STUART GOES A-STUNTING
The girls knew that Stuart’s next act would be a carefully veiled
apology to the spirit of the trio, for the moment he had been deaf to
its call. Apology that would probably manifest itself in a deed of
unwonted daring, originality and impudence, that none might suspect
it of being an apology; deed which would firmly re-establish in the
eyes of the twain his slightly shaken position. For though with Peter
he had crossed swords in single combat, had known the pleasure of
knocking from her grasp the weapon, the pleasure of stepping back to
allow her to resume it,--not, most certainly, because he was a little
gentleman, but because he preferred her blade in hand; for though
with Merle he had walked awhile in a two-world too softly cushioned
for his taste; yet with these things the spirit of the trio did not
concern itself. Nor was it to be placated save by offering to the
number three. So Peter and Merle were somewhat surprised when Stuart’s
expected fireworks tamely resolved themselves into a verbally conveyed
invitation to spend the first week in May with his elder sister,
married to an owner of vast estates in Devonshire.
“The orchards will all be in bloom, and ought to look rather fine,”
said Stuart; “by the way, did I mention that I’m invited as well?
We can paint the place as red as we please; Dorothy and Ralph won’t
interfere with us much. Dorothy wanted to know if she need write to you
both separately, but I said it would be all right.”
“Dorothy--Ralph--Devonshire,” echoed Merle, when she was alone with
Peter; “what a picture it conveys of flowered chintz and cream and low
window-seats. I’m sure the tenants call her Mistress Dorothy, and she
has calm grey eyes, and wears a fichu, and keys.”
“Rather an inadequate costume,” Peter murmured; “and I can’t imagine
a sister of Stuart with ‘calm’ anything. Shall we accept? My country
boots are done for.”
“Buy new ones.”
“New ones always take weeks to tame. I’d rather tame a bull than boots.
The Bull and Boot sounds like a public-house. I wish Stuart hadn’t
taught me to search for the hidden pub. in my most innocent phrases.”
“It’s rather a low habit,” Merle agreed. “Yes, I think we’ll visit
Mistress Dorothy in Devon, if Grandmaman has no objections.”
Grandmaman had no objections whatever, though the invitation came
somewhat too informally for her notions of etiquette. She was also at a
loss how Merle was to make adequate return to her hostess, and insisted
on the girl packing the gift of a three-tiered satin bonbonnière among
her evening frocks, by way of a beginning in the balancing of ledgers.
Peter bought her boots; gladdened Miss Esther’s county soul by an
entirely fabulous narrative relating to the ancient birth and lineage
of Squire Ralph Orson of Orson Manor; and on the fifth of May, met
her two fellow-travellers at Paddington. Stuart established her with
Merle in a first-class carriage, with every possible luxury; for in
detail-work he excelled, never allowing their schemes to be upset by a
single hitch of the mechanical order. Then, to their astonishment, he
begged leave to retire to a smoker.
“Aren’t we looking our best?” Peter demanded of Merle, as the train
quitted the platform, and the belt of his Norfolk coat vanished down
the corridor. “Or is he trying to impress us with the fact that for
the future he intends to Lead a Man’s Life?”
They saw nothing of him during the next few hours, not even in the
luncheon-car. And towards three o’clock Peter declared they must be
within that distance of Dawlish, the station for Orson Manor, when
respectable people with rugs would begin strapping them:
“Not having any rugs, we’ll compromise by washing our faces.”
Merle leant out of the window, and took a deep breath of the sparkling
air.
“Stuart didn’t say it was near the sea,” as the train ran alongside the
broken silver line of wave. “Why, this _is_ Dawlish! Peter, here we
are--we----”
The engine gathered all its slumbering forces, and thundered at the
speed of a mile a minute through the tiny station in its setting of
bold red rock.
“It--hasn’t--stopped,” gasped Merle. Which was obvious, seeing that her
slight figure against the window was flung from side to side by the
reckless pace at which the express was pounding through Devon.
And: “Stuart, it hasn’t stopped!” as that gentleman, with a pleasant
smile, and still carrying his pipe, entered their compartment and sat
down.
“No; this is the ‘Cornishman.’ It goes right through from Plymouth to
Penzance.”
“But your sister?”
“My sister is in bed with influenza. And anyway, she’s not expecting
you. I doubt if she knows of your existence.”
He rose, and surveyed with a ferocious scowl his bewildered victims.
“I’ve abducted you!” quoth Stuart. “I’ve told you often enough that
I was a pirate in disguise. You wouldn’t believe me. You played with
fire. Now you’re abducted without the option of a fine. Open your
mouths and scream, if you like; I don’t mind.”
Peter eyed him sternly: “You mean that the invitation was a hoax? You
lured us from our homes on false pretences?”
He was humming a tune from the “Pirates of Penzance,” and at the same
time polishing his eye-glass. So he merely nodded assent.
Merle said quietly: “This will mean an awful row for me.”
“No, it won’t,” he reassured her; “because nobody need ever know. To
all intents and purposes we’re staying at Orson Manor. Dorothy only
comes to town about once every four years, and I’ll tip her the wink to
play up. She’ll do it for me,” finished the lord of the house of Heron.
“But where are we going?”
“Haven’t the remotest notion. We’ll see when we get to Penzance. And
I’ll let you both have a say in the matter, though it isn’t usual in
cases of abduction.”
He stole a glance at Peter; her eyes were dancing, and the corners of
her mouth tilted upwards. So that he knew he had pleased her. Though
she merely said: “So that’s why you refused to travel in our company,
is it?”
“I couldn’t stand your innocent chatter about Dorothy and Devon,” he
confessed; “it’s weak, I own, but even a pirate has a heart that bleeds
for prattling babes.”
“Yes, but look here: suppose Madame des Essarts and Mrs. Heron should
come together. Your mother will know that we are not where we seem.
They do meet, don’t they, Merle?”
Merle took fright at the notion. “Not often; they’re in different sets.
Grandmaman moves mainly among consuls, you know. But they visit on At
Home days. Oh, Stuart----”
“D’you take me for a bloomin’ amateur?” he demanded, “Haven’t I
provided for every contingency? I sat me down and thought and thought
and thought what one lady could be made to do, to mortally offend
another. I repeat, to mortally offend another. All for the prevention
of visits on At Home days. At last, I uprose, and put myrrh and
frankincense upon my hair, and went unto my mother; and, ‘Mother dear,’
I said, soft as any cooing dove; ‘I can see you are harassed and beset.
Would you like me to make out the list for your big reception next
month?’ Fortunately, I’ve played the good son once or twice before, so
my conduct couldn’t arouse the suspicions it deserved. Nay, she was
touched almost to the point of tears. So I sat me down again at her
desk, with lots of ceremonial and fuss--address-books heaped all round,
a new ruler, and red ink, and a Bradshaw and Debrett and the telephone
book; and made out a list of visitors, omitting the name of Madame des
Essarts. Mark you this, Merle! Then I read the list aloud to my mother,
including the name of Madame des Essarts. Mark you this also, Merle!
Then my mother, well-pleased, handed to her private secretary the list,
minus the name of Madame des Essarts. And Madame des Essarts, not
receiving an invitation to the reception, will be mortally offended.
And my mother, receiving no reply from Madame des Essarts, will
likewise be mortally offended. Both mortally offended. The feud will
probably extend over generations. Montague and Capulet. In consequence
whereof, Merle and I will be forbidden to marry. And I’ll die for the
love of a lady. ‘Lady, heyday, misery me----’”
“Stuart,” Peter broke in upon his exuberant ditty, “you’re just nothing
but a stage-manager. You’re not the sort of man for vagabondage.
And your grand operatic abduction will be a failure. Recollect, you
wouldn’t come with us a-Maying in April.”
“No,” he cried, stung to swift retort; “but who dares say that I have
not made of you April fools in May!”
The train swung over the Hamoaze and into Cornwall.
* * * * *
They stopped at the Land’s End, for the reason that the sea barred
their further progress to the south and to the west. And they took
three rooms at the Ocean Hotel, facing the sea to the south and to
the west, because it was too late the night of their arrival to
seek convenient caves, especially three caves of exactly the same
dimensions, conditions essential to avoid jealousy and strife.
The Ocean Hotel stood on an isolation of headland, like some stone
medieval fortress, frowning at the rocky imitation opposite, which ran
far out into the Atlantic, and then piled itself up crag upon crag,
an echo wrought in granite. Over the moors towards the sunset ran the
coastguard’s path, white stones on the dark green, sheer up to an edge,
lost in the drop on the further side. And over the moors towards the
sunrise ran still the coastguard’s path, down an easy slope, looping a
sinister crevasse, and as far as the stretching horizon line.
Peter awoke the next morning, possessed by a great lust for actual
touch of the sea, where she had hitherto only enjoyed its sight and
sound; and would hardly leave her companions time to wallow in the
tubs of yellow cream which were a feature of their breakfast, in her
impatience to run down the steep twisting path which she knew existed
somewhere just outside....
But the land of Cornwall and the waves of Cornwall were not ready yet
to be friends with the strangers; and all that day led them a mocking
dance by crag and outjutting cape and promontory; over moor and round
seven points, and never a downward way to the sea. Cast an evil spell
upon the strangers, so that ever from two hundred feet below, the
water beckoned them stealthily into cavernous velvet glooms; sang
loudly of wonder and glory in the cold crash of breakers against the
cliff; tormented them with glint of blue in its plum-darkness, hint
of glittering green whenever the clouds above swirled aside to reveal
patches of clear sky. For the strangers need not yet be shown what riot
of colours were sheathed in scabbard of sullen grey. Peter could have
dragged the elusive sun by main force into prominence, battered with
fists of rage against the uncompromising fall of rock which baffled
her, and mocked her, and drew her on with continual promise of a way to
the sea round the next curve ... or perhaps the next ... or surely the
next....
Stuart laughed at her impatience. It was a hard land, a good land; and
he knew it, and did not talk about it, but was content to swing along
over turf and bog and stone; aware of limitless space in which to tire
his limbs. And once he came racing like a greyhound, past his comrades,
towards a six-barred gate which lay ahead. Ran because his stride was
swifter than any man’s. Leapt the gate because his jump was cleaner
than any man’s. Then, without a run on the further side, vaulted back,
and met the twain with a cry of “Mountebank!” in anticipation of how
they would greet his prowess.
But under his amused self-condemnation, lay the disturbing knowledge
that this desire to exhibit his utmost strength and skill was real, not
assumed; desire born of the look of pleasure that, after each feat,
would lurk in Peter’s eyes, though her lips continued to mock his
vanity. Stuart could have shaken her for this effect on him. He did not
mind at all behaving childishly, but objected vehemently to thinking
childishly.
Peter perched herself upon the gate; and airily told the sea that it
was all a mistake, she had no desire whatever to reach it. And the sea
in response threw out a sparkle of gold and a spurt of foam, so that
the longing rose in her heart fiercer than ever.
It was a gate padlocked and bolted, though it led to nowhere, and
guarded nothing; and to the right and left of it lay open country; and
to the immediate right and left, piled-up blocks of rough stone, for
kindly assistance of those who would elude the padlocks. A mad gate in
a mad country. And now the sun, thinking it had teased enough, broke
in a pale dazzle on the grey land and sea; then, gaining strength,
poured silver streams of light through a rent in the sky, lay in silver
puddles and splashes on the water. The dark toneless granite piled
itself into strange shapes of tower and turret, and all about the
sea-birds wheeled and shrieked.
... “Magic casements, opening on the foam
Of perilous seas, in faery lands forlorn,”
murmured Stuart, prone beside Merle upon the turf. And she whispered
back:
“One could almost persuade oneself--yes, look, Stuart! a face at those
jagged rock-windows--light flying hair and haunted eyes and ... it’s
gone when you look again.”
“That’s Lyonnesse, yonder.” Peter, from her seat on the topmost bar,
indicated the wide shimmering tracts of grey and silver. “The sunken
lands, you know. Cities and churches and meadows ... but they must have
suffered some sea-change ... white bones and thick green water and the
evil coil of seaweed. A dead land, now.”
Stuart said musingly: “I see Lyonnesse more as the land where the dead
wait till they are wanted again.”
Peter smiled; so like Stuart, this glimpse of an afterwards as merely
the rest which comes before a fresh bout of strenuous labour. Then
couldn’t he even conceive of complete and utter rest? “Where the dead
wait till they are wanted again” ... she caught a fleeting glimpse of
dim caverns, and a tiny figure stumbling in from the outside glare, and
flinging down a torch, seized instantly by an upward-springing form,
who bore it forth again; while the tired intruder stretched himself in
sleep....
Heigh-ho! how serious they all were. Peter looked around her,
half-dazed by this long mental immersion in dark coral-caves. The sky
had meanwhile deepened into blue, and all the buried colours of earth
and water had leapt into being.
“Requires a dab of red in all that backcloth of green and black,
doesn’t it?” queried Peter idly; to break silence; “just for the sake
of artistic effect.”
“Whereabouts?”
“Oh, say against that ledge.” She pointed half-way down an apparently
inaccessible formation of cliff, jutting out at right angles to the
land.
Stuart seized the scarlet cap from her head, before she was even aware
of his intentions, and was almost directly over the edge of safety, and
out of sight.
“Stuntorian!” murmured Peter ... but her hand dug deep into the turf,
tore it up in great handfuls.
It was several minutes before they again caught sight of him,
scrambling with all the agility appertaining to impossible schoolboy
heroes, towards the spot indicated. His figure was reduced by distance
and surroundings to absurdly small dimensions. He paused on reaching
his goal, hung the patch of crimson on to the ledge of rock, waved
gaily towards his far-off companions; then, cramming the cap again in
his pocket, swung himself round a boulder apparently poised in mid-air,
and out of their line of vision.
“We’d better turn back to meet him,” quoth Merle, springing from her
perch on the gate. “It’s all right, Peter. Nothing can happen to
Stuart, ever.”
But Peter had just learnt of something extremely disturbing which had
happened to herself. And venting her indignation at the discovery,
upon the cause thereof, refused to fall sobbing upon his neck, when he
met them on the homeward way, and carelessly returned her headgear.
Nor did she take outward and visible notice of bleeding abrasions upon
either knee, ostentatiously displayed. But Merle--feeling his recent
performance ought really not to be encouraged--treated him to a sober
lecture on foolhardiness, which lasted till Peter provided distraction
by leaving her right leg, as far as the thigh, in a bog of black mud.
The sun was a level blaze of gold in their eyes, by the time they
trudged up the last slope, and into their fortress. They were weary
with a splendid weariness of limb; and drowsy with the strangeness
of that strange land; and, moreover, wind-blown and wet and satiated
of beauty. Peter entered her room, and closed the door; pulled down
the blind to give respite from the outside world; plunged her hands
in water, and cast off her shoes and stockings. Then flung herself on
the narrow bed, where Merle presently joined her. And they ate of the
expensive chocolates destined for Mistress Dorothy Orson, and were at
peace.
... Somebody whistling, now loudly, now softly, up and down the
passages and stairs. “Yo-ho! Yo-ho!”--it was Captain Hook’s celebrated
ditty haunting the Ocean Hotel. Nearing their door, it paused on a
plaintive up-note of enquiry. Peter took pity on the homeless wanderer,
and before Merle could protest, called him in.
“I don’t think I’ve got an apartment of my own,” said Stuart, squatting
contentedly on the floor, his head against Merle’s dark shower of
loosened hair. “I slept somewhere, I suppose, but where is a mystery.
They must have turned my room into a step-ladder or a revolving
book-case; I shall hate sleeping to-night in a revolving book-case; one
would get so giddy.” He glanced around him and broke into a chuckle:
“What a setting for one of Zola’s most squalid bits of realism,” he
remarked.
The room was small, with a dingy paper, and an unclothed gas-jet
springing from the wall. The blind that shut out daylight, and dimmed
the corners to mystery, was torn, and the cord flapped a perpetual
complaint. The tin basin on the washstand stood unemptied of its dirty
water. Two or three towels lay across the chairs; Peter’s muddy shoes
and stockings straggled in abandoned fashion over the worn bits of
carpet covering the oilcloth. The aspect of the two huddled bare-legged
figures on the crumpled bed-spread, carried out Stuart’s simile with
remarkable fidelity; and his own presence, combined with the dainty
satin bonbonnière, added just those last touches of immorality without
which no French novel is complete. Only their moods of serene happiness
were rather at variance with the puppets of fiction, evil or perhaps
merely hopeless, with which Zola might have peopled the dreary chamber.
“I think, as pirates, and considering Merle lives in Lancaster Gate and
owns a maid, we deserve a better nursery than this,” suggested Peter.
“We’ll build one,” Stuart assured her swiftly. “Yes, of course we will.
Nothing easier. We’ll build it to suit ourselves. A playroom----”
“A piratical playroom----”
“The perfect piratical playroom.”