not to forget this, that, and the other; all
those inquiries as to whether this, that, and the other had been
remembered? Cobbles are gone now, and old buses sleep in deserted
courts, and Collins, alas, is not. His youngest son has a motor-garage,
and Polchester has asphalt--sic transit gloria, mundi.
Jeremy, clutching his green box with one hand and Hamlet's lead with the
other, was in an ecstasy of happiness. The louder the noise, the rocking
motion, the stronger the smell, the better. “Isn't it lovely?” he
murmured to Miss Jones during one of the pauses.
It may be that it was at this moment that Uncle Samuel finally made up
his mind about Jeremy. In spite of his dislike, even hatred of children,
he had been coming slowly, during the last two years, to an affection
for, and interest in, his nephew that was something quite new to his
cynical, egoistic nature. It had leapt into activity at Christmas time,
then had died again. Now as, flung first into his sister's bony arms,
then on to the terrified spectacles of his niece Mary, he tried to
recover himself, he was caught and held by that picture of his small
nephew, seated, solid and square, in his blue sailor suit, his bare
knees swinging, his hand clutching his precious box with an energy that
defied Fate itself to take it from him, his mouth set, his eyes staring,
radiant with joy, in front of him.
On arrival at the station it was found that the one o'clock to Liskane
was “just about due,” so that there was no time to be lost. They had
to rush along under the great iron dome, passing by the main line,
disregarding the tempestuous express from Truxe that drew up, as it were
disdainfully, just as they passed, and finding the modest side line
to Liskane and St. Lowe. Here there was every kind of excitement for
Jeremy. Anyone who has any kind of passion for observation must have
discovered long ago that a side line has ever so much more charm and
appeal about it than a main line. A main line is scornful of the station
in whose heart it consents for a moment to linger, its eyes are staring
forward towards the vast cities who are impatiently awaiting it; but a
side line has its very home here. So much gossip passes from day to day
above its rails (and gossip that has for its circumference five green
fields, a country road, and a babbling brook), that it knows all its
passengers by heart.
To the people who travel on a side line, the train itself is still
something of a wonder. How much more was that true thirty years ago. On
this especial line there were only two stations-Liskane and St. Lowe,
and, of a certainty, these stations would not even now be in existence
were it not that St. Lowe was a fishing centre of very great importance.
The little district that comprehended St. Lowe, Garth in Roselands,
Stoep in Roselands, Lucent-Polwint, Rafiel, and all the smaller hamlets
around them, was fed by this line; but, even so, the little train was
never crowded. Tourists did not, and even now do not, go to Polwint and
St. Lowe because “they smell so fishy,” nor to Rafield “because it's
too far from the railway,” nor to the Roseland valleys “because there's
nothing to see there.”, May these reasons hold good for many years to
come!
Today there were three farmers in brown leggings, with pipes, and thick
knotted walking-sticks, two or three women with baskets, and a child or
so, and an amiable, absent-minded clergyman in a black cloth so faded
that it was now green, reading The Times, and shaking his head over it
as he stumbled up and down the platform. One of the farmers had a large,
woolly sheep-dog, who, of course, excited Hamlet to a frenzy. Jeremy,
therefore, had his time fully occupied in checking this; but he had,
nevertheless, the opportunity to observe how one of the farmers puffed
the smoke out of his cheeks as though he were an engine; how one of the
women, with a back as broad as a wall, had red stockings; and how the
clergyman nearly fell on to the railway-line every time he turned round,
and only saved himself from disaster by a miracle. The train arriving at
last, they all climbed into it, and then had to wait for a hot, grilling
half-hour whilst the engine made up its mind that it was worth its while
to take all the trouble to start off again.
“An hour late, upon my word,” said Mr. Cole angrily, when at last,
with a snore and a heave, and a grunt and a scream, they started. “It's
really too bad. I shall have to complain,” which, as everyone present
knew, he had not the slightest intention of doing. In Jeremy's carriage
there were his father, his mother, Uncle Samuel, himself, Mary, and, of
course, Hamlet. Hamlet had never been, in a train before, and his terror
at the way that the ground quivered under him was pitiful to see. He
lay first under the seat, trying to hold himself tightly together, then,
when that failed, he made startled frenzied leaps on to laps (the lead
had been removed for the time), finally he cowered up into the corner
behind Uncle Samuel, who seemed to understand his case and sympathised
with it. Whenever the train stopped (which, being a Glebeshire train,
it did continually), he recovered at once his savoir-faire, asserted his
dignity, gazed through the windows at the fields and cows as though
he owned them all, and barked with the friendly greeting of comrade to
comrade whenever he saw another dog.
The next thing that occupied Jeremy's attention was lunch. Many
people despise sandwiches and milk out of beer-bottles and bananas and
seed-cake. Jeremy, of course, did not. He loved anything eaten out of
paper, from the ice-cream sold by the Barney man in Polchester Square
(only once did he secure some) down to the frills that there are round
the tail of any self-respecting ham. But the paper on this journey to
Rafield! There was nothing in the world to touch it. In the first place
you spread newspaper on your knees, then there was paper under the
sandwiches (chicken), and more paper under the sandwiches (beef),
and still more under the sandwiches (egg); there was paper round the
seed-cake, and, most wonderful of all, paper round the jam-puffs.
Jam-puffs with strawberry jam eaten in the odour of ginger-beer and
eggshells! Is it possible for life at its very best to hold more? He
kept his jam-puff so long as he could, until at last Mr. Cole said:
“Now, my boy! Finish it up--finish it up. Paper out of the window-all
neat and tidy; that's right!” speaking in that voice which Jeremy hated,
because it was used, so especially, when cod-liver oil had to be taken.
He swallowed his puff in a gulp, and then gazed out of the window
lamenting its disappearance.
“Did you like it?” whispered Mary hoarsely.
“You've got some jam on the side of your nose,” said Jeremy.
He was sitting next to his father, who had the corner seat, and he now
devoted all his energies to prevent himself from falling asleep against
his father's leg. But the ginger-beer, the glazed and shining fields
beyond the window, the little blobs of sunlight that danced upon the
floor of the carriage, the scents of food and flowers, and the
hot breeze, the hum of the train, and the dancing of the telegraph
wires--all these things were against him. His head began to nod and
then to jump back with a sudden terrible spring as though an evil demon
pulled it with a rope from behind, the carriage swelled like a balloon,
then dwindled into a thin, straight line. The strangest things happened
to his friends and relations. His mother, who was reading The Church
Family Newspaper, developed two faces and a nose like a post, and Uncle
Samuel, who had, in harsh reality, two chins, seemed to be all folds and
creases like a balloon when it is shivering down into collapse. Jeremy
fought with these fantasies; the lines on the newspaper doubled and
redoubled, vanished and sprang to life again. He said: “I will not,”
and, instantly, his head on the soft part of his father's thigh, was
asleep.
III
In his dreams he was riding on a cloud all pink and gold, and behind
came a row of shining, white clouds fluffy like bales of wool wrapped
round lighted lanterns. His cloud rose and fell, rose and fell, and a
voice said in his ear: “All is well! All is well! You can go on
like this for ever. There will be jam-puffs soon, and ice-cream, and
fish-cakes, and you can go to China this way whenever you like.”
And he said: “Can't I take Hamlet with me?”
And the voice answered: “Hamlet is with you already,” and there, behold,
was Hamlet sitting on the pink cloud with a stiff gold collar round his
neck, wagging his tail. And then the voice shouted so loudly that
Jeremy jumped off the pink cloud in his astonishment: “Liskane! Liskane!
Liskane!” and Jeremy jumped and fell and fell--right into his father's
lap, with someone crying in his ear: “Wake up, Jeremy! We're there!
We're there!”
His first thought was for his green box, which was, he found, safely
and securely in his hand. Then for Hamlet, who was, he saw with horror,
already upon the platform, the lead trailing behind him like a neglected
conscience, his burning eyes piercing his hair in search of another dog,
whom he smelt but could not see.
Jeremy, rushing out of the train, seized the lead, scolded his recovered
property, who wore an expression of injured and abandoned innocence, and
looked about him. Yes, this was Liskane--wonderful, marvellous, magical
Liskane! To the bored and cynical adult Liskane may easily appear to
be one of the ugliest, most deserted stations in the whole of Europe,
having nothing on either side of it save barren grey fields that never
grow grass but only stones and bottles, with its single decoration--a
heavy iron bridge that crosses the rails and leads up to the higher
road and the town of Liskane. Ugly enough, but to Jeremy, on this summer
afternoon, the gate to a sure and certain Paradise.
Although his family were fussing around him, Barbara crying, Mr. Cole
saying: “Four, Five, Six... But where's the black box? Your black box,
Amy... Six, Seven... But there should be Eight... Seven...” and Mrs.
Cole saying: “And there's my brown bag. The little one with the black
handle,” and Helen saying. “OO, was it adidums, then Nandy-Pandy,
Nandy-Pandy...” and Miss Jones: “Now, Mary! Now, Jeremy! Now, Helen!”;
although this was going on just as it always had gone on, his eyes were
searching for the wagonette. Ah, there it was! He could just see the top
of it beyond the iron bridge, and Jim, the man from the Farm, would
be coming down to help with the boxes; yes, there he was crossing the
bridge now, with his red face and broad shoulders, and the cap on the
side of his head, just as he always wore it. Jeremy recognised him with
a strange, little choking sensation. It was “coming home” to him, all
this was--the great event of his life, and as he looked at the others he
realised, young as he was, that none of them felt it as he did, and the
realisation gave him a strange feeling, half of gratification, half
of loneliness. He stood there, a little apart from the rest of them,
clutching his box, and holding on to Hamlet's lead, feeling so deeply
excited that his heart was like a hard, cold stone jumping up and down,
bump, bump, behind his waistcoat.
“That's Jim! That's Jim!” he whispered in a hoarse gasp to Miss Jones.
“Now mind, dear,” she answered in her kindly, groping voice. “You'll be
falling on to the rail if you aren't careful.”
It strangely annoyed him that his father should greet Jim just as though
he were some quite ordinary man in Polchester. He himself waited in a
strange agitation until Jim should notice him. The man turned at last,
bending down to pick up a box, saw him, touched his cap, smiling a
long, crooked smile, and Jeremy blushed with happiness. It was the first
recognition that he had had from the farm, and it pleased him.
They all moved up to the higher road. Uncle Samuel, coming on at the
last, in a dreamy, moody way, stopping on the bridge to look down at the
railway-line, and then suddenly saying aloud:
“Their minds are full of the number of boxes, and whether they'll get
tea, and who's to pay what, and 'How badly I want a wash!' and already
to-morrow they'll be wondering whether they oughn't to be getting home
to Polchester. All sham! All sham!”
He wasn't speaking to Jeremy, but to himself. However, Jeremy said: “Did
you see Jim, Uncle?”
“No, I did not.”
“He's fatter and redder than last year.”
“I shouldn't wonder.”
“Are you going to paint, Uncle?”
“I am.”
“What?”
“Oh, just lines and circles.”
Jeremy paused, standing for a moment, and looked puzzled. Then he said:
“Do you like babies, Uncle Samuel?”
“No, I do not.”
“Not even Barbara?”
“No--certainly not.”
“I don't, too... Why don't you paint cows and houses like other people,
Uncle Samuel? I heard Father say once that he never knew what your
pictures meant.”
“That's why I paint them.”
“Why?”
“So that your father shan't know what they mean.”
Although he did not understand this any more than he understood his
uncle, Jeremy was pleased with this conversation. It had been, somehow,
in tone with the place and the hour; it had conveyed to him in some
strange fashion that his uncle cared for all of this rather as he
himself cared. Oh! he liked Uncle Samuel!
He had hoped that he might have sat on the box next to Jim, but that
place was now piled up with luggage, so he was squeezed in between his
mother and Mrs. Patcham, with Hamlet, very uncomfortable, between his
knees. They drove off down the high road, the hot smell of the grass
came to his nostrils, the sun blazed down upon them, turning the path
before them into gleaming steel, and the high Glebeshire hedges, covered
with thin powder, rose on both sides above them, breaking once and again
to show the folding valleys, and the faint blue hills, and the heavy,
dark trees with their thick, black shadows staining the grass.
The cows were clustered sleeping wherever they could find shadow;
faintly sheep-bells tinkled in the distance, and now and then a stream,
like broken glass, floated, cried, and was gone. They drove into a dark
wood, and the sun scattered through the trees in pieces of gold and
shadowy streams of arrowed light. The birds were singing, and whenever
the hoofs of the horses and the wheels turned onto soft moss or lines of
grass, in the sudden silence the air was filled with birds' voices. That
proved that it must now be turning to the evening of the day; the sun
was not very high above the wood, and the sea of blue was invaded by a
high galleon of cloud that hovered with spreading sail, catching gold
into its heart as it moved. They left the wood, crossed the River Garth,
and came out on to moorland. Here, for the first time, Jeremy smelt the
sea; the lanes had been hot, but here the wind blew across the moor,
with the smell of sea-pinks and sea-gulls in it. The grass was short
and rough; the soil was sand. On the horizon was the grey, melancholy
tower of a deserted mine. Some bird flew with swiftly driving wings,
crying as it went. The smell of the moor was as fresh as though the
foot of man had never crossed it--deserted, but not alone; bare, but not
empty; uninhabited, but peopled; silent, but full of voices.
Jeremy's excitement grew. He knew now how every line of the road would
be. They left the moor and were on the road leading to Rafield. These
were the days before they built the road from Liskane wide enough for
motor-cars and other horrible inventions. Thirty years ago the way was
so narrow that the briars and ferns brushed your face as you passed, and
you could reach out your hand and pluck snap-dragons and dandelions and
fox-gloves. Many roads twisted in and out upon one another; the corners
were so sharp that sometimes the wagonette seemed to hang upon one wheel
as it turned. Still no sight of the sea, but the smell of it now was
everywhere, and sometimes at a sudden bend there would come a faint
beat, beat upon the ear with something rhyming and measured in it, like
the murmur of a sleeping giant.
They came to the bend where the hill suddenly dips at a fearful angle
down into Rafield. Here they turned to the right, deep between edges
again, then through a little copse, and then, as though with a whisk of
the finger, right on to Cow Farm itself.
It was an old square house, deep red brick, with crooked chimneys, and
a stone court in front of it. To either side of the court there were
barns. Behind the house thick trees, clouded with green, showed. In the
middle of the court was a pump, and all about the flagged stones
pigeons were delicately walking. As they drove up, the pigeons rose in
a wheeling flight against the sky now staining faintly with amber; dogs
rushed barking from the barns; a haycart turned the comer, its wheels
creaking, and four little children perched high on the top of the
hay. Then the hall-door opened, and behold Mrs. Monk, Mr. Monk, and,
clustering shyly behind, the little Monks.
In the scene that followed Jeremy was forgotten. He did not know what
it was that made him hang behind the others, but he stood beside the
wagonette, bent down and released Hamlet, and then waited, hiding under
the shadow of the cart. His happiness was almost intolerable; he could
not speak, he could not move, and in the heart of his happiness there
was a strange unhappiness that he had never known before. The loneliness
that he had felt at Liskane Station was intensified, so that he felt
like a stranger who was seeing his father, or his mother, or aunt,
or sisters for the first time. Everything about him emphasised the
loneliness: the slow evening light that was stealing into the sky,
the sound of some machine in the farm-house turning with a melancholy
rhythmic whine, a voice calling in the fields, the rumble of the sea,
the twittering of birds in the garden trees, the bark of a dog far, far
away, and, through them all, the sense that the world was sinking down
into silence, and that all the sounds were slipping away, like visitors
hurrying from the park before the gates are shut; he stood there,
listening, caught into a life that was utterly his own and had no share
with any other. He looked around and saw that they were all going into
the house, that Jim and Mr. Monk were busy with the boxes, and that no
one was aware of him. He knew what he wanted.
He slipped across the court, and dropped into the black cavernous hole
of the farther barn. At first the darkness stopped him; but he knew his
way, found the steps that led up to the loft, and was soon perched high
behind a little square window that was now blue and gold against the
velvety blackness behind him. This was his favourite spot in all the
farm. Here, all the year, they stored the apples, and the smell of the
fruit was thick in the air, sweet and strong, clinging about every fibre
of the place, so that you could not disturb a strand nor a stone without
sending some new drift of the scent up against your nostrils. All the
year after his first visit, Jeremy had been longing to smell that smell
again, and now he knelt up against the window, drinking it in. With his
eyes he searched the horizon. From here you could see the garden with
the sun-dial, the fields beyond, the sudden dip with the trees at the
edge of it bent crossways by the wind, and there, in such a cup as one's
hands might form, just beyond, was the sea...
He stared as though his eyes would start from his head. Behind him was
the cloudy smoke of the apple-scent; in front of him the sun was sinking
towards the dark elms. Soon the trees would catch the sun and hide it;
the galleon cloud that had been over them as they drove was new banked
in red and gold across the horizon; birds slowly, lazily fled to their
homes.
He heard someone call, “Jeremy! Jeremy!” With a last gaze he saw the
blue cup turn to gold, the sun reached the tops of the elms; the fields
were lit with the glitter of shining glass, then, even as he watched,
they were purple, then grey, then dim like smoke.
Again the voice called “Jeremy!” He slipped from the window, found the
little stair, ran across the dusky court and entered the house.