It had been called the "House of the Flutes" since the beginning of
time. People had said that the name was absurd, and Harry's
grandfather, a prosaic gentleman of rather violent radical opinions,
had made a definite attempt at a change--but he had failed. Trojans
had appeared from every part of the country, angry Trojans, tearful
Trojans, indignant Trojans, important Trojans, poor-relation Trojans,
and had, one and all, demanded that the name should remain, and that
the headquarters of the Trojan tradition, of the Trojan power, should
continue to be the "House of the Flutes."
Of course, it had its origin in tradition. In the early days when
might was right, and the stronger seized the worldly goods of the
weaker and nobody said him nay, there had been a Sir Jeremy Trojan
whose wife had been the talk of the country-side both because of her
beauty and also because of her easy morals. Sir Jeremy having departed
on a journey, the lovely Lady Clare entertained a neighbouring baron at
her husband's bed and board, and for two days all was well. But Sir
Jeremy unexpectedly returned, and, being a gentleman of a pleasant
fancy, walled up the room in which he had found the erring couple and
left them inside. He then sat outside, and listened with a gentle
pleasure to their cries, and, being a musician of no mean quality,
played on the flute from time to time to prevent the hours from being
wearisome. For three days he sat there, until there came no more
sounds from that room; then he pursued his ordinary affairs, but sought
no other wife--a grim little man with a certain sense of humour.
There are many other legends connected with the house; you will find
them in Baedeker, where it also says: "Kind permission is accorded by
Sir Henry Trojan to visitors who desire to see the rooms during the
residence of the family in London. Special attention should be paid to
the gold Drawing-room with its magnificent carving, the Library with
its fine collection of old prints, and the Long Gallery with the family
portraits, noticing especially the Vandyke of Sir Hilary Trojan
(_temp._ Ch. I.), and a little sketch by Turner of the view from the
West Tower. The gardens, too, are well worth a short inspection,
special mention being made of the Long Terrace with its magnificent
sea-view.
"A small charge is made by Sir Henry for admittance (adults sixpence,
children half-price), with a view to benefiting the church, a building
recently restored and sadly in need of funds."
So far Baedeker (Cornwall, new ed., 1908). The house is astonishingly
beautiful, seen from any point of view. Added to from time to time, it
has that air of surprise, as of a building containing endless secrets,
only some of which it intends to reveal. It is full of corners and
angles, and at the same time preserves a symmetry and grandeur of style
that is surprising, if one considers its haphazard construction and
random additions.
Part of its beauty is undoubtedly owing to its superb position. It
rises from the rock, over the grey town at its feet, like a protecting
deity, its two towers to west and east, raised like giant hands, its
grey walls rising sheer from the steep, shelving rock; behind it the
gentle rise of hills, bending towards the inland valleys; in front of
it an unbroken stretch of sea.
It strikes the exact note that is in harmony with its colour and
surroundings: the emblem of some wild survival from dark ages when that
spot had been one of the most uncivilised in the whole of Britain--a
land of wild, uncouth people, living in a state of perpetual watch and
guard, fearing the sea, fearing the land, cringingly superstitious
because of their crying need of supernatural defence; and, indeed,
there is nothing more curious in the Cornwall of to-day than this
perpetual reminder of past superstitions, dead gods, strange pathetic
survival of heathen ancestry.
The town of Pendragon, lying at the foot of the "House of the Flutes,"
had little of this survival of former custom about it; it was rapidly
developing into that temple of British middle-class mediocrity, a
modern watering-place. It had, in the months of June, July, and
August, nigger minstrels, a café chantant, and a promenade, with six
bathing-machines and two donkeys; two new hotels had sprung up within
the last two years, a sufficient sign of its prosperity. No, Pendragon
was doing its best to forget its ancient superstitions, and even seemed
to regard the "House of the Flutes" a little resentfully because of its
reminder of a time when men scaled the rocks and stormed the walls, and
fell back dying and cursing into their ships riding at anchor in the
little bay.
Very different was Cullin's Cove, the little fishing-village that lay
slightly to the right of the town. Here traditions were carefully
guarded; a strict watch was kept on the outside world, and strangers
were none too cheerfully received. Here, "down-along," was the old,
the true Cornwall--a land that had changed scarcely at all since those
early heathen days that to the rest of the world are dim, mysterious,
mythological, but to a Cornishman are as the events of yesterday. High
on the moor behind the Cove stand four great rocks--wild, wind-beaten,
grimly permanent. It is under their guardianship that the Cove lies,
and it is something more than a mere superstitious reverence that those
inhabitants of "down-along" pay to those darkly mysterious figures.
Seen in the fading light of the dying day, when Cornish mists are
winding and twisting over the breast of the moor, these four rocks seem
to take a living shape, to grow in size, and to whisper to those that
care to hear old stories of the slaughter that had stained the soil at
their feet on an earlier day.
From Harry's windows the town and the sea were hidden. Immediately
below him lay the tennis-lawns and the rose-garden, and, gleaming in
the distance, at the end of the Long Walk, two white statues that had
fascinated him in his boyhood.
His first waking thought on the morning after his arrival was to look
for those statues, and when he saw them gleaming in the sun just as
they used to do, there swept over him a feeling of youth and vigour
such as he had never known before. Those twenty years in New Zealand
were, after all, to go for nothing; they were to be as though they had
had no existence, and he was to be the young energetic man of
twenty-five, able to enter into his son's point of view, able to share
his life and vitality, and, at the same time, to give him the benefit
of his riper experience.
Through his open window came the faint, distant beating of the sea; a
bird flew past him, a white flash of light; some one was singing the
refrain of a Cornish "chanty"--the swing of the tune came up to him
from the garden, and some of the words beat like little bells upon his
brain, calling up endless memories of his boyhood.
He looked at his watch and found that it was nine o'clock. He had no
idea that it was so late; he had asked to be called at seven, but he
had slept so soundly that he had not heard his man enter with his
shaving water; it was quite cold now, and his razors were terribly
blunt. He cut himself badly, a thing that he scarcely ever did. But
it was really unfortunate, on this first morning when he had wanted
everything to be at its best.
He came down to the breakfast-room humming. The house seemed a palace
of gold on this wonderful September morning; the light came in floods
through the great windows at the head of the stairs, and shafts of
golden light struck the walls and the china potpourri bowls and flashed
wonderful colours out of a great Venetian vase that stood by the hall
door.
He found Garrett and Robin breakfasting alone; Clare and Sir Jeremy
always had breakfast in their own rooms.
"I'm afraid I'm awfully late," said Harry cheerfully, clapping his
brother on the back and putting his hand for a minute on Robin's
shoulder; "things all cold?"
"Oh no," said Garrett, scarcely looking up from his morning paper.
"Damned good kidneys!"
Robin said nothing. He was watching his father curiously. It was one
of the Trojan rules that you never talked at breakfast; it was such an
impossible meal altogether, and one was always at one's worst at that
time of the morning. Robin wondered whether his father would recognise
this elementary rule or whether he would talk, talk, talk, as he had
done last night. They had had rather a bad time last night; Aunt Clare
had had a headache, but his father had talked continuously--about sheep
and Maories and the Pink Terraces. It had been just like a parish-room
magic-lantern lecture--"Some hours with our friends the Maories"--it
had been very tiring; poor Aunt Clare had grown whiter and whiter; it
was quite a relief when dinner had come to an end.
Harry helped himself to kidneys and sat down by Robin, still humming
the refrain of the Cornish song he had heard at his window. "By Jove,
I'm late--mustard, Robin, my boy--can't think how I slept like that.
Why, in New Zealand I was always up with the lark--had to be, you know,
there was always such heaps to do--the bread, old boy, if you can get
hold of it. I remember once getting up at three in the morning to go
and play cricket somewhere--fearful hot day it was, but I knocked up
fifty, I remember. Probably the bowling was awfully soft, although I
remember one chap--Pulling, friend of Durand's--could fairly twist 'em
down the pitch--made you damned well jump. Talking of cricket, I
suppose you play, Robin? Did you get your cap or whatever they call
it--College colours, you know?"
"Oh, cricket!" said Robin indifferently. "No, I didn't play. The
chaps at King's who ran the games were rather outers--pretty thoroughly
barred by the decent men. None of the 'Gracchi' went in for the
sports."
"Oh!" said Harry, considerably surprised. "And who the deuce are the
'Gracchi'?"
"A society I was on," said Robin, a little wearily--it was so annoying
to be forced to talk at breakfast. "A literary society--essays, with
especial attention paid to the New Literature. We made it our boast
that we never went back further than Meredith, except, of course, when
one had to, for origins and comparisons. Randal, who's coming to stop
for a few days, was president last year and read some awfully good
papers."
Harry stared blankly. He had thought that every one played cricket and
football, especially when they were strong and healthy like Robin. He
had not quite understood about the society--and who was Meredith? "I
shall be glad to meet your friend," he said. "Is he still at
Cambridge?"
"Oh, Randal!" said Robin. "No, he came down the same time as I did.
He only got a second in History, although he was worth a first any day
of the week. But he had such lots of other things to do--his papers
for the 'Gracchi' took up any amount of time--and then history rather
bored him. He's very popular here, especially with all Fallacy Street
people."
"The Fallacy Street people!" repeated Harry, still more bewildered.
"Who are they?"
"Oh! I suppose you've forgotten," said Robin, mildly surprised.
"They're all the people who're intellectual in Pendragon. If you live
in Fallacy Street you're one of the wits. It's like belonging to the
'Mermaid' used to be, you know, in Shakespeare's time. They're really
awfully clever--some of them--the Miss Ponsonbys and Mrs. le
Terry--Aunt Clare thinks no end of Mrs. le Terry."
Robin's voice sounded a little awed. He had a great respect for
Fallacy Street. "Oh, they won't have any room for me," said Harry,
laughing. "I'm an awfully stupid old duffer. I haven't read anything
at all, except a bit of Kipling--'Barrack-room Ballads'--seems a waste
of time to read somehow."
That his father had very little interest in literature Robin had
discovered some time before, but that he should boast of it--openly,
laughingly--was really rather terrible.
Harry was silent for a few minutes; he had evidently made a blunder in
his choice of a subject, but it was really difficult.
"Where are we going this morning, Robin?" he said at last.
"Oh! I say!" Robin looked a little unhappy. "I'm awfully sorry,
father. I'm really afraid I can't come out this morning. There's a
box of books that have positively got to get off to Randal's place
to-night. I daren't keep them any longer. I'd do it this afternoon,
only it's Aunt Clare's at-home day and she always likes me to help her.
I'm really awfully sorry, but there are lots of other mornings, aren't
there? I simply must get those books off this morning."
"Why, of course," said Harry cheerfully; "there's plenty of time."
He was dreadfully disappointed. He had often thought of that first
stroll with Robin. They would discuss the changes since Harry's day;
Robin would point out the new points of interest, and, perhaps,
introduce him to some of his friends--it had been a favourite picture
of his during some of those lonely days in New Zealand. And now
Robin's aunt and college friend were to come before his father--it was
rather hard.
But, then, on second thoughts, how unreasonable it was of him to expect
to take up Robin's time like that. He must fall into the ways of the
house, quietly, unobtrusively, with none of that jolting of other
people's habits and regular customs; it had been thoughtless, of him
and ridiculous. He must be more careful.
Breakfast ended, he found himself alone. Robin left the room with the
preoccupied air of a man of fifty; the difficulty of choosing between
Jefferies' "Story of my Heart" and Walt Whitman's "Leaves of Grass," if
there wasn't room in the box for both, was terrible! Of course Randal
was coming himself in a few days, and it would have been simpler to let
him choose for himself; but he had particularly asked for them to be
sent by the fourth, and to-day was the third. Robin had quite
forgotten his father.
Harry was alone. From the garden came the sound of doves, and, through
the window that overlooked the lawn, the sun shone into the room.
Harry lit a cigarette and went out. The garden was changed; there was
a feeling of order and authority about it that it had never had before.
Not a weed was to be seen on the paths: flowers stretched in perfect
order and discipline; colours in harmony, shapes and patterns of a
tutored symmetry--it was the perfection of a modern gardener's art. He
passed gardeners, grave, serious men with eyes intent on their work,
and he remembered the strange old man who had watched over the garden
when he had been a boy; an old man with a wild ragged beard and a
skinny hand like the Ancient Mariner's. The garden had not prospered
under his care--it had been wild, undisciplined, tangled; but he had
been a teller of wonderful tales, a seer of visions--it was to him that
Harry had owed all the intimate knowledge of Cornish lore and mystery
that he possessed.
The gardeners that were there now were probably not Cornishmen at
all--strangers, Londoners perhaps. They could watch that wonderful,
ever-changing view of sea and cliff and moor without any beating of the
heart; to them the crooked, dusky windings of the Cove, the mighty grey
rocks of Trelennan's Jump, the strange, solemn permanency of the four
grey stones on the moor, were as nothing; their hearts were probably in
Peckham.
He turned a little sadly from the ordered discipline of the garden; the
shining green of the lawns, the blazing red and gold of its flowers
almost annoyed him--it was not what he had expected. Then, suddenly,
he came upon a little tangled wood--a strange, deserted place, with
tall grasses and wild ferns and a little brook bubbling noisily over
shining white and grey pebbles. He remembered it; how well he
remembered it. He had often been there in those early days. He had
tried to make a little mill in the brook. He had searched there for
some of those strange creatures about whom Tony Tregoth, the old
gardener, had told him--fauns and nymphs and the wild god Pan. He had
never found anything; but its wild, disordered beauty had made a
fitting setting for Tony's wild, disordered legends.
It was still almost exactly as it had been twenty years before; no one
had attempted improvement. He stayed there for some time, thinking,
regretting, dreaming--it was the only part of the garden that was real
to him.
He passed down the avenue and out through the white stone gates as one
in a dream. Something was stirring within him. It was not that during
those years in New Zealand he had forgotten. He had longed again and
again with a passionate, burning longing for the grey cliffs and the
sea and the haunting loneliness of the moor; for the Cornwall that he
had loved from the moment of his birth--no, he had never forgotten.
But there was waking in him again that strange, half-inherited sense of
the eternal presence of ancient days and old heathen ceremonies, and
the manners of men who had lived in that place a thousand years before.
He had known it when he was a boy; when he had chased rabbits over the
moor, when he had seen the mist curling mysteriously from the sea and
wrapping land and sky in a blinding curtain of grey, when he had stood
on Trelennan's Jump and watched the white, savage tossing of the foam
hundreds of feet below; he had sometimes fancied that he saw them,
those wild bearded priests of cruelty, waiting smilingly on the silent
twilit moor for victims--they had always been cruel; something terrible
in the very vagueness of their outline.
Now the old thoughts came back to him, and he almost fancied that he
could see the strange faces in the shadows of the garden and feel their
hot breath upon his cheek.
His passage through the streets of Pendragon woke him from his dreams;
its almost startling modernity and obtrusive up-to-dateness laughed at
his fancies. It was very much changed since he had been there
before--like the garden, it was the very apotheosis of order and modern
methods. "The Pendragon Hotel" astonished him by its stone pillars,
its glimpse of a wonderful, cool, softly carpeted hall, its official in
gold buttons who stood solemnly magnificent on the steps, the
admiration of several small boys who looked up into his face with
wide-open eyes.
Harry remembered the old "Pendragon Hotel," a dirty, unmethodical
place, with beds that were never clean. It had been something of a
scandal, but its landlord had been an amusing fellow and a capital
teller of stories.
The shops dazzled him by their brilliance. The hairdresser's displayed
a wonderful assortment of wigs in the window; coloured bottles of every
size and hue glittered in the chemist's; diamonds flashed in the
jeweller's--the street seemed glorious to his colonial eyes.
The streets were not very crowded, and no one seemed to be in a hurry.
Auckland had been rather a busy little town--no one had had very much
time to spare--but here, under the mellow September sun, people
lingered and talked, and the time and place seemed to stand still with
the pleasant air of something restfully comfortable, and, above all,
containing nothing that wasn't in the very best taste. It was this air
of polite gentility that struck Harry so strongly. It had never been
like that in the old days; a ragged unkempt place of uncertain manners
and a very evident poverty. He rather resented its new polish, and he
regretted once more that he had not sought a London tailor before
coming down to Cornwall.
He suddenly recognised a face--a middle-aged, stout gentleman, with a
white waistcoat and the air of one who had managed to lead a virtuous
life and, nevertheless, accumulate money; he was evidently satisfied
with both achievements. It was Barbour, Bunny Barbour. He had been
rather a good chap at school, with some taste for adventure. He had
had a wider horizon than most of them; Harry remembered how Bunny had
envied him in New Zealand. He looked prosperous and sedate now, and
the world must have treated him well. Harry spoke to him and was
received with effusion. "Trojan, old man! Well, I never! I'm damned
if I'd have recognised you. How you've changed! I heard you were
coming back; your boy told me--fine chap that, Trojan, you've every
reason to be proud. Well, to be sure! Come in and have a whisky and
see the new club-rooms! Just been done up, and fairly knocks spots out
of the old place."
He was extremely cordial, but Harry felt that he was under criticism.
Barbour's eyes looked him up and down; there was almost a challenge in
his glance, as though he said, "We are quite ready to receive you if
you are one of us. But you must move with the times. It's no good for
you to be the same as in the old days. We've all changed, and so must
you!"
The club was magnificent. Harry stared in amazement at its luxury and
comfort. Its wonderful armchairs and soft carpets, its decorations and
splendid space astonished him. The old place had seemed rather fine to
him as a boy, but he saw now how bad it had really been. He sank into
one of the armchairs with that strange sense of angry resentment that
he had felt before in the street gaining hotly upon him.
"It's good, isn't it?" said Barbour, smiling with an almost personal
satisfaction, as though he had been largely responsible for the present
improvements. "The membership's going up like anything, and we're
thinking of raising subscriptions. Very decent set of fellows on it,
too. Oh! we're getting along splendidly here. You must have noticed
the change in the place!"
"I should think I have," said Harry--the tone of his voice was a little
regretful; "but it's not only here--it's the whole town. It's
smartened up beyond all knowing. But I must confess that, dirty and
dingy as they were, I regret the old club-rooms. There was something
extraordinarily homely and comfortable about them. Do you remember
that old armchair with the hole in it? Gone long ago, of course, but I
shall never sit in anything as nice again."
"Ah, sentiment," said Barbour, smiling; "you won't find much of it in
Pendragon nowadays. It doesn't do. Sentimentalists are always Tories,
you'll find; always wanting to keep the old things, and all against
progress. We're all for progress now. We've got some capital men on
the Town Council--Harding, Belfast, Rogers, Snaith--you won't remember
them. There's some talk of pulling down the Cove and building new
lodging-houses there. We're crowded out in the summer, and there are
more people every year."
"Pull down the Cove?" said Harry, aghast; "but you can't. It's been
there for hundreds of years; it's one of the most picturesque places in
Cornwall."
"That's the only thing," said Barbour regretfully. "It acts rather
well as a draw for painters and that sort of person, and it makes some
pretty picture postcards that are certain to sell. Oh, I suppose
they'll keep it for a bit, but it will have to go ultimately.
Pendragon's changing."
There was no doubt that it was, and Harry left the club some quarter of
an hour later with dismay in his heart. He had dreamed so long of the
old times, the old beauties, the old quiet spirit of unprogressive
content, that this new eagerness to be up-to-date and modern, this
obvious determination to make Pendragon a watering-place of the most
detestable kind, horrified him.
As he passed down the crooked, uneven stone steps that led to the Cove,
he felt indignant, almost unhappy. It was as if a friend had been
insulted in his presence and he had been unable to defend him. They
said that the Cove must go, must make way for modern jerry-built
lodging-houses, in order that middle-class families from London and
Manchester might be sufficiently accommodated.
The Cove had meant a great deal to him when a boy--mystery, romance,
pirates and smugglers, strange Cornish legends of saints and sinners,
knights and men-at-arms. The little inn, "The Bended Thumb," with its
irregular red-brick floor and its smoke-stained oaken rafters, had been
the theatre of many a stirring drama--now it was to be pulled down. It
was a wonderfully beautiful morning, and the little, twisting street of
the Cove seemed to dance with its white shining cobbles in the light of
the sun. It was mysterious as ever, but colours lingered in every
corner. Purple mists seemed to hang about the dark alleys and twisting
ways; golden shafts of light flashed through the open cottage doorways
into rooms where motes of dust danced, like sprites, in the sun; smoke
rose in little wreaths of pearl-grey blue into the cloudless sky; there
was perfect stillness in the air, and from an overflowing pail that
stood outside "The Bended Thumb," the clear drip, drip of the water
could be heard falling slowly into the white cobbles, and close at hand
was the gentle lap of the sea, as it ran up the little shingly beach
and then dragged slowly back again with a soft, reluctant hiss.
It was the Cove in its gentlest mood. No one was about; the women were
preparing the dinner and the men were away at work. No strange faces
peered from inhospitable doorways; there was nothing to-day that could
give the stranger a sense of outlawry, of almost savage avoidance of
ordinary customs and manners. Harry's heart beat wildly as he walked
down the street; there was no change here; it was as he had left it.
He was at home here as he could never be in that new, strident
Pendragon with its utter disregard of tradition and beauty.
He saw that it was late and hurried back. He had discovered a great
deal during the morning.
At lunch he spoke of the changes that he had seen. Clare smiled.
"Why, of course," she said. "Twenty years is a long time, and
Pendragon has made great strides. For my part, I am very glad. It
brings money to the shopkeepers, and the place will be quite
fashionable in a few years' time. We're all on the side of progress up
here," she added, laughing.
"But the Cove?" said Harry. "Barbour tells me that they are thinking
of pulling it down to make way for lodging-houses or something."
"Well, why not?" said Clare. "It is really very much in the way where
it is, and is, I am told, extremely insanitary. We must be practical
nowadays or we are nothing; you have to pay heavily for being romantic."
Harry felt again that sensation of personal affront as though some
close friend, bound to him by many ties, had been attacked violently in
his presence. It was unreasonable, he knew, but it was very strong.
"And you, Robin," he said, "what do you think of it?"
"I agree with Aunt Clare," answered Robin lightly, as though it were a
matter that interested him very little. "If the place is in the way,
it ought to go. He's a sensible man, Barbour."
"The fact is, Harry," said Garrett, "you haven't changed quite as fast
as the place has. You'll see the point of view in a few weeks' time."
He felt unreasonably, ridiculously angry. They were all treating him
as a child, as some one who would grow up one day perhaps, but was, at
present at any rate, immature in thought and word; even with Robin
there was a half-implied superiority.
"But the Cove!" he cried vehemently. "Is it nothing to any of you?
After all that it has been to us all our lives, to our people, to the
whole place, are you going to root it out and destroy it simply because
the town isn't quite big enough to put up all the trippers that burden
it in the summer? Don't you see what you will lose if you do? I
suppose you think that I am sentimental, romantic, but upon my word I
can't see that you have improved Pendragon very much in all these
twenty years. It was charming once--a place with individuality,
independence; now it is like anywhere else--a miniature Brighton."
He knew that he was wasting his words. There was a pause, and he felt
that they were all three laughing at him--yes, Robin as well. He had
only made a fool of himself; they could not understand how much he had
expected during those weary years of waiting--how much he had expected
and how much he had missed.
Clare looked round the room and was relieved to find that only Beldam
was present. If one of the family was bent on being absurd, it was as
well that there should only be one of the servants to hear him.
"You know that you are to be on your trial this afternoon, Harry?" she
said.
"My trial?" he repeated, bewildered.
"Yes--it's my at-home day, you know--first Thursdays--and, of course,
they'll all come to see you. We shall have the whole town----" She
looked at him a little anxiously; so much depended on how he behaved,
and she wasn't completely reassured by his present manner.
If he astonished them all this afternoon by saying things about the
Cove like that, it would be too terrible!
"How horrible!" he said, laughing. "I'm very much afraid that I shan't
do you justice, Clare. I'm no good at small conversation."
His treating it so lightly made it worse, and she wondered how she
could force him to realise the seriousness of it.
"All the nicest people in Pendragon," she said; "and they are rather
ridiculously critical, and of course they talk."
He looked at her and laughed. "I wish they were Maories," he said, "I
shouldn't be nearly so frightened!"
She leant over the table to emphasise her words. "But it really does
make a difference, Harry. First impressions count a lot. You'll be
nice to them, won't you?"
The laugh had left his eyes. It was serious, as he knew. He had had
no idea that he would have, so to speak, "funked" it so. It was
partly, of course, because of Robin. He did not want to make a fool of
himself before the boy. He was already beginning to realise what were
the things that counted with Robin.
The real pathos of the situation lay in his terrible anxiety to do the
right thing. If he had taken it quietly, had trusted to his natural
discretion and had left circumstances to develop of themselves, he
would have, at any rate, been less self-conscious. But he could not
let it alone. He had met Auckland society often enough and had,
indeed, during his later years, been something of a society man, but
there everything was straight-forward and simple. There was no
tradition, no convention, no standard. Because other people did a
thing was no reason why you should do it--originality was welcomed
rather than otherwise. But here there were so many things that you
must do, and so very, very many that you mustn't; and if you were a
Trojan, matters were still more complicated.
It was after half-past four when he entered the drawing-room, and Clare
was pouring out tea. Five or six ladies were already there, and a
clergyman of ample proportions and quite beautifully brushed hair. He
was introduced--"Mrs. le Terry--Miss Ponsonby--Miss Lucy Ponsonby--Miss
Werrel--Miss Thisbe Werrel--Mr. Carrell--our rector, Harry."
He shook hands and was terribly embarrassed. He was conscious at once
of that same sense of challenge that he had felt with Barbour in the
morning. They were not obviously staring, but he knew that they were
rapidly summing him up. He coloured foolishly, and stood for a moment
awkwardly in the middle of the room.
"Tea, Harry?" said Clare. "Scones down by the fire. Everybody else is
all right--so look after yourself."
He found himself by Mrs. le Terry, a small, rather pretty woman with
wide-open blue eyes, and a mass of dark brown hair hidden beneath a
large black hat that drooped over one ear. She talked rapidly and with
few pauses. She was, he discovered, one of those persons whose
conversation was a series of exclamation marks. She was perpetually
astonished, delighted, and disappointed with an amount of emotion that
left her no breath and gave her hearers a small opinion of her
sincerity. "It's too terribly funny," she said, opening her eyes very
wide indeed, "that you should have been in that amazing place, New
Zealand--all sheep and Maories, isn't it?--and if there's one thing
that I should be likely to detest more than mutton I'm sure it would be
Maories. Too dreadful and terrible! But you look splendidly well, Mr.
Trojan. I never, really never, saw any one with such a magnificent
colour! I suppose that it's that gorgeous sun, and it never rains,
does it? Too delightful! If there's one thing that I _do_ adore, it's
the sun!"
"Well, I don't know about that," said Harry, laughing; "we had rain
pretty often in Auckland, and----"
"Oh," she said, breaking in upon him, "that's too curious, because, do
you know, I thought you never had rain at all, and I do detest rain so.
It's too distressing when one has a new frock or must go to some stupid
place to see some one. But I'm too awfully glad that you've come here,
Mr. Trojan. We do want waking up a little, you know, and I'm sure
you're the very person to do it. It would be too funny if you were to
wake us all up, you know."
Harry was pleased. There were no difficulties here, at any rate.
Hadn't Robin mentioned Mrs. le Terry as one of the leaders of Fallacy
Street? He suddenly lost his shyness and wanted to become
confidential. He would tell her how glad he was to be back in England
again; how anxious he was to enter into all the fun and to take his
part in all the work. He wondered what she felt about the Cove, and he
hoped that she would be an enemy to its proposed destruction.
But she yielded him no opportunity of speaking, and he speedily
discovered her opinion on the Cove. "And such changes since you went
away! Quite another place, I'm glad to say. Pendragon is the sweetest
little town, and even the dear, dirty trippers in the summer are the
most delightful and amusing people you ever saw. And now that they
talk of pulling down that horrid, dirty old Cove, it will be too
splendid, with lodging-houses and a bandstand; and they do talk of an
Esplanade--that would be too delightful!"
While she was speaking, he watched the room curiously. Robin had come
in and was standing by the fireplace talking to the Miss Werrels, two
girls of the athletic type, with short skirts and their hair brushed
tightly back over their foreheads. He was leaning with one arm on the
mantelpiece, and was looking down on the ladies with an air of languid
interest: his eyes were restless, and every now and again glanced
towards his father. The two Miss Ponsonbys were massive ladies of any
age over fifty. Clad in voluminous black silk, with several little
reticules and iron chains, their black hair bound in tight coils at the
back of their heads, each holding stiffly her teacup with a tenacity
that was worthy of a better cause, they were awe-inspiring and
militant. In spite of their motionless gravity, there was something
aggressive in their frowning brows and cold, expressionless eyes.
Harry thought that he had never seen two more terrifying persons.
Clare was talking to the prosperous clergyman; he smiled continually,
and now and again laughed in reply to some remark, but it was always
something restrained and carefully guarded. He was obviously a man who
laid great store by exterior circumstances. That the sepulchre should
be filled with dead men's bones might cause him pain, but that it
should be unwhitened would be, to him, a thing far more terrible.
Clare turned round and addressed the room generally.
"Mr. Carrell has just been telling me of the shocking state of the
Cove," she said. "Insanitary isn't the word, apparently. Things have
gone too far, and the only wise measure seems to be to root the place
up completely. It is sad, of course--it was a pretty old place, but it
has had its day."
"I've just been telling your brother about it, Miss Trojan," said Mrs.
le Terry. "It's quite too terrible, and I'm sure it's very bad for all
of us to have anything quite so horrible so close to our houses.
There's no knowing what dreadful things we may not all of us be
catching at this very moment----"
She was interrupted by two new arrivals--Mrs. and Miss Bethel. They
were a curious contrast. The mother was the strangest old lady that
Harry had ever seen. She was tiny in stature, with snow-white hair and
cheeks that were obviously rouged; she wore a dress of curious shot
silk decorated with much lace, and her fingers were thick with jewels;
a large hat with great purple feathers waved above her head. It was a
fantastic and gaudy impression that she made, and there was something
rather pitiful in the contrast between her own obvious satisfaction
with her personal appearance and the bizarre, almost vulgar, effect of
such strangely contrasted colours. She came mincing into the room with
her head a little on one side, but in spite of, or perhaps because of,
her rather anxious smiles, it was obvious that she was not altogether
at her ease.
The girl who followed her was very different. Tall and very dark, she
was clothed quite simply in grey; her hair was wonderful, although it
was at present hidden to some extent by her hat, but its coal-black
darkness had something intent, almost luminous, about it, so that,
paradoxically, its very blackness held hidden lights and colours. But
it was her manner that Harry especially noticed. She followed her
mother with a strange upright carriage of the head and flash of the
eyes that were almost defiant. She was evidently expecting no very
civil reception, and she seemed to face the room with hostility and no
very ready eagerness to please.
The effect on the room was marked. Mrs. le Terry stopped speaking for
a moment and rustled her skirts with a movement of displeasure, the
Miss Ponsonbys clutched their teacups even tighter than before and
their brows became more clouded, the Miss Werrels smiled confidentially
at each other as though they shared some secret, and even Robin made a
slight instinctive movement of displeasure.
Harry felt at once an impulse of sympathy towards the girl. It was
almost as if this sudden hostility had made them friends: he liked that
independence of her carriage, the pride in her eyes. Mrs. le Terry's
voice broke upon his ears.
"Which must be, Mr. Trojan, extraordinarily provoking. To go there, I
mean, and find absolutely no one in--all that way, too, and a horribly
wet night, and no train until nine o'clock."
In his endeavours to pick up the thread of the conversation he lost
sight of their meeting with Clare.
She, indeed, had greeted them with all the Trojan coldness; nothing
could have been more sternly formal than her "Ah! Mrs. Bethel, I'm so
glad that you were able to come. So good of you to trouble to call.
Won't you have some tea? Do find a seat somewhere, Miss Bethel. I
hope you won't mind our all having finished."
Harry was introduced and took them their tea. It was obvious that, for
some reason unknown to him, their presence there was undesired by all
the company present, including Clare herself. He also knew
instinctively that their coming there had been some act of daring
bravery, undertaken perhaps with the hope that, after all, it might not
be as they had feared.
The old lady's hand trembled as she took her teacup; the colour had
fled from her face, and she sat there white and shaking. As Harry bent
over her with the scones, he saw to his horror that a tear was
trembling on her eyelid; her throat was moving convulsively.
At the same instant he knew that the girl's eyes were fixed upon his;
he saw them imploring, beseeching him to help them. It was a difficult
situation, but he smiled back at the girl and turned to the old lady.
"Do try these scones, Mrs. Bethel," he said; "they are still hot and I
can recommend them strongly. I'm so glad to meet you; my sister told
me only this morning that she hoped you would come this afternoon, as
she wanted us to become acquainted."
It was a lie, but he spoke it without hesitation, knowing that it would
reach Clare's ears. The little lady smiled nervously and looked up at
him.
"Ah, Mr. Trojan," she said, "it's very good of you, I'm sure. We are
only too delighted. It's not much gaiety that we can offer you here,
but such as it is----"
She was actually making eyes at him, the preposterous old person. It
was really a little pitiful, with her gorgeous colours, and her
trembling assumption of a coquettish youth that had left her long ago.
Her attempt to storm a difficult position by the worst of all possible
tactics made him extremely sorry for the daughter, who was forced to
look on in silence. His thoughts, indeed, were with the girl--her
splendid hair, her eyes, something wild, almost rebellious, that found
a kindred note in himself; curiously, almost absurdly, they were to a
certain degree allies although they had not spoken. He talked to her a
little and she mentioned the Cove.
"It is a test of your Cornish ancestry," she said--"if you care for it,
I mean. So many people here look on it as a kind of
rubbish-heap--picturesque but untidy--and it is the most beautiful
place in the world."
"I am glad that you feel like that," he said quietly; "it meant a lot
to me as a boy. I have been sorry to find how unpopular it is now; but
I see that it still has its supporters."
"Ah, you must talk to father," she said. "He is always there. We are
a little old-fashioned, I'm afraid."
There was in her voice, in her smile, something that stirred him
strangely. He felt as though he had met her before--a long while ago.
He recognised little characteristics, the way that she pushed back her
hair when she was excited, the beautiful curve of her neck when she
raised her eyes to his, the rise and fall of her bosom--it was all
strangely, individually familiar, as though he had often watched her do
the same things in the same way before, in some other place....
He had forgotten the others--Clare, Robin, the Miss Ponsonbys, Mrs. le
Terry; and when they had all gone, he did not realise that he had in
any way neglected them.
After Miss Bethel had left the room, followed by the preposterous old
mother, he stood at the window watching the lights of the town shining
mistily through the black network of trees in the drive. He must meet
her again.
Clare spoke to him and he turned round. "I'm afraid you have made the
Miss Ponsonbys enemies for life," she said; "you never spoke to them
once. I warned you that they were the most important people in the
place."
"Oh! the Miss Ponsonbys!" said Harry carelessly, and Robin stood amazed.