The memories of a man are of the past. A child has no past; his
memories are of the imagined future. His soul, in its haste for new
experience, rushes on, outdistancing life.
After his false awakening by Vashti, the world which Teddy annexed for
himself was composed of sky and pigeons. Often as he watched his birds
rise into the air, he would make his mind the companion of their flight.
It seemed to him that his body was left behind and that the earth lay
far below him, an unfolding carpet of dwarfed trees and houses as small
as pebbles. By day his thoughts were of wings. By night, gazing from his
bedroom window when the coast-line of the clouds had grown blurred, he
would watch the Invincible Armada of the stars, plunging onward and ever
onward through the heavens. The little he had learnt of life had pained
him; so he took Mr. Sheerug’s advice and remade the world with a hobby.
When the stars winked, he believed they were telling him that they knew
that one day he would be great.
His pigeons and the wide clean thoughts they gave him, kept his mind
from morbid physical inquiries. The school he attended in Eden Row was
conducted by an old Quaker, a man whose gentle religion shamed the boys
of shameful conversations.
The inklings of life which he had gained through Vashti, made him re-act
against further knowledge. Love in her case had begun with beauty,
but it had ended with the wretched face of a woman and a policeman’s
bull’s-eye staring down on it. Perhaps love always ended that way,
causing pain to others and ugliness. He shrank from it. Like a tortoise
when its head has been touched, he withdrew into his shell and stayed
there. He was content to be young and to remain incurious as to the
meaning of his growing manhood. The days slipped by while he lived his
realities in books and pigeons, and in his father’s paintings. Not until
he was fifteen did he again awaken, when the door unexpectedly opened,
leading into a new experience.
It was an afternoon in July, the last day of the summer term. The school
had broken up. The playground was growing empty. With the last of the
boys he came out of the gate and stood saying “Good-by.” They had told
him where they were going--all their plans for the green and leafy
future. They were going to farmhouses in the country and to cottages by
the sea. Some of them were not returning to school; they were going to
the city to become men and to earn money. He watched them saunter
away down Eden Row, joking and aiming blows at one another with their
satchels.
From across the river, softened by distance, came laughter and the
pitter-pat of tennis. In the golden spaces between trees of the park,
girls advanced and retreated, volleying with their racquets. Their hair
rose and fell upon their shoulders as they twisted and darted. They were
as unintelligible to Teddy as if they had spoken a different language.
What was it that he wanted? It was something for which he never found
a name--something which continually eluded his grasp. He was haunted by
desire for an intenser beauty. All kinds of things, totally unrelated,
would stab him into yearning: sometimes a passage in a book; sometimes
the freedom of a bird in flight; and now the music of girlish laughter.
He was burdened with the sense that life would not wait for him--would
not last; that it was escaping like water through his fingers. He wanted
to live it fully. He wanted to be wise, and happy, and splendid. And yet
he was afraid--afraid of disillusion. He feared that if he saw anything
too closely, it would lose its fascination. Those girls, if he were to
be with them, he could not laugh as they laughed; he would have nothing
to say. And yet, he knew of boys----
Hitching the strap of his satchel higher, he smiled. These thoughts were
foolish; they had come to him because he had been saying good-by. They
always came when he felt the hand of Change upon his shoulder.
Before his home a cab was standing. On entering the hall he heard the
murmurous sound of voices. A door opened. His mother slipped out to him
with the air of mystery that betokened visitors.
“How late you are, darling! Run and get tidy. Some one’s been waiting
for you for hours.”
As he made a hasty schoolboy toilet he wondered who it could be. His
mother had seemed flustered and excited. No one ever came to see him; to
him nothing ever happened. Other boys went away for summer holidays;
he knew of one who had been to France. But to stir out of Eden Row was
expensive; all his journeys had to be of the imagination. When one had a
genius for a father, even though he was unacknowledged, one ought to
be proud of poverty. To be allowed to sacrifice for such a father was a
privilege. That was what Dearie was always telling him.
The room in which the visitor was waiting was at the back of the house.
It had folding windows, which were open, and steps leading down into
the garden. Evening fragrances drifted in from flowers. In the waning
sunlight the garden became twice peopled--by its old inhabitants and by
their shadows. On the lawn a sprinkler was revolving, throwing up a mist
which sank upon the turf with the rustle of falling rain.
A man rose from the couch as he entered--a fair, thin man with blue
impatient eyes and a worn, wistful expression. He looked as though he
had been always trying to clasp something and was going through life
with his arms forever empty. He placed his hands on the boy’s shoulders,
gazing at him intently.
“Taller, but not much older. In all the time I’ve been away you’ve
scarcely altered. Do you know me?”
“Why, of course. It’s Mr. Hal.”
“No, just Hal. You didn’t used to call me ‘Mister.’ You can’t guess
why I’ve come. I’ve told your mother, and she’s consented, if you are
willing. I want your help.” Teddy glanced at his mother. Her eyes were
shining; she had been almost crying. What could Hal have said to make
her unhappy? How could he, a boy, help a man? In the silence he heard
the sprinkler in the garden mimicking the sound of rain.
Hal’s voice grew low and embarrassed. “I want your help about a little
girl. She’s lonely. I call her little, but in many ways she’s older than
you are. She’s living in a house in the country, and she wants some one
to play with. I’ve been so long out of England that I’d forgotten how
tall you’d been getting. But, perhaps, you won’t mind, even though she’s
a girl. It’s a pretty place, this house in the country, with cows and
wild flowers and a river. You’d enjoy it, and--and you’d be helping me
and her.”
“Sounds jolly,” said Teddy; “I’d like to go most awfully, only--only
what makes you and mother so sad?”
Hal tried to appear more cheerful. “I’m not sad. I was worried. Thought
you wouldn’t come when you heard it was to play with a girl.”
“He’s not sad,” said Dearie; “it’s only that, if you go, we mustn’t tell
anybody--not even Mrs. Sheerug; at least, not yet.”
Teddy chuckled. At last something was going to happen. “That’ll be fun.
But how glad Mrs. Sheerug must be to have you back.”
Hal rose to his feet. “She isn’t That’s another of the things she
doesn’t know yet. I must be going. Your mother says she can have you
ready to-morrow, so I’ll call for you.”
Teddy noticed how he dashed across the pavement to his cab. He felt
certain that his reason was not lack of time, but fear lest he might be
observed. He questioned his mother. She screwed her lips together: “Dear
old boy, I’m not allowed to tell.”