Clare Trojan was having her breakfast in her own room. It was ten
o'clock, and a glorious September morning, and the sparrows were
twittering on the terrace outside as though they considered it highly
improper for any one to have breakfast between four walls when Nature
had provided such a splendid feast on the lawn.
Clare was reading a violent article in the _National Review_ concerning
the inadequacy of our present solution of the housing problem; but it
did not interest her.
If the world had only been one large Trojan family there would have
been no problem. The trouble was that there were Greeks. She did
dimly realise their existence, but the very thought of them terrified
her. Troy must be defended, and there were moments when Clare was
afraid that its defenders were few; but she blinded herself to the
dangers of attack. "There are no Greeks, there _are_ no Greeks."
Clare stood alone on the Trojan walls and defied that world of
superstition and pagan creeds. With the armour of tradition and an
implicit belief in the watchword of all true Trojan leaders, "Qui dort
garde," she warded the sacred hearths; but there were moments when her
eyes were opened and signs were revealed to her of another
world--something in which Troy could have no place; and then she was
afraid.
She was considering Harry, his coming, and his probable bearing on
present conditions, and she knew that once again the Trojan walls were
in danger. It seemed to her, as she sat there, cruelly unfair that the
son of the House, the man who in a little while would stand before the
world as the head of the Trojan tradition, should be the chief
instrument in the attempted destruction of the same. She had not liked
Harry in the old days. She had always, even as a girl, a very stern
idea of the dignity of the House. Harry had never fulfilled this idea,
had never even attempted to. He had been wild, careless,
undisciplined, accompanying strange uncouth persons on strange uncouth
adventures; he had been almost a byword in the place. No, she had not
liked him; she had almost hated him at one time. And then after he had
gone away she had deliberately forgotten him; she had erased his name
from the fair sheet of the Trojan record, and had hoped that the House
would never more be burdened by his undisciplined history. Then she
had heard that there was a son and heir, and her one thought had been
of capture, deliverance of the new son of the House from his father's
influence. She was not deliberately cruel in her determination; she
saw that the separation must hurt the father, but she herself was ready
to make sacrifice for the good of the House and she expected the same
self-denial in others. Harry made no difficulties. New Zealand was no
place for a lonely widower to bring up his boy, and Robin was sent
home. From that moment he was the centre of Clare's world; much
self-denial can make a woman good, only maternity can make her divine.
To bring the boy up for the House, to tutor him in all the little and
big things that a Trojan must know and do, to fit him to take his place
at the head of the family on a later day; all these things she laboured
for, day and night without ceasing, and without divided interests. She
loved the boy, too, passionately, with more than a mother's love, and
now she looked back over what had been her life-work with pride and
satisfaction. She had tried to forget Harry. She hoped, although she
never dared to face the thought in her heart, that he would die there,
away in that foreign country, without coming back to them again. Robin
was hers now; she had educated him, loved him, scolded him--he was all
hers, she would brook no division. Then, when she had heard that Harry
was to come home, it had been at first more than she could bear. She
had burst into wild incoherent protests; she had prayed that an
accident might happen to him and that he might never reach home. And
then the Trojan pride and restraint had come to her aid. She was
ashamed, bewildered, that she could have sunk to such depths; she
prepared to meet him calmly and quietly; she even hoped that, perhaps,
he might be so changed that she would welcome him. And, after all, he
would in a little time be head of the House. Robin, too, was strongly
under her influence, and it was unlikely that he would leave her for a
man whom he had never known, for whom he could not possibly care.
It was this older claim of hers with regard to Robin that did, she
felt, so obviously strengthen her position, and now that Harry had
really returned, she thought that her fears need not trouble her much
longer--he did all the things that Robin disliked most. His
boisterousness, heartiness, and good-fellowship, dislike of everyday
conventionality, would all, she knew, count against him with Robin.
She had seen him shrink on several occasions, and each time she had
been triumphantly glad. For she was frightened, terribly frightened.
Harry was threatening to take from her the one great thing around which
her life was centred; if he robbed her of Robin he robbed her of
everything, and she must fight to keep him. That it would come to a
duel between them she had long foreseen, she had governed for so long
that she would not easily yield her place now; but she had not known
that she would feel as she did about Robin, she had not known that she
would be jealous--jealous of every look and word and motion. She had
never known what jealousy was before, but now in the silence of the
golden, sunlit room, with only the twittering of the birds on the lawn
to disturb her thoughts, she faced the facts honestly without
shrinking, and she knew that she hated her brother. Oh! why couldn't
he go back again to his sheep-shearing! Why had he come to disturb
them! It was not his environment, it was not his life at all! She
felt that they could never lead again that same quiet, ordered
existence; like a gale of wind he had burst their doors and broken
their windows, and now the house was open, desolate, to the world.
She went up to her father's room, as was her custom every morning after
breakfast. He was lying at his open window, watching, with those
strange, restless eyes of his, the great expanse of sea and sky
stretching before him. His room was full of light and air. Its white
walls and ceiling, great bowls of some of the last of the summer's
roses, made it seem young and vigorous and alive. It was almost a
shock to see that huddled, dying old man with his bent head and
trembling hands--but his eyes were young, and his heart.
As she looked at him, she wondered why she had never really cared for
him. At first she had been afraid; then, as she grew older and a
passionate love for and pride in the family as a conservative and
ancient institution developed in her, that fear became respect, and she
looked up to her father from a distance, admiring his reserve and pride
but never loving him; and now that respect had become pity, and above
all a great longing that he might live for many, many years, securing
the household gods from shame and tending the fire on the Trojan
hearth. For at the moment of his death would come the crisis--the
question of the new rule. At one time it had seemed certain that Robin
would be king, with herself a very vigilant queen-regent. But now that
was all changed. Harry had come home, and it was into his hands that
the power would fall.
She had often wondered that she knew her father so little. He had
always been difficult to understand; a man of two moods strongly
opposed--strangely taciturn for days together, and then brilliantly
conversational, amusing, and a splendid companion. She had never known
which of these attitudes was the real one, and now that he was old she
had abandoned all hope of ever answering the question. His moods were
more strongly contrasted than ever. He often passed quickly from one
to the other. If she had only known which was the real one; she felt
at times that his garrulity was a blind--that he watched her almost
satirically whilst he talked. She feared his silences terribly, and
she used often to feel that a moment was approaching when he would
reveal to her definitely and finally some plot that he had during those
many watchful years been forming. She knew that he had never let her
see his heart--he had never taken her into his confidence. She had
tried to establish some more intimate relationship, but she had failed;
and now, for many years, she had left it at that.
But she wanted to know what he thought of Harry. She had waited for a
sign, but he had given none; and although she had watched him carefully
she had discovered nothing. He had not mentioned his son--a stranger
might have thought that he had not noticed him. But Clare knew him too
well to doubt that he had come to some definite conclusion in the
matter.
She bustled cheerfully about the room, humming a little tune and
talking to him, lightly and with no apparent purpose. He watched the
gulls fly past the open window, his eyes rested on a golden flash of
sun that struck some shining roof in the Cove, but his mind was back in
the early days when he had played his game with the best and had seen
the bright side of the world.
"He was a rake, Jack Crayle"--he seemed scarcely conscious that Clare
was in the room--"a rake but a good heart, and an amusing fellow too.
I remember meeting old Rendle and Hawdon Sallust--Hawdon of the
eighties, you know--not the old man--he kept at home--all three of them
at White's, Rendle and Sallust and Crayle; Jack bet Rendle he wouldn't
stop the next man he met in the street and claim him as an old friend
and bring him in--and, by Jove, he took it and brought him in,
too--sort of tramp chap he was, too--dirty, untidy fellow--but Rendle
was game serious--by Gad, he was. Said he was an old friend that had
fallen on evil times--gave him a drink and won the bet--'63 that
was--the year Bailey won that polo match against old Tom Radley--all
the town was talking of it. By Gad, he could ride, Bailey could.
Why----"
"It's time for your medicine, father," said Clare, breaking ruthlessly
in upon the reminiscences.
"Eh, dear, yes," he said, looking at her curiously. "You're never
late, Clare, always up to time. Yes, yes, well, well; in '63 that was.
I remember it like yesterday--old Tom--particular friend he was of mine
then, although we broke afterwards--my fault too, probably, about a
horse it was. I----"
But Clare gave him his medicine, first tying a napkin round his neck
lest she should spill the drops. He looked at her, smiling, over the
napkin.
"You were always a girl for method," he said again; "not like Harry."
She looked at him quickly, but could guess nothing; she was suddenly
frightened, as she so often was when he laughed like that. She always
expected that some announcement would follow. It was almost as if he
had threatened her.
"Harry?" she said. "No. But he is very like he used to be in some
ways. It is nice to have him back again--but--well, he will find
Pendragon rather different from Auckland, I'm afraid."
Sir Jeremy said nothing. He lay there without moving; Clare untied the
napkin, and put back the medicine, and wheeled the chair into a sunnier
part of the room and away from the window.
"You must get on with Harry, Clare," he said suddenly, sharply.
"Why, yes," she answered, laughing a little uneasily. "Of course we
get on. Only his way of looking at things was always a little
different--even, perhaps, a little difficult to understand"; and then,
after a little pause, "I am stupid, I know. It was always hard for me
to see like other people."
But he was not listening to her. He was smiling at the sun, and the
birds on the lawn, and the flashing gold of the distant sand.
"No, you never saw like Harry," he said at last. "You want to be old
to understand," and he would say no more.
He talked to her no more that morning, and she was vaguely uneasy.
What was he thinking about Harry, and how did his opinion influence the
situation?
She fancied that she saw signs of rebellion. For many years he had
allowed her to do what she would, and although she had sometimes
wondered whether he was quite as passive as she had fancied, she had
had no fear of any disturbance. Now there was something vaguely
menacing in his very silences. And, in some undefined way, the
pleasure that he took in the cries of birds, the plunge and chatter of
the sea as it rose and fell on the southern shore, the glint of the sun
on the gold and green distances of rock and moor was alarming. She
herself did not understand those things; indeed, she scarcely saw them,
and was inclined to despise any one who loved any unpractical beauty,
anything that was not at least traditional. And now this was a bond
between her father and Harry. They had both loved wild, uncivilised
things, and it was this very trait in their character that had made
division between them before. But now what had been in those early
years the cause of trouble was their common ground of sympathy.
They shared some secret of which she knew nothing, and she was afraid
lest Robin should learn it too.
She went about her housekeeping duties that morning with an uneasy
mind. The discipline below stairs was excellent because she was
feared. It was not that she was hasty-tempered or unjust; indeed the
cook, who had been there for many years, said that she had never seen
Miss Clare angry, and her justice was a thing to marvel at. She always
gave people their due, and exactly their due; she never over-praised or
blamed, and that was why people said that she was cold; it was also,
incidentally, responsible for her excellent discipline.
She was, as Sir Jeremy had said, a woman of amazing method. But the
attitude of her actual household helped her; they were all, by
education and environment, Trojans. Whatever they had been before they
entered service at "The Flutes"--Radicals, Socialists, Dissenters, or
Tones--at the moment of passing the threshold they were transformed
into Trojans. Other things fell from them like a mantle, and in their
serious devotion to traditional Conservatism they were examples of the
true spirit of Feudalism. Beldam, the butler, had long ago graduated
as Professor in the system. Coming as page-boy in earlier years, he
had acquired the by no means easy art of Trojan diplomacy. It was now
his duty to overhaul, as it were, every servant that passed the gates;
an overhauling, moreover, done seriously and with much searching of the
heart. Were you a Trojan? That is, do you consider that you are
exceptionally fortunate in being chosen to perform menial but necessary
duties in the Trojan household? Will you spend the rest of your days,
not only in performing your duties worthily, but also in preaching to a
blind and misguided world the doctrine of Trojan perfection and
superiority? If the answer were honestly affirmative, you were
accepted; otherwise, you were expelled with a fortnight's wages and
eternal contempt.
Even the scullerymaid was not spared, but had to pass an examination in
rites and rituals so severe that one unfortunate, Annie Grace Marks,
after Beldam had spoken to her severely for half-an-hour, burst out
with an impetuous, "Thank Gawd, she was a Marks, which was as good as
the High and Mighty any day of the week, and better, for there wasn't
no pride in the Marks and never 'ad been."
She received her dismissal that same evening.
But the case of Annie Marks was an isolated one. Rebellion was very
occasional, and, for the most, the servants stayed at "The
Flutes"--partly because the pay was good, and partly because the very
reiteration of Trojan supremacy gave them a feeling of elevation very
pleasant to their pride. In accordance with all true feudal law, you
lost your own sense of birth and ancestry and became in a moment a
Trojan; for Smith, Jones, and Robinson this was very comforting.
So Clare had very little trouble, and this morning she was able to
finish her duties speedily, and devote her whole attention to the
crisis that threatened the family.
She decided to see Garrett, and made her way to his room. He was
writing, and seemed disturbed by her entry. He had been working for
some years on a book to be entitled, "Our Aristocracy: its Threatened
Supremacy." He was still engaged on the preliminary chapter, "Some
aspects of historical aristocracy," and it had developed into a
somewhat minute account of Trojan past history. He had no expectations
of ever concluding the work, but it gave him a pleasant sense of
importance and seemed in some vague way to be of value to the Trojan
family.
He was always happy when at work, although he effected very little;
but, after all, the great stylists always worked slowly. His style
was, it is true, somewhat commonplace; but his rather minute output
allowed him to rank, in his own estimation, with Pater and Omar
Khayyám, and disdain the voluminous facility of Thackeray and Dickens.
He was, he felt, one of the "precious" writers, and so long as no one
saw his work he was able both to comfort himself and to impress others
with the illusion.
It was said vaguely in Pendragon that "Garrett Trojan was a clever
fellow--was writing a book--said to be brilliant, of great promise--no,
he hadn't seen it, but----" etc.
So Garrett looked at his sister a little resentfully.
"I hope it's important, Clare," he said, "because--well, you know, the
morning's one's time for work, and once one gets off the track it's
difficult to get back; not that I've done much, you know, only half a
page--but this kind of thing can't move quickly."
"I'm sorry, Garrie," she answered, "but you've got to talk to me.
There are things about which I want your advice."
She did not really want it; she had decided on her line of conduct, and
nothing that he could say would alter her decision--but it flattered
him, and she needed his help.
"Well, of course," he said, pushing his chair back and coming to the
fire, "if it's anything I can do-- What is it, Clare? Household or
something in the town?"
"Oh, nothing," she laughed at him. "Don't be worried, Garrie; I know
it's horrid to disturb you, and there's really nothing--only--well,
after all, there is only us, isn't there? for acting together I
mean--and I want to know what line you're going on."
"Oh! about Harry?" He looked at her sharply for a moment. "You know
that I object to lines, Clare. They are dangerous things." He implied
that he was above them. "Of course there are times when it is
necessary to--well, to be decisive; but at present it seems to me that
we must wait for the situation to develop--it will, of course."
"I knew that you would say that," she said impatiently. "But it won't
do; the situation _has_ developed. You always preferred to look on--it
is, as you say, less dangerous; but here I must have your help. Harry
has been back a week; he is, for you and me, unchanged. The situation,
as far as we go, is the same as it was twenty years ago. He is not one
of us, he never was, and, to do him justice, never pretended to be.
We, or at any rate I, imagined that he would be different now, after
all that time. He is exactly the same." She paused.
"Well?" he said. "All that for granted, it's true enough. What's the
trouble?"
"Things aren't the same though, now. There is father, and Robin.
Father has taken to Harry strongly. He told me so just now. And for
Robin----"
"Scarcely captivated," said Garrett drily. "Have you seen them
together? Hardly domestic----"
Then he looked at her again and laughed. "And that pleases you, Clare."
"Of course," she answered him firmly. "There is no good in hedging.
He is no brother of ours, Garrett. He is, what is more important
still, no Trojan, and after all family counts for something. We don't
like him, Garrett. Why be sentimental about it? He will follow
father--and it will be soon--_après, le déluge_. For ourselves, it
does not matter. It is hard, of course, but we have had our time, and
there are other things and places. It is about Robin. I cannot bear
to think what it would mean if he were alone here with Harry, after all
these years."
"He would not stay."
"You think that?" Clare said eagerly. "It is so hard to know. He is
still only a boy. Of course Harry shocks him now, shocks
everything--his sense of decency, his culture, his pride--but that will
wear off; he will get used to it--and then----"
It had been inevitable that the discussion should come, and Garrett had
been waiting. He had no intention of going to find her, he would wait
until she came to him, but he had been anxious to know her opinion.
For himself the possibility of Harry's return had never presented
itself. After all those years he would surely remain where he was. In
yielding his son he had seemed to abandon all claim to any rights of
inheritance, and Garrett had thought of him as one comfortably dead.
He had contemplated his own ultimate succession with the pleasurable
certainty that it was absolutely the right thing. In his love for a
rather superficial tradition he was a perfect Trojan, and might be
relied on to continue existing conditions without any attempt at
radical changes. Clare, too, would be of great use.
But in a moment what had been, in his mind, certainty was changed into
impossibility; instead of a certain successor he had become some one
whose very existence was imperilled--his existence, that is, on the
only terms that were in the least comfortable. Everything that made
life worth living was threatened. Not that his brother would turn him
out; he granted Harry the very un-Trojan virtues of generosity and
affection for humanity in general--a rather foolish, gregarious
open-handedness opposed obviously to all decent economy. But Harry
would keep him--and the very thought stirred Garrett to a degree of
anger that his sluggish nature seldom permitted him. Kept! and by
Harry! Harry the outlaw! Harry the rebel! Harry the Greek! Garrett
scarcely loved his brother when he thought of it.
But it was necessary that some line of action should be adopted, and he
was glad that Clare had taken the first step.
"You don't think," he said doubtfully, "that he could be induced to go
back?"
"What!" cried Clare, "after these years and the way he has waited!
Why, remember that first evening! He will never leave this again. He
has been dreaming about it too long!"
"I don't know," said Garrett. "He'll be at loggerheads with the town
very soon. He has been saying curious things to a good many people.
He objects to all improvement and says so. The place will soon be too
hot for him."
But Clare shook her head. "No," she said. "He will soon find out
about things--and then, in a little, when he takes father's place, what
people think odd and unpleasant now will be original and strong.
Besides, he would never go, whatever might happen, because of Robin."
"Ah, yes, there is Robin. It will be curious to watch developments
there. Randal comes to-day, doesn't he?"
"Yes, this afternoon. A most delightful boy. I'm afraid that he may
find Harry tiresome."
"We must wait," Garrett said finally; "in a week's time we shall see
better. But, Clare, don't be rash. There is father--and, besides, it
will scarcely help Robin."
"Oh! no melodrama," she said, laughing and moving towards the door.
"Only, we understand each other, Garrie. Things won't do as they
are--or, as they promise to be."
Garrett returned, with a sigh of relief, to his papers.
For Harry the week had been a series of bitter disappointments. He
woke gradually from his dreams and saw that everything was changed. He
was in a new world and he was out of place. Those dreams had been
coloured, fantastically, beautifully. In the white pebbles, the golden
sand, the curling grey smoke of the Cove, he had formed pictures that
had lightened many dreary and lonely hours in Auckland. He was to come
back; away from that huge unwieldy life in which comfort had no place
and rest was impossible, back to all the old things, the wonderful
glorious things that meant home and tradition and, above all, love. He
was a sentimentalist, he knew that now. It had not been so in those
old days; the life had been too adventurous and exciting, and he had
despised the quiet comforts of a stay-at-home existence. But now he
knew its value; he would come home and take his place as head of the
family, as father, as citizen--he had learnt his lesson, and at last it
was time for the reward.
But now that he had come home he found that the lesson was not learnt,
or, perhaps, that the learning had been wasted; he must begin all over
again. Garrett and Clare had not changed; they had made no advances
and had shown him quite plainly, in the courteous Trojan fashion, that
they considered his presence an intrusion, that they had no place in
their ranks that he could fill. He was, he saw it plainly, no more in
line with them than he had been twenty years before. Indeed, matters
were worse. There was no possibility of agreement--they were poles
apart.
With the town, too, he was an "outsider." The men at the Club thought
him a bore--a person of strange enthusiasms and alarming heresies. By
the ladies he was considered rough: as Mrs. le Terry had put it to Miss
Ponsonby, he was a kind of too terrible bushranger without the romance!
He was gauche, he knew, and he hated the tea-parties. They talked
about things of which he knew nothing; he was too sincere to cover his
convictions with the fatuous chatter that passed, in Fallacy Street
society, for brilliant wit. That it was fatuous he was convinced, but
his conviction made matters no easier for him.
But his attitude to the town had been, it must be confessed, from the
very first a challenge. He had expected things that were not there; he
had thought that his dreams were realities, and when he had demanded
golden colours and had been shown stuff of sombre grey, there had been
wild rebellion and impatient discontent with the world. He had thought
Pendragon amazing in its utter disregard of the things that were to him
necessities, but he had forgotten that he himself despised so
completely things that were to Pendragon essentials. He had asked for
beauty and they had given him an Esplanade; he had searched for romance
and had discovered the new hotel; he dreamed of the sand and blue water
of the Cove and had awaked to find the place despised and contemned--a
site for future boarding-houses.
The town had thought him at first entertaining; they had made
allowances for a certain rather picturesque absurdity consequent on
backwoods and the friendship of Maories--men had laughed at the Club
and detailed Harry Trojan's latest with added circumstances and
incident, and for a while this was amusing. But his vehemence knew no
pause, and he stated his disgust at the practical spirit of the new
Pendragon with what seemed to the choice spirits at the Club
effrontery. They smiled and then they sneered, and at last they left
him alone.
So Harry found himself, at the end of the first week after his return,
alone in Pendragon.
He had not, perhaps, cared for their rejection. He had come, like
Gottwalt in _Flegejahre_, "loving every dog, and wishing that every dog
should love him"--but he had seen, at once, that his way must be apart
from theirs, and in that knowledge he had tried to find the comfort of
a minority certain of its own strength and disdainful of common
opinion. He had marvelled at their narrow vision and was unaware that
his own point of view was equally narrow.
And, after all, there was Robin. Robin and he would defy Pendragon and
laugh at its stupid little theories and short-sighted plans. And then,
slowly, irresistibly, he had seen that he was alone--that Robin was on
the side of Pendragon. He refused to admit it even now, and told
himself again and again that the boy was naturally a little awkward at
first--careless perhaps--certainly constrained. But gradually a wall
had been built up between them; they were greater strangers now than
they had been on that first evening of the return. Ah! how he had
tried! He had thought that, perhaps, the boy hated sentiment and he
had held himself back, watching eagerly for any sign of affection,
ready humbly to take part in anything, to help in any difficulty, to
laugh, to sympathise, to take his place as he had been waiting to do
for so many years.
But Robin had made no advances, showed no sign. He had almost repulsed
him--had at least been absolutely indifferent. They had had a walk
together, and Harry had tried his best--but the attempt had been
obvious, and at last there had come a terrible silence; they had walked
back through the streets of Pendragon without a word.
Everything that Harry had said had been unfortunate. He had praised
the Cove enthusiastically, and Robin had been contemptuous. He had
never heard of Pater and had confounded Ibsen with Jerome K. Jerome.
He had praised cricket and met with no reply. Twice he had seen
Robin's mouth curl contemptuously, and it had cut him to the heart.
Poor Harry! he was very lonely. During the last two days he had been
down in the Cove; he had found his way into the little inn and got in
touch with some of the fishermen. But they scarcely solaced his
loneliness. He had met Mary Bethel on the downs, and for a moment they
had talked. There was no stiffness there; she had looked at him simply
as a friend, with no hostility, and he had been grateful.
At last he had begun to look forward to the coming of Robin's friend,
Randal. He was, evidently, a person to whom Robin looked up with great
admiration. Perhaps he would form in some way a link, would understand
the difficulties of both, and would help them. Harry waited, eagerly,
and formed a picture of Randal in his mind that gave him much
encouragement.
He was in his room now; it was half-past four, and the carriage had
just passed up the drive. He looked anxiously at his ties and
hesitated between light green, brown, and black. He had learnt the
importance of these things in his son's eyes. He was going next week
to London to buy clothes; meanwhile he must not offend their sense of
decency, and he hesitated in front of his tie-box like a girl before
her first dance. The green was terribly light. It was a good tie, but
perhaps not quite the thing. Nothing seemed to go properly with his
blue suit--the brown was dull and uninteresting--it lacked character;
any one might have worn it, and he flung it back almost scornfully into
the box. The black was really best, but how dismal! He seemed to see
all his miserable loneliness and disappointment in its dark, sombre
colour. No, that would never do! He must be bright, amusing,
cheerful--anything but dull and dismal. So he put on the green again,
and went down to the drawing-room. Randal was a young man of
twenty-four--dark, tall, and slight, with a rather weary look in the
eyes, as of one who had discovered the hollow mockery of the world and
wondered at the pleasures of simple people. He was perfectly dressed,
and had arrived, after much thought and a University education, at that
excellent result when everything is right, as it were, by accident--as
though no thought had been taken at all. As soon as a man appears to
have laboured for effect, then he is badly dressed. Randal was
good-looking. He had very dark eyes and thin, rather curling lips, and
hair brushed straight back from his forehead.
The room was in twilight. It was Clare's morning-room, chosen because
it was cosy and favoured intimacy. She was fond of Randal and liked to
mother him; she also respected his opinions. The windows looked over
the sea and the blinds were not drawn. The twilight, like a floating
veil, hovered over sea and land; the last faint colours of the sunset,
gold and rose and grey, trembled over the town.
Harry was introduced. Randal smiled, but his hand was limp; Harry felt
a little ashamed of his own hearty grasp and wished that he had been
less effusive. Randal's suit was dark blue and he wore a black tie;
Harry became suddenly conscious of his daring green and, taking his
tea, went and sat in the window and watched the town. The first white
colours of the young moon, slipping from the rosy-grey cloud, touched
faintly the towers of the ruined church on the moor; he fancied that he
could just see the four stones shining darkly grey against the horizon,
but it was difficult to tell in that mysterious half-light. Robin was
sitting under the lamp by the door. The light caught his hair, but his
face was in shadow. Harry watched him eagerly, hungrily. Oh! how he
loved him, his son!
Randal was discussing some people with whom he had been staying--a
little languidly and without any very active interest. "Rather a nice
girl, though," he said. "Only such a dreadful mother. Young
Page-Rellison would have had a shot, I do believe, if it hadn't been
for the mother--wore a wig and talked Cockney, and fairly grabbed the
shekels in bridge."
"And what about the book?" Clare asked.
"Oh! going on," said Randal. "I showed Cressel a chapter the other
day--you know the New Argus man; and he was very nice about it. Of
course, some of the older men won't like it, you know. It fairly goes
for their methods, and I flatter myself hits them pretty hard once or
twice. You know, Miss Trojan, it's the young school you've got to look
to nowadays; it's no use going back to those mid-Victorians--all very
well for the schoolroom--cause and effect and all that kind of
thing--but we must look ahead--be modern and you will be progressive,
Miss Trojan."
"That's just what I'm always saying, Mr. Randal," said Clare, smiling.
"We're fighting a regular battle over it down here, but I think we will
win the day."
Randal turned to Harry. "And you, sir," he said, "are with us, too?"
Harry laughed. He knew that Robin was looking at him. "I have been
away," he said, "and perhaps I have been a little surprised at the
strides that things have made. Twenty years is a long time, and I was
romantic and perhaps foolish enough to expect that Pendragon would be
very much the same when I came back. It has changed greatly, and I am
a little disappointed."
Clare looked up. "My brother has lost touch a little, Mr. Randal," she
said, "and I don't think quite sees what is good for the place--indeed,
necessary. At any rate, he scarcely thinks with us."
"With _us_." There was emphasis on the word. That meant Robin too.
Randal glanced at him for a moment and then he turned to Robin--father
and son! A swift drawing of contrasts, perhaps with an inevitable
conclusion in favour of his own kind. It was suddenly as though the
elder man was shut out of the conversation; they had, in a moment,
forgotten his very presence. He sat in the dusk by the window, his
head in his hands, and terrible loneliness at his heart; it hurt as he
had never known before that anything could hurt. He had never known
that he was sensitive; in Auckland it had not been so. He had never
felt things then, and had a little despised people that had minded.
But there had been ever, in the back of his mind, the thought of those
days that were coming when, with his son at his side, he could face all
things. Well, now he had his son--there, with him in the room. The
irony of it made him clench his hands, there in the dark, whilst they
talked in the lighted room behind him.
"Oh! King's is going to pot," Randal was saying. "I was down in the
Mays and they were actually running with the boats--they seemed quite
keen on going up. The decent men seem to have all gone."
Robin was paying very little attention. He was looking worried, and
Clare watched him a little anxiously. "I hope you will be able to stay
with us some days, Mr. Randal," she said. "There are several new
people in Pendragon whom I should like you to meet."
Randal was charmed. He would love to stop, but he must get back to
London almost immediately. He was going over to Germany next week and
there were many arrangements to be made.
"Germany!" It was Robin who spoke, but the voice was not his usual
one. It was alive, vibrating, startling. "Germany! By Jove!
Randal--are you really going?"
"Why, of course," a little wearily; "I have been before, you know.
Rather a bore, but the Rainers--you remember them, Miss Trojan--are
going over to the Beethoven Festival at Bonn and are keen on my going
with them. I wasn't especially anxious, but one must do these things,
you know."
"Robin was there a year ago--Germany, I mean--and loved it. Didn't
you, Robin?"
"Germany? It was Paradise, Heaven--what you will. Rügen, the Harz,
Heidelberg, Worms----" He stopped and his voice broke. "I'm a little
absurd about it still," he said, as though in apology for such
unnecessary enthusiasm.
"Oh! you're young, Robin," said Randal, laughing. "When you've seen as
much as I have you'll be blasé. Not that one ought to be, but
Germany--well, it hardly lasts, I think. Rügen--why, it rained and
there were mists round the Studenkammer, and how those people eat at
the Jagdschloss! Heidelberg! picture postcards and shocking
hotels--Oh! No, Robin, you'll see all that later. I wish you were
going instead of me, though."
Harry had looked up at the sound of Robin's voice. It had been a new
note. There had been an eagerness, an enthusiasm, that meant life and
something genuine.
Hope that had been slowly dying revived again. If Robin really cared
for Germany like that, then they had something in common. With that
spark a fire might be kindled. A red-gold haze as of fire burnt in the
night sky, over the town. Stars danced overhead, a little wind,
beating fitfully at the window, seemed to carry the light of the moon
in its tempestuous track, blowing it lightly in silver mists and clouds
over the moor. The Wise Men were there, strong and dark and sombre,
watching over the lighted town and listening patiently to the ripple
and murmur and life of the sea at their feet. In the little inn at the
Cove men were sitting over the roaring fire, telling tales--strange,
weird stories of a life that these others did not know. Harry had
heard them when he was a boy--those stories--and he had felt the spell
and the magic. There had been life in them and romance.
Perhaps they were there again to-night, just as they had been twenty
years before. The stars called to him, the lighted town, the dusky,
softly breathing sea, the loneliness of the moor. He must get out and
away. He must have sympathy and warmth and friendship; he had come
back to his own people with open arms and they had no place for him.
His own son had repulsed him. But Cornwall, the country of his dreams,
the mother of his faith, the guardian of his honour, was there--the
same yesterday, to-day, and for ever. He would search for her and
would find her--even though it were on the red-brick floor of the
tavern in the Cove.
He turned round and found that the room was empty. They had forgotten
him and left him--without a word. The light of the lamp caught the
silver of the tea-things, and flashed and sparkled like a flame.
Harry Trojan softly opened the door, passed into the dim twilight of
the hall, picked up his hat, and stepped into the garden.