As he felt the crunch of the gravel beneath his feet he was possessed
with the spirit of adventure. The dark house behind him had been
holding him captive. It had held him against his will, imprisoning
him, tormenting him, and the tortures that he had endured were many and
severe. He had not known that he could have felt it so much--that
absolute rejection of him by everything in which he had trusted; but he
would mind these things no longer--he would even try not to mind Robin!
That would be hard, and as he thought of it even now for a moment tears
had filled his eyes. That, however, was cowardice. He must fling away
the hopes of twenty years and start afresh, with the knowledge won of
his experience and the strength that he had snatched from his wounds.
And after all a man was a fool to mope and whine when that wind from
the sea was beating in his ears and the sea scents of clover and
poppies and salt stinging foam were brought to his nostrils, and the
trees rustled like the beating of birds' wings in the velvety
star-lighted sky.
A garden was wonderful at night--a place of strange silences and yet
stranger sound: trees darkly guarding mysterious paths that ran into
caverns of darkness; the scents of flowers rising from damp earth heavy
with dew; flowers that were weary with the dust and noise of the day
and slept gently, gratefully, with their heads drooping to the soil,
their petals closed by the tender hands of the spirits of the garden.
The night-sounds were strangely musical. Cries that were discordant in
the day mingled now with the running of distant water, the last notes
of some bird before it slept, the measured harmony of a far-away bell,
the gentle rustle of some arrival in the thickets; the voice that could
not be heard in the noisy chatter of the day rose softly now in a
little song of the night and the dark trees and the silver firelight of
the stars.
And it was all very romantic, of course. Harry Trojan had flung his
cares behind him and stepped over the soft turf of the lawns, a free
adventurer. It was not really very late, and there was an hour before
dinner; but he was not sure that he minded about that--they would be
glad to dine without him. There crossed his mind the memory of a night
in New Zealand. He had been walking down to the harbour in Auckland,
and the moon had shone in the crooked water-side streets, its white,
cold light crossed with dark black shadows of roofs and gables.
Suddenly a woman's voice called for help across the silence, and he had
turned and listened. It had called again, and, thinking that he might
help some one in distress, he had burst a dark, silent door, stumbled
up crooked wooden stairs, and entered an empty room. As he passed the
door there was a sound of skirts, and a door at the other end of the
room had closed. There was no one there, only a candle guttering on
the table, the remains of a meal, a woman's hat on the back of a chair;
he had waited for some time in silence, he had called and asked if
there was any one there, he had tried the farther door and found it
shut--and so, cursing himself for a fool, he had passed down into the
street again and the episode had ended. There was really nothing in
it--nothing at all; but it was the atmosphere, the atmosphere of
romantic adventure shot suddenly across a rather drab and colourless
existence, and he had liked to dwell on the possibilities of the affair
and ask himself about it. Who was the woman, and why had she cried
out? Why was there no one in the room? And why had no one answered
him?
He did not know and really he did not care, and, indeed, it was better
that the affair should be left in vague and incomplete outline. It was
probably commonplace enough, had one only known, and sordid too,
perhaps. But to-night was just such a night as that other. He would
go to the Cove and find his romance where he had left it twenty years
ago. It was the hour in Pendragon when shops are closing and young men
and maidens walk out. There were a great many people in the street;
girls with white, tired faces, young men with bright ties and a
self-assertive air--a type of person new to Pendragon since Harry's
day. The young man who served you respectfully, almost timidly, behind
the counter was now self-assertive, taking the middle of the street
with a flourish of his cane. Fragments of conversation came to Harry's
ears--
"Mother being out I thought as 'ow I might venture--not but what she'd
kick up a rare old fuss----"
"So I told 'er it weren't no business of 'ers and the sooner she caught
on to the idea the better for all parties, seein' as 'ow----"
"Well, I never did! and you told 'im that, did yer? I always said
you'd some pluck if you really wanted to----"
A gramophone from an open window up the street shrieked the alluring
refrain of "She's a different girl again," and a man who had
established himself at the corner under the protecting glare of two
hissing gas-jets urged on the company present an immediate acceptance
of his stupendous offer. "Gold watches for 'alf a crown--positively
for one evening in order to clear--all above board. Solid gold and
cheap at a sovereign."
The plunge into the cool depths of the winding little path that led
down to the Cove was delicious. Oh! the contrast of it! The noise and
ugly self-assertion of the town, flinging its gas-jets against the moon
and covering the roll of the sea with the shriek of the gramophone. He
crossed through the turnstile at the bend of the road and passed up the
hill that led to the Cove. At a bend the view of the sea came to him,
the white moonlight lying, a path of dancing shining silver, on the
grey sweep of the sea. A wind was blowing, turning the grey into
sudden points of white--like ghostly hands rising for a moment suddenly
from immensity and then sinking silently again, their prayers
unanswered.
As he passed up the hill he was aware of something pattering beside
him; at first it was a little uncanny in that dim, uncertain light, and
he stopped and bent down to the road. It was a dog, a fox-terrier of a
kind, dirty, and even in that light most obviously a mongrel. But it
jumped up at him and put its paws on his knee.
"Well, company's company," he said with a laugh. "I don't know where
you've sprung from, but we'll travel together for a bit." The dog ran
up the hill, and for a moment stood out against the moon--a shaggy,
disreputable dog with a humorous stump of a tail. He stood there with
one ear flapping back and the other cocked up--a most ridiculous figure.
Harry laughed again and the dog barked; they walked down the hill
together.
The Cove was dark, but from behind shuttered windows lamps twinkled
mysteriously, and the red glow from the inn flung a circle of light
down the little cobbled street. The beat of the sea came solemnly like
the tramp of invisible armies from the distance. There was no other
sound save the tremble of the wind in the trees.
Harry pushed open the door of the inn and entered, followed by the dog.
The place was the same; nothing had been changed. There was the old
wooden gallery where the fiddle had played such merry tunes. The rough
uneven floor had the same holes, the same hills and dales. The great
settle by the fire was marked, as in former years, with mysterious
crosses and initials cut by jack-knives in olden days. The two lamps
shone in their accustomed places--one over the fire, another by the
window. The door leading to the bar was half open, and in the distance
voices could be heard, but the room itself seemed to be empty.
A great fire leapt in the fireplace and the gold light of it danced on
the red-brick floor. The peculiar scent as of tobacco and ale and the
salt of the sea, and, faintly, the breath of mignonette and geraniums,
struck out the long intervals since Harry had been there before.
Twenty years ago he had breathed the same air; and now he was back
there again and nothing was changed. The dog had run to the fire and
sat in front of it now, wagging his stump of a tail, his ear cocked.
Harry laughed and sat down in the settle; the burden of the last week
was flung off and he was a free man.
A long, lean man with a straggling beard stood in the doorway and
watched him; then he came forward. "Mr. Harry," he said, and held out
his hand.
Harry started up. "I'm sorry," he said, stammering, "I don't remember."
"We were wonderin'," said the long, thin man slowly, "when you was
comin' down. Not that you'd remember faces--that's not to be
expected--especially in foreign parts which is confusing and difficult
for a man--but I'm Bill Tregarvis what have had you out fishin' many's
the time--not that you'd remember faces," he said again, looking a
little timidly at him.
But he did! Harry remembered him perfectly! Bill Tregarvis! Why, of
course--many was the time they had seen life together--he had had a
wife and two boys.
Harry wrung his hand and laughed.
"Remember, Bill! Why, of course! It was only for a moment. I had got
the face all right but not the name. Yes, I have, as a matter of fact,
come before, but there were things that have made it difficult at
first, and of course there was a lot to do up there. But it's good to
be down here! The other place is changed; I had been a bit
disappointed, but here it is just the same--the same old lights and
smells and sea, and the same old friends----"
"Yer think that?" Tregarvis looked at him. "Because we'd been fearing
that all your travelling and sight-seeing might have harmed you--that
you'd be thinking a bit like the folk up-along with their cars and gas
and filth. Aye, it's a changed world up there, Mr. Harry; but
down-along there's no difference. It's the sea keeps us steady."
And then they talked about the old adventurous days when Harry had been
eighteen and the world had been a very wonderful place: the herring
fishing, the bathing, the adventures on the moor, the tales at night by
candlelight, the fun of it all. The room began to fill, and one after
another men came forward and claimed friendship on the score of old
days and perils shared. They received him quite simply--he was "Mr.
Harry," but still one of themselves, taking his place with them,
telling tales and hearing them in return.
There were nine or ten of them, and a wild company they made, crowding
round the fire, with the flames leaping and flinging gigantic shadows
on the walls. The landlord, a short, ruddy-faced man with white hair
and a merry twinkle of the eye, was one of the best men that Harry had
ever known.
He was a man whose modesty was only equalled by his charity; a man of
great humour, wide knowledge of the most varied subjects, and above all
a passionate faith in the country of his birth, Cornwall. He was, like
most Cornishmen, superstitious, but his belief in Nature as a wise and
beneficent mother, stern but never unjust, controlled his will and
justified his actions. In those early days Harry had worshipped him
with that whole-hearted adoration bestowed at times by young
hero-worshippers on those that have travelled a little way along the
path and have learnt their lesson wisely. Tony Newsome's influence had
done more for Harry in those early years than he had realised, but he
knew now what he owed to him as he sat by his side and recalled those
other days. They had written once or twice, but Tony was no
correspondent and hated to have a pen between his fingers.
"Drive a horse, pull a boat, shoot a gun, mind a net--but God help me
if I write," he had said. Not that he objected to books; he had read a
good deal and cared for it--but "God's air in the day and a merry fire
at night leaves little room for pen and ink" was his justification.
He treated Harry now as his boy of twenty years ago, and laughed at him
and scolded him as of old. He did not question him very closely on the
incidents of those twenty years, and indeed, with them all, Harry
noticed that there was very little curiosity as to those other
countries. They welcomed him quietly, simply. They were glad that he
was there again, sitting with them, taking his place naturally and
easily--and again the twenty years seemed as nothing.
He sat with the dog at his feet. Newsome's hand was on his knee, and
every once and again he gave a smothered chuckle. "I knew you'd come
back, Mr. Harry," he said. "I just waited. Once the sea has got hold
of you it doesn't loosen its grip so quick. I knew you'd come back."
They told wild stories as they had been telling them for many years at
the same hour in the same place--strange things seen at sea, the lights
and mists of the moor, survivals of smuggling days and fights on the
beach under the moon; and it always was the sea. They might leave it
for a moment perhaps, but they came back to it--the terror of it, the
joy of it, the cruelty of it; the mistress that held them chained, that
called their children and would not be denied, the god that they served.
They spoke of her softly with lowered voices and a strange reverence.
They had learnt her moods and her dangers; they knew that she could
caress them, and then, of a sudden, strike them down--but they loved
her.
And she had claimed Harry again. Everything for which he had been
longing during that past week had come to him at last; their
friendship, their faith in an old god, and above all that sense of a
great adventure, for the spirit of which he had so diligently been
searching. "Up-along" life was an affair of measured rules and things
foreseen. "Down-along" it was a game of unending surprises and a
gossamer web shot with the golden light of romance. High-falutin
perhaps, but to Harry, as he sat before the fire with the strange dog
and those ten wild men, words and pictures came too speedily to admit
of a sense of the absurd.
An old man, with a long white beard and a shaking hand, knew strange
tales of the moor. When the mists creep up and blot out the land, then
the four grey stones take life and are the giants of old, and strange
sacrifices are grimly performed. Talse Carlyon had seen things late on
a moonlit night with the mists swimming white and silvery-grey over the
moor. He had lost his way and had met a man of mighty size who had led
him by the hand. There had been spirits about, and at the foot of the
grey stone a pool of blood--he had never been the same man since.
"There are spirits and spirits," said the old man solemnly, "and there
'm some good and some bad, for the proper edification of us mortals,
and, for my part, it's not for the like of us to meddle."
He stroked his beard--a very gloomy old man with a blind eye. Harry
remembered that he had had a wife twenty years before, so he inquired
about her.
"Dead," said the old man fiercely, "dead--and, thank God, she went out
like a candle."
He muttered this so fiercely that Harry said no more, and the white
beard shone in the light of the fire, and his blind eye opened and shut
like a box, and his wrinkled hand shook on his knee. The fishing had
been bad of late, and here again they spoke as if some personal power
had been at work. There were few there who had not lost some one
during the years that they had served her, and the memory of what this
had been and the foreshadowing of the dangerous future hung over them
in the room. Songs were sung, jokes were made, but they were the songs
and laughter of men on guard, with the enemy to be encountered,
perhaps, in the morning.
Harry sat in his corner of the great seat, watching the leaping of the
flames, his hand on Newsome's shoulder, listening to the murmuring
voices at his side. He scarcely knew whether he were awake or
sleeping; their laughter came to him dimly, and it seemed that he was
alone there with only Newsome by his side and the dog sleeping at his
feet. The tobacco smoke hung in grey-blue wreaths above his head and
the gold light of the two lamps shone mistily, without shape or form.
Perhaps it was really a dream. The old man with the white beard and
the blind eye was sleeping, his head on his breast. A man with a
vacant expression was telling a tale, heavily, slowly, gazing at the
fire. The others were not listening--or at any rate not obviously so.
They, too, gazed at the fire--it had, as it were, become personal and
mesmerised the room. Perhaps it was a dream. He would wake and find
himself at "The Flutes." There would be Clare and Garrett and--Robin!
He would put all that away now; he would forget it for a moment, at
least. He had failed them; they had not wanted him and had told him
so,--but here they had known him and loved him; they had welcomed him
back as though there had been no intervening space of years. They at
least had known what life was. They had not played with it, like those
others. They had not surrounded themselves with barricades of
artificiality, and glanced through distorting mirrors at their own
exaggerated reflection; they had seen life simply, fearlessly,
accepting their peril like men and enjoying their fate with the
greatness of soul that simplicity had given them. They were not like
those others; those on the hill had invaded the sea with noisy clamour,
had greeted her familiarly and offered her bathing-machines and
boarding-houses; these others had reverenced her and learnt to know
her, alone on the downs in the first grey of the dawn, or secretly,
when the breakers had rolled in over the sand, carrying with them the
red and gold of some gorgeous sunset.
He contrasted them in his mind--the Trojans and the Greeks. He turned
round a little in his seat and listened to the story: "It were a man--a
strange man with horns and hoofs, so he said--and a merry, deceiving
eye; but he couldn't see him clear because of the mist that hung there,
with the moon pushing through like a candle, he said. The man was
laughing to himself and playing with leaves that danced at his feet
under the wind. It can't have been far from the town, because Joe
heard St. Elmo's bell ringin' and he could hear the sea quite plain.
He ..."
The voice seemed to trail off again into the distance; Harry's thoughts
were with his future. What was he to do? It seemed to him that his
crisis had come and was now facing him. Should he stay or should he
flee? Why should he not escape--away into the country, where he could
live his life without fear, where there would be no contempt, no
hampering family traditions? Should he stay and wait while Robin
learnt to hate him? At the thought his face grew white and he clenched
his hands. Robin ... Robin ... Robin ... it always came back to
that--and there seemed no answer. That dream of love between father
and son, the dream that he had cherished for twenty years, was
shattered, and the bubble had burst....
"So Joe said he didn't know but he thought it was to the left and down
through the Cove--to the old church he meant; and the man laughed and
danced with the leaves through the mist; and once Joe thought he was
gone, and there he was back again, laughin'."
No, he would face it. He would take his place as he had intended--he
would show them of what stuff he was made--and Robin would see, at
last. The boy was young, it would of course take time----
The door of the inn opened and some one came in. The lamps flared in
the wind, and there was a cry from the fireplace. "Mr. Bethel! Well,
I'm right glad!"
Harry started. Bethel--that had been the name of his friend--the girl
who had come to tea. The new-comer was a large man, over six feet in
height, and correspondingly broad. His head was bare, and his hair was
a little long and curly. His eyes were blue and twinkled, and his face
was pleasantly humorous and, in the mouth and chin, strong and
determined. He wore a grey flannel suit with a flannel collar, and he
was smoking a pipe of great size. Newsome, starting to his feet, went
forward to meet him. Bethel came to the fire and talked to them all;
there was obviously a free companionship between them that told of long
acquaintance. He was introduced to Harry.
"I've heard of you, Mr. Trojan," he said, "and have been expecting to
meet you. I think that we have interests in common--at least an
affection for Cornwall."
Harry liked him. He looked at him frankly between the eyes--there was
no hesitation or disguise; there had been no barrier or division; and
Harry was grateful.
Bethel sat down by the fire, and a discussion followed about matters of
which Harry knew nothing. There was talk of the fishing prospects,
which were bad; a gloom fell upon them all, and they cursed the new
Pendragon--the race had grown too fast for them and competition was too
keen. But Harry noticed that they did not yet seem to have heard of
the proposed destruction of the Cove. Then he got up to go. They
asked him to come again, and he promised that he would. Bethel rose
too.
"If you don't object, Mr. Trojan," he said, "I'll make one with you. I
had only looked in for a moment and had never intended to stay. I was
on my way back to the town."
They went out into the street together, and Harry shivered for a moment
as the wind from the sea met them.
"Ah, that's good," Bethel said; "your fires are well enough, but that
wind is worth a bag of gold."
They walked for a little in silence, and then Harry said: "Those are a
fine lot of men. They know what life really is."
Bethel laughed. "I know what you feel about them. You are glad that
there's no change. Twenty years has made little difference there. It
is twenty years, isn't it?"
"Yes," said Harry. "One thinks that it is nothing until one comes
back, and then one thinks that it's more than it really is."
"Yes, you're disappointed," Bethel said. "I know. Pendragon has
become popular, and to your mind that has destroyed its beauty--or, at
any rate, some of it."
"Well, I hate it," Harry said fiercely, "all this noise and show. Why
couldn't they have left Pendragon alone? I don't hate it for big
places that are, as it were, in the line of march. I suppose that they
must move with the day. That is inevitable. But Pendragon! Why--when
I was a boy, it was simply a little town by the sea. No one thought
about it or worried about it: it was a place wonderfully quiet and
simple. It was too quiet for me then; I should worship it now. But I
have come back and it has no room for me."
"I haven't known it as long as you," Bethel answered, "but I confess
that the very charm of it lies in its contrast. It is invasion, if you
like, but for that very reason exciting--two forces at work and a
battle in progress."
"With no doubt as to the ultimate victory," said Harry gloomily. "Yes,
I see what you mean by the contrast. But I cannot stand there and see
them dispassionately--you see I am bound up with so much of it. Those
men to-night were my friends when I was a boy. Newsome is the best man
that I have ever known, and there is the place; I love every stone of
it, and they would pull it down."
They had left the Cove and were pressing up a steep path to the moor.
The moon was struggling through a bank of clouds; the wind was
whistling over their heads.
Bethel suddenly stopped and turned towards Harry. "Mr. Trojan," he
said, "I'm going to be impulsive and perhaps imprudent. There's
nothing an Englishman fears so much as impulse, and he is terribly
ashamed of imprudence. But, after all, there is no time to waste, and
if you think me impertinent you have only to say so, and the matter
ends."
Harry laughed. "I am delighted," he began, but the other stopped him.
"No, wait a moment. You don't know. I'm afraid you'll think that I'm
absurd--most people will tell you that I am worse. I want you to try
to be a friend of mine, at any rate to give me a chance. I scarcely
know you--you don't know me at all--but; one goes on first impressions,
and I believe that you would understand a little better than most of
these people here--for one thing you have gone farther and seen
more----"
There was a little pause. Harry was surprised. Here was what he had
been wanting--friendship; a week ago he would have seized it with both
hands; now he was a little distrustful; a week ago it would have been
natural, delightful; now it was unusual, even a little absurd.
"I should be very glad," he said gravely. "I--scarcely----"
"Oh," Bethel broke in, "we shall come together naturally--there's no
fear of that. I could see at once that you know the mysteries of this
place just as I do. Those others here are blind. I've been waiting
for some one who would understand. But I don't want you to listen to
those other people about me; they will tell you a good deal--and most
of it's true. I don't blame 'em, but I'm curiously anxious for you not
to think with them. It's ridiculous, I know, when I had never seen you
before. If you only knew how long I'd been waiting--to talk to some
one--about--all this."
He waved his hand and they stopped. They were standing on the moor.
Above their head mighty grey clouds were driving like fleets before the
wind, and the moon, a cold, lifeless thing, a moon of chiselled marble,
appeared, and then, as though frightened at the wild flight of the
clouds, vanished. The sea, pearl grey, lay like mist on the horizon,
and its voice was gentle and tired, as though it were slowly dying into
sleep. They were near the Four Stones--gaunt, grey, and old. The dog
had followed Harry from the inn and now ran, a white shadow, in front
of him.
"Let me tell you," Bethel said, "about myself. You know I was born in
London--the son of a doctor with a very considerable practice. I
received an excellent education, Rugby and Cambridge, and was trained
for the law. I was, I believe, a rather ordinary person with a rather
more than ordinary power of concentration, and I got on. I built up a
business and was extremely and very conventionally happy. I married
and we had a little girl. And then, one summer, we came down to
Cornwall for our holiday. It was St. Ives. I remember that first
morning as though it were yesterday. It was grey with the sea flinging
great breakers. There was a smell of clover and cornflowers in the
air, and great sheets of flaming poppies in the cornfields. But there
was more than that. It was Cornwall, something magical, and that
strange sense of old history and customs that you get nowhere else in
quite the same way. Ah! but why analyse it?--you know as well as I do
what I mean. A new man was born in me that day. I had been sociable
and fond of little quite ordinary pleasures that came my way, now I
wanted to be alone. Their conversation worried me; it seemed to be
pointless and concerned with things that did not matter at all. I had
done things like other men--now it was all to no purpose. I used to
lie for hours on the cliffs watching the sea. I was often out all day,
and I met all sorts of people, tramps, wasters, vagabonds, and they
seemed the only people worth talking to. I met some strange fellows
but excellent company--and they knew, all of them, the things that I
knew; they had been out all night and seen the moon and the stars
change and the first light of the dawn, and the little breeze that
comes in those early hours from the sea, bringing the winds of other
countries with it. And they were merry, they had a philosophy--they
knew Cornwall and believed in her.
"Well--the holiday came to an end, and I had to go back! London. My
God! After that I struggled--I went to my work every day with the
sound of that sea in my ears and the vision of those moors always there
with me. And the freedom! If you have tasted that once, if you have
ever got really close so that you can hear strange voices and see
beauties of which you had never dreamt, well, you will never get back
to your old routine again. I don't care how strong you are--you can't
do it, man. Once she's got hold of you, nothing counts. That was
eighteen years ago. I kept my work for a year, but it was killing me.
I got ill--I nearly died; once I ran away at night and tried to get to
the sea. But I came back--there were my wife and girl. We had a
little money, and I gave it all up and we came to live down here. I
have done nothing since; rather shameful, isn't it, for a strong man?
They have thought that here; they think that I am a waster--by their
lights I am. But the things I have learnt! I didn't know what living
was until I came here! I knew nothing, I did nothing, I was a dead
man. What do I care for their thoughts of me! They are in the dark!"
He had spoken eagerly, almost breathlessly. He was defending his
position, and Harry knew that he had been waiting for years to say
these things to some one of his own kind who would understand. And he
understood only too well! Had he not himself that very evening been
tempted to escape, to flee his duty? He had resisted, but the
temptation had been very strong--that very voice of Cornwall of which
Bethel had spoken--and if it were to return he did not know what answer
he might give. But he was not thinking of Bethel; his thoughts were
with the wife and daughter. That poor pathetic little woman--and the
girl----
"And your wife and daughter?" he said. "What of them?"
"They are happy," Bethel said eagerly. "They are indeed. I don't see
them very often, but they have their own interests--and friends. My
wife and I never had very much in common--Ah! you're going to scold,"
he said, laughing, "and say just what all these other horrid people
say. But I know. I grant it you all. I'm a waster--through and
through; it's damnably selfish--worst of all, in this energetic and
pushing age, it's idle. Oh! I know and I'm sorry--but, do you know,
I'm not ashamed. I can't see it seriously. I wouldn't harm a fly.
Why can't they let me alone? At least I am happy."
They had reached the outskirts of the town by this time and Bethel
stopped before a little dark house with red shutters and a tiny strip
of garden.
"Here we are!" said he. "This is my place. Come in and smoke! It
must be past your dinner hour up at 'The Flutes.' Come and have
something with me."
Harry laughed. "They have already ceased wondering at my erratic
habits," he said. "New Zealand is a bad place for method."
He followed Bethel in. It was a tiny hall, and on entering he stumbled
over an umbrella-stand that lounged forward in a rickety position.
Bethel apologised. "We're in a bit of a mess," he said. "In fact, to
tell the truth, we always are!" He hung his coat in the hall and led
the way into the dining-room. Mrs. Bethel and her daughter came
forward. The little woman was amazing in a dress of bright red silk
and an absurd little yellow lace cap. Only half the table was laid;
for the rest a shabby green cloth, spotted with ink, formed a
background for an incoherent litter of papers and needlework. The
walls were lined with books and there were some piled on the floor.
A cold shoulder of mutton, baked potatoes in their skins, a melancholy
glass dish containing celery, and a salad bowl startlingly empty, lay
waiting on the table.
"Anne," said Bethel, "I've brought a guest--up with the family port and
let's be festive."
His great body seemed to fill the room, and he brought with him the
breath of the sea and the wind. He began to carve the mutton like
Siegfried making battle with Fafner, and indeed again and again during
the evening he reminded Harry of Siegfried's impetuous humour and
rejoicing animal spirits.
Mrs. Bethel was delighted. Her little eyes twinkled with excitement,
her yellow cap was pushed awry, and her hands trembled with pleasure.
It was obvious that a visitor was an unusual event. Miss Bethel had
said very little, but she had given Harry that same smile that he had
seen before. She busied herself now with the salad, and he watched her
white fingers shine under the lamplight and the white curve of her neck
as she bent over the bowl. She was dressed in some dark stuff--quite
simple and unassuming, but he thought that he had never seen anything
so beautiful.
He said very little, but he was quietly happy. Bethel did not talk
very much; he was eating furiously--not greedily, but with great
pleasure and satisfaction. Mrs. Bethel talked continuously. Her eyes
shone and her cap bobbed on her head like a live thing.
"I said, Mr. Trojan, after our meeting the other day, that you would be
a friend. I said so to Mary coming back. I felt sure that first day.
It is so nice to have some one new in Pendragon--one gets used, you
know, to the same faces and tired of them. In my old home, Penlicott
in Surrey, near Marlwood Beeches--you change at Grayling Junction--or
you used to; I think you go straight through now. But _there_ you know
we knew everybody. You really couldn't help it. There was really only
the Vicar and the Doctor, and he was so old. Of course there were the
Draytons; you must have heard of Mr. Herbert Drayton--he paints
things--I forget quite what, but I know he's good. They all lived
there--such a lot of them and most peculiar in their habits; but one
gets used to anything. They all lived together for some time, about
fifteen there were. Mother and I dined there once or twice, and they
had the funniest dining-room with pictures of Job all round the room
that were most queer and rather disagreeable; and they all liked
different things to drink, so they each had a bottle--of
something--separately. It looked quite funny to see the fifteen
bottles, and then 'Job' on the wall, you know."
But he really hadn't paid very much attention to her. He had been
thinking and wondering. How was it that a man like Bethel had married
such a wife? He supposed that things had been different twenty years
ago, with them as with him. It was strange to think of the difference
that twenty years could make. She had been, perhaps, a little pretty,
dainty thing then--the style of girl that a strong man like Bethel
would fall in love with. Then he thought of Miss Bethel--what was her
life with a mother like that and a father who never thought about her
at all? She must, he thought, be lonely. He almost hoped that she
was. It gave them kinship, because he was lonely too. The
conversation was not very animated; Mrs. Bethel was suddenly
silent--she seemed to have collapsed with the effort, and sat huddled
up in her chair, with her hands in her lap.
He realised that he had said nothing to Miss Bethel, and he turned to
her. "You know London?" he said. He wondered whether she longed for
it sometimes--its excitement and life.
"Oh yes," she said quickly; "we were there, you know, a long while ago,
and I've been up once or twice since. But it makes one feel so
dreadfully small, as if one simply didn't count, and no woman likes
that."
"Pendragon makes one feel smaller," Harry said. "When one is of no
account even in a small place, then one is small indeed."
He had not intended to speak bitterly, but she had caught the sound of
it in his voice and she was suddenly sorry for him. She had been a
little afraid of him before--even on that terrible afternoon at "The
Flutes"; but now she saw that he was disappointed--he had expected
something and it had failed him.
She said nothing then, and the meal came to an end. Bethel dragged
Harry into his study to see the books. There was the same untidiness
here. The table was littered with papers and pens, tobacco jars,
numerous pipes, some photographs. From the floor to the ceiling were
books--rows on rows--flung apparently into the shelves with no order or
method.
"I'm no good as far as books go," said Harry, laughing. "There never
was such a heathen. There have always been other things to do, and I
must confess it is a mystery to me how men get time to read at all. If
I do get time I'm generally done up, and a novel's the only thing I'm
fit for."
"Ah, then, you don't know the book craze," Bethel Said. "It's worse
than drink. I've seen it absolutely ruin a man. You can't stop--if
you see a book you must get it, whether you really want it or no. You
go on buying and buying and buying. You get far more than you can ever
read. But you're a miser and you hate even lending them. You sit in
your room and count the covers, and you're no fit company for man or
beast."
Harry looked at him--"You've known it?"
"Oh yes! I've known it. I'm a bit better now--I'm out such a lot.
But even now there's a great deal here that I've never read, and I add
to it continually. The worst of it is," he said, laughing, "that we
can't afford it. It's very hard on Mary and the wife, but I'm a rotten
loafer, and that's the end of it."
He said it so gaily and with so little sense of responsibility that you
couldn't possibly think that it weighed on him. But he looked such a
boy, standing there with his hands in his pockets and that
half-penitent, half-humorous look in his eyes, that you couldn't be
angry. Harry laughed.
"Upon my word, you're amazing!"
"Oh! you'll get sick of me. It's all so selfish and slack, I know.
But I struggled once--I'm in the grip now." He talked about Borrow and
displayed a little grey-bound "Walden" with pride. He spoke of Richard
Jefferies with an intimate affection as though he had known the man.
He gave Harry some of his enthusiasm, and he lent him "Lavengro." He
described it and Harry compared mentally Isobel Berners with Mary
Bethel.
Then they went up to the little drawing-room--an ugly room, but
redeemed by a great window overlooking the sea, and a large photograph
of Mary on the mantelpiece. Under the light of the lamp the silver
frame glittered and sparkled.
He sat by the window and talked to her, and again he had that same
curious sense of having known her before: he spoke of it.
"I expect it's in another existence then," she said; "as I've never
been into New Zealand and you've never been out of it--at least, since
I've been born. But, of course, I've talked about you to Robin. We
speculated, you know. We hadn't any photographs much to help us, and
it was quite a good game."
"Ah! Robin!"
"I want to speak to you about him," she said, turning round to him.
"You won't think me interfering, will you? but I've meant to speak ever
since the other day. I was afraid that, perhaps--don't think it
dreadfully rude of me--you hadn't quite understood Robin. He's at a
difficult age, you know, and there are a lot of things about him that
are quite absurd. And I have been afraid that you might take those
absurdities for the real things and fancy that that was all that was
there. Cambridge--and other things--have made him think that a certain
sort of attitude is essential if you're to get on. I don't think he
even sincerely believes in it. But they have taught him that he must,
at least, seem to believe. The other things are there all right, but
he hides them--he is almost ashamed of any one suspecting their
existence."
"Thank you!" Harry said quietly. "It is very kind of you and I'm
deeply grateful. It's quite true that Robin and I haven't seemed to
hit it off properly. I expect that it is my fault. I have tried to
see his point of view and have the same interests, but every effort
that I've made has seemed to make things worse. He distrusts me, I
think, and--well--of course, that hurts. All the things in which I had
hoped we would share have no interest for him."
"Don't you think, perhaps," she said, "that you've been a little too
anxious--perhaps, a little too affectionate? I am speaking like this
because I care for Robin so much. We have been such good friends for
years now, and I think he has let me see a side of him that he has
hidden from most people. He is curiously sensitive, and really, I
think, very shy; and most of all, he has a perfect horror of being
absurd. That is what I meant about your being affectionate. He would
think, perhaps, that the rest were laughing at him. It's as if you
were dragging something that was very sacred and precious out into the
light before all those others. Boys are like that; they are terrified
lest any one should know what good there is in them--it isn't quite
good form."
They were silent for some time. Harry was throwing her words like a
searchlight on the events of the past week, and they revealed much that
had been very dark and confused. But he was thinking of her. Their
acquaintance seemed to have grown into intimacy already.
"I can't thank you enough," he said again.
"It is so nice of you," she said laughing, "not to have thought it
presumptuous of me. But Robin is a very good friend of mine. Of
course you will find out what a sterling fellow he is--under all that
superficiality. He is one of my best friends here!"
He got up to go. As he held out his hand, he said: "I will tell you
frankly, Miss Bethel, that Pendragon hasn't received me with open arms.
I don't know why it should--and twenty years in New Zealand knocks the
polish off. But it has been delightful this evening--more than you
know."
"It has been nice for us too," Mary answered. "I don't know that
Pendragon is exactly thronging our door night and day--and a new friend
is worth having. You see I've claimed you as a friend because you
listened so patiently to my sermon--that's a sure test."
She had spoken lightly but he had felt the bitterness in her voice.
Life was hard for her too, then? He knew that he was glad.
"I shall come back," he said.
"Please," she answered.
He said good-bye to Mrs. Bethel and she pressed his hand very warmly.
"You are very kind to take pity on us," she said, ogling him under the
gas in the hall; "I hope you will come often."
Bethel said very little. He walked with him to the gate and laughed.
"We're absurd, aren't we, Trojan?" he said. "But don't neglect us
altogether. Even absurdity is refreshing sometimes."
But Harry went up the hill with a happier heart than he had had since
he entered Pendragon.
That promise of adventure had been fulfilled.