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THE THREE FURLONGERS
[Illustration: With outstretched arms she rushed to one of them
--Page 10]
THE THREE FURLONGERS
BY
SHEILA KAYE-SMITH
AUTHOR OF "SPELL LAND," "ISLE OF THORNS," ETC.
There may be hope above,
There may be rest beneath;
We know not--only Death
Is palpable--and love.
--DOLBEN.
[Illustration: Logo]
PHILADELPHIA AND LONDON
J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY 1914
COPYRIGHT, 1914, BY J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY
ISSUED SEPTEMBER, 1914
COPYRIGHT IN GREAT BRITAIN UNDER THE TITLE "THREE AGAINST THE WORLD"
PRINTED BY J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY
AT THE WASHINGTON SQUARE PRESS
PHILADELPHIA, U. S. A.
CONTENTS
BOOK I
THREE AGAINST THE WORLD
CHAPTER PAGE
I. SPARROW HALL 9
II. SHOVELSTRODE 20
III. IN THE RAIN 31
IV. FATE'S AFTERTHOUGHT 40
V. THE HERO 53
VI. THICK WOODS 63
VII. OVER THE GATES OF PARADISE 75
VIII. BRAMBLETYE 86
IX. SOME PEOPLE ARE HAPPY--IN DIFFERENT WAYS 97
X. TONY BACKS AN OUTSIDER 109
XI. DISILLUSION AT SIXTEEN 122
XII. CHILDREN DANCING IN THE DUSK 135
XIII. KEEPING CHRISTMAS 145
XIV. WOODS AT DAWN 161
XV. THE SERMON ON FORGIVENESS 173
BOOK II
THE WORLD AGAINST THE THREE
CHAPTER PAGE
I. GLIMPSES AND DREAMS 187
II. THE LETTER THAT DID NOT COME 201
III. ONLY A BOY 213
IV. FLAMES 228
V. COWSANISH 237
VI. AND I ALSO DREAMED 252
VII. WOODS AT NIGHT 259
VIII. VIGIL 268
IX. AND YOU ALSO SAID 280
X. A TOAST 300
BOOK I
THREE AGAINST THE WORLD
THE THREE FURLONGERS
CHAPTER I
SPARROW HALL
The twilight was dropping over the fields of three counties--Surrey,
Kent and Sussex--all touching in the woods round Sparrow Hall. In the
sky above and in the fields below lights were creeping out one by one.
The Great Wain lit up over Cansiron, just as the farmer's wife set the
lamp in the window of Anstiel, and the lights of Dorman's Land were like
a reflection of the Pleiades above them.
Janet Furlonger sat waiting in the kitchen of Sparrow Hall--now and then
springing up to lift the lid off the pot and smell the brown soup, or to
put her face to the window-pane and watch the creeping night, seen dimly
through the thick green glass and the mists that steamed up from the
fields of Wilderwick.
Janet was immensely tall, and her movements were grand and free. In rest
she had a kind of statuesque dignity: she did not stoop, as if ashamed
of her height, but held herself proudly, with lifted chin. People used
to say that she walked as if she were showing off beautiful clothes.
This was meant to be a joke, for Janet's clothes were terrible--old,
and badly made. Hats, collars and waist-bands she evidently thought
superfluous; it was also fairly obvious that she dispensed with
stays--which caused scandal, not because her figure was bad, but because
it was too good. Wind, sun and rain had tinted her face to a delicate
wood-nut brown, through which the red glowed timidly, like the flush on
a spring catkin.
Footsteps sounded on the frosty road, drawing steadily nearer. The next
minute the gate clicked. Janet started to her feet, flung open the
kitchen door, and ran out into the garden, between rows of
chrysanthemums still faintly sweet. Two men were coming up the path, and
with outstretched arms she rushed to one of them.
"Nigel!--old man!"
He did not speak, but folded her to him, bending his face to hers. It
was too dark for them to see each other distinctly. All that was clear
was the outline of the roof and chimney against the still tremulous
west.
Janet pulled him softly up the path, into the doorway, where it was
darker still. She put up her hands to his face and gently felt the
outlines of his features. Then she began to laugh.
"What a fool I am! Didn't I say I wasn't going to have any silly
sentimentality?--and here I am, simply wallowing in it. Come into the
kitchen, young men, and see what I've got for the satisfaction of your
gross appetites."
They followed her into the kitchen, and she turned round and looked at
them both. They were very different. The elder brother, Leonard, was
like Janet--dark both of hair and eye, with a healthy red under his
tan. The younger's hair was between brown and auburn, and his eyes were
large and blue and innocent like a child's. His mouth was not like a
child's--indeed, there was a peculiar look of age in its drooping
corners, and his teeth flashed suddenly, almost vindictively, when he
spoke; it was lucky that they were so white and even, for he showed them
with every movement of his lips--two fierce, shining rows.
"You're late," said Janet. "No, don't look at the clock, unless you've
remembered how to do the old sum. It's really something after nine, and
the train is supposed to get in at half-past seven."
"Yes--but I got hung up at Grinstead station, playing guardian angel to
a kid."
"Let's hope the kid didn't ask to see your wings," said Leonard. "Was it
a girl-kid or a boy-kid?"
"A girl-kid. There were five of 'em in my carriage. They'd been sent
home from school for some reason or other, and this one evidently hadn't
let her people know, for when she got out at East Grinstead there was no
one to meet her. All the station cabs had been snapped up, and some
loathly bounder got hold of her--goodness knows what would have happened
if I hadn't turned up and managed to scatter him. I got her a taxi from
the Dorset, and sent her off in it to Shovelstrode."
"Shovelstrode!--then she must be old Strife's daughter. What age was
she?"
"I should put her down at sixteen, but very innocent."
"Pretty?"
"Ye--es."
"Nigel, my boy, you haven't let the grass grow under your feet."
"Idiot!--we never exchanged a word except in the way of business. She
wanted to know my name, but I took care to say Smith. There was nothing
exciting about it at all--only an infernal loss of time."
"Quite so. You didn't find me in a particularly good temper when you
turned up at Hackenden."
"The first words that passed between us were--'Is that you, you ass?'
and 'Yes, you fool.' We haven't done the thing properly at all--we've
forgotten to fall on each other's necks."
"Let's do it now," said Len, and the two boys collapsed into a mock
embrace, in the grips of which they staggered up and down the kitchen,
knocking over several chairs.
"Oh, stop, you duffers!" shouted Janet; but she was laughing. "Nigel
hasn't changed a bit," she said to herself.
"What have they been doing to your clothes?" asked Leonard, as his
brother finally hurled him off. "They stink, lad, they stink."
"They've been fumigated," said Nigel. "I've worn off some of the reek in
the train, but to-morrow Janey shall peg 'em out to air."
"We'll hang 'em across the road from the orchard. Lord! won't the
Wilderwick freaks sit up!"
"It'll take ages to get that smell out," said Janet ruefully, "and your
hair, too, Nigel--when'll that look decent again?"
"I say, stop your personal remarks, you two--and give me something to
eat. I'm all one aching void."
Janet took the soup off the fire, and slopped it into three blue bowls.
Nigel went round the table, setting straight the spoons and forks, which
Janey seemed to have flung on from a distance.
"What's that for?" she asked.
The young man started, then flushed slightly.
"Hullo! I didn't notice what I was doing. I always had to do that in
prison."
"Put things straight?--what a good idea!"
"Yes. Everything had to be straight--in rows. Ugh!"
For the first time he looked self-conscious.
"Well, it's a very good habit to have got into. You may be quite useful
now."
"I'm damned if I'd have done it," said Leonard.
"You had to do it," said Nigel; "if you didn't ..." and a shudder passed
over him.
"What?" asked his brother and sister with interest.
He flushed more deeply, and the muscles of his face quivered.
Then a surprising, terrible thing happened--so surprising and so
terrible that Leonard and Janey could only stand and gape. Nigel hid his
face in his hands, and began to cry.
For some moments they stared at him with blank, horror-stricken eyes.
Scarcely a minute ago he had been uproarious--forgetting pain and shame
in the substantial ecstasies of reunion, smothering--after the Furlonger
habit--all memories of anguish in a joke. Never since his earliest
manhood had they seen him cry, not even on the day they had said
good-bye to him for so long. Now he was crying miserably, weakly,
hopelessly--crying quietly like a child, his hands covering his eyes,
his shoulders shaking a little. Then suddenly he gasped, almost
whimpered--
"Don't ask me those questions. Don't ask me any more questions."
"Nigel," cried Janet, finding her tongue at last, "I'm so sorry. I
didn't know you minded. Please don't cry any more--it hurts us."
"We didn't mean anything, old man," said Leonard huskily. "Do cheer up,
and forget all about it."
Nigel took away his hands from his eyes, and Len and Janey glanced
quickly at each other. They had expected to see his face swollen and
disfigured, but except for a slight redness round the eyes it was quite
unchanged. They both knew that it is only the faces of those who cry
continually which are so little altered by tears.
For a moment they could not speak. A chill seemed to have dropped on
Sparrow Hall, and all three heard the moaning of the wind--as it swept
up to the windows, rattled them, then seemed to hurry away, sighing over
the fields.
"Come, drink your soup, old chap," said Janet, pulling up his chair to
the table. "Write me down an ass, a tactless ass," she growled to
herself; "but how could I know he would take on that way?"
Nigel obediently began to swallow the soup, while Len and Janey talked
across him with laboured airiness about the weather. After the soup came
bacon and eggs, and potatoes cooked in their skins. Nigel's spirits
began to rise--he seemed childishly delighted with the food, though
Janet's cooking was sketchy in the extreme. When the meal was over, he
joined in the washing up, which was done at a sink in the corner of the
kitchen.
"What sort of people are the Lowes?" he asked suddenly, polishing a fork
with a vigour and thoroughness which made Leonard and Janey tremble lest
he should realise what he was doing. "What sort of people are the
Lowes?"
Janet flushed.
"Oh, they're quite ordinary," said Leonard, "quite ordinarily
unpleasant, I mean. The old chap's narrow and pious, like most
devil-dodgers, and the young 'un's like an ape."
"And they've got all the Kent land?"
"Oh, it's nothing to speak of. You know that end was always too low for
wheat"--poor Len was in a panic lest his brother should begin to cry
again.
But, strangely enough, Nigel was able to discuss the fallen fortunes of
Sparrow Hall with even less emotion than Len and Janey. The tides of his
grief seemed to find their way into small streams only. It was about the
side-issues of their tragedy that he asked most questions. Was Leonard
still going to have a man to help him, now his brother had
returned?--Was any profit likely to be made in their reduced
circumstances?--Was there any chance of buying back what they had sold
to Lowe?
"We shall have to go quietly," said Len, "but I don't see why we
shouldn't pull through if we're careful. I've given Boorman a week's
notice. He can bump round here till it's up, and lend you a hand now and
then--I don't suppose you'll tumble into things just at first."
Nigel suddenly turned away.
"I'm going out--to have a look round the place."
"Now!"
"Yes--it's a beautiful clear night."
Janet and Leonard moved towards the door.
"I'm going alone," said Nigel shortly.
Janet and Leonard stood still. They stared at each other, at first with
surprise, then a little forlornly, while their brother pulled on his
overcoat, and went out of the room.
Never, since they could remember, had one of the Furlongers preferred to
be without the others.
It was past midnight, and Janet was not yet asleep. She lay in bed, with
a lighted candle beside her, her hair tumbled over the pillow and over
her body, her neck gleaming through the heavy strands.
Her room was full of warm splashes of colour. The bedspread and carpet,
though faded, glowed with sudden reds and gentle browns--faded red roses
were on the wall. The window was low, so that when she turned on the
pillow she could look straight out of it at a huddled mass of woods. It
was uncurtained, and the stars flashed through the thick panes.
There was a knock at the door.
"Come in"--and Nigel came in softly.
"Hullo, old man."
"I want to speak to you, Janey."
"And I want to speak to you. Come and sit on the bed."
"I--I want to say I'm sorry I cried this evening."
"Oh, don't!" gasped Janet.
"It's a habit one gets into in prison--crying about little things.
Prison is made up of little things and crying about 'em--that's why it's
so hellish."
Her hand groped on the coverlet for his.
"I expect I'll get out of it--crying, I mean--now I'm back."
"Don't let it worry you, old boy--we're pals, you and Len and I.
But--but--don't you really like us talking to you about prison?"
He lifted his head quickly.
"It all depends."
"You see, there you were ragging and laughing about your clothes and
your hair and all that. So how was I to know you'd mind----"
"But it's different. Oh, I don't suppose you'll understand--but it's
different. Having one's clothes fumigated and one's hair cut short is a
joke--it's funny, it's a joke, so I laughed. But being obliged to have
everything exactly straight--every damned fork in its damned place----"
he stopped suddenly and ground his teeth. "It's the little things that
are so infernal and degrading; big things one has to make oneself big to
tackle, somehow, and it helps. But the little things ... one just cries.
Listen, Janey. Once a fortnight they used to come and search us in our
cells. We used to stand there just in our vests and drawers, and they'd
pass their hands over us. Well, I could stand that, for it was
horrible--sickening and monstrous and horrible. But when you were
punished just because your tins weren't in the exact mathematical space
allotted to them--it wasn't horrible or monstrous at all, just childish
and silly; and when a dozen childish and silly things crowd into your
day, why, you become childish and silly yourself, that's all. What I
can't forgive prison isn't that it's made me hard or wicked or wretched,
but that it's made me childish and silly--so if I deserved hanging when
I went in, I'm hardly worth spanking now I've come out."
"What I can't forgive prison is the miserable ideas you've picked up in
it."
"There aren't any ideas in prison--only habits."
He hid his face for a minute in the coverlet. Janet's hand crept over
his hair.
"You'll soon be happy again, old boy," she whispered.
"Perhaps I shall."
"I hope to God you will--and now, dear, it's dreadfully late, and you're
tired. Hadn't you better go to bed?"
He turned to her impulsively.
"You'll stick to me, you and Len?--whatever I'm like--even--even if I'm
not quite the same as I used to be."
Strange to say, her impression of him was of an infinite childishness.
She realised with a pang that while for the last three years she and
Leonard had been growing older in their contact with a world of love and
sorrow, this boy, in spite of all he had suffered, had merely been shut
up with a few rules and habits. In many ways he was younger than when he
first went to gaol, more ignorant and more childish--he had lost his
grip of life. In other ways he was terribly, horribly older.
She put her arms around his neck, and kissed this pathetic old child,
this poor childish old man.