The art of life is very largely the art of burying bones. That is the
science of mental economy. When a man is confronted with a problem which
he cannot solve; when, so to speak, Fate presents him with a bone which
he cannot crack, sometimes, without intent, he slinks away with it and,
like a dog, buries it, in the undefined hope that at a later date he may
unearth it and find it then more manageable.
Even so, during the sea voyage, Jim unconsciously buried the bewildering
thought of Monimé. He was a careless fellow, very reprehensible, having
no actual harm in him, yet bearing a record pock-marked, so to speak,
with the sins of omission. He was one of the world’s tramps by nature;
and now once more he was out upon the high road, and the lights of the
city wherein he had slept had faded behind him as he wandered onwards
into another sunrise. It is true that he wrote her a long and intense
letter upon the day after his departure, and that he posted this
upon his arrival at Marseilles; but his brain, by then full of other
things, conjured up no clear vision of her, and his heart sent forth no
impassioned message with the written word. He had been deeply stirred by
her, but also he had been baffled; and, as in the case of a dream, he
made no effort to retain the sweetness of the memory.
On the morning of his arrival he called at the office of the solicitors
who had inserted the advertisement, and was not a little startled to find
himself greeted with that kind of obsequiousness which he had supposed to
have vanished from Lincoln’s Inn fifty years ago.
The little pink-and-white man who was the senior partner, and whose name
was Beadle, rubbed his hands together as though he were washing them, and
actually walked backwards for some paces in front of his visitor, bowing
him into a shabby leather chair which stood beside the large, imposing
desk.
“I hope,” he crooned, when Jim had established his identity, “that we may
still have the duty, and pleasure, of serving you, sir, as we have served
your uncle and your grandfather.”
“I hope so,” replied Jim. “I suppose you know all the ins and outs of the
family affairs.”
Mr. Beadle smilingly directed the young man’s attention to a number of
black tin boxes stacked in the corner of the room. “The Tundering-West
documents for the last two hundred years,” he declared, blowing his
breath through his teeth, an action which served him for laughter.
Jim had a vision of legal formalities and lawyers’ rigmaroles—things
which he had always detested; and the passing thought contributed to the
growing dislike he felt for the harmless, but sycophantic, Mr. Beadle.
“Well, first of all,” he said, “tell me what my inheritance consists of,
and what sort of income I’ve got.”
Mr. Beadle explained that the little property comprised some two hundred
acres, most of which were rented; the score of houses and cottages
which constituted the tiny little village; the small but comfortable
manor-house; and twenty thousand pounds of invested capital. This was
better than Jim had expected, and his pleasure was manifest by the broad
smile upon his tanned face.
“You see, you will have quite a comfortable income in a small way,” the
solicitor told him. “I do not think that your duties will embarrass
you. You will find your tenants very respectful and deferential
country-people, who will give you little bother; and your obligations as
landlord will be very easily discharged.”
“They’re a bit behind the times, eh?” suggested Jim.
“Ah, my dear sir,” said Mr. Beadle, “I am thankful to say that there are
still some parts of the English countryside where a gentleman may live in
comfort, and where the people keep their place.”
Jim was astonished by the remark, for he had believed such sentiments to
be entombed in the novels of long ago. “Poor old England!” he murmured.
“We’re a comic race, aren’t we, Mr. Beetle?”
“‘Beadle,’” the little old man corrected him; and “Sorry!” said Jim.
They spoke later of the tragedies which had thus brought the inheritance
out of the direct line, and hereat came the conventional sighs from Mr.
Beadle, as forced as his laughter. Jim was told how his cousin, Mark,
had died in India of pneumonia, and how his uncle and the remaining son,
James, having gone to the Lakes that the old gentleman might recover
his equanimity, were both drowned in a sudden squall while sailing
at a considerable distance from the shore. The bodies were recovered
and brought to Eversfield for burial; and very solemnly the solicitor
produced a photograph of the memorial tablet which had been set up in the
church.
“Some day, I trust a very long time hence, your own mural tablet will
be set up there,” he said, after Jim had handed back the photograph in
silence. “‘Nihil enim semper floret; ætas succedit ætati,’ as the good
Cicero says.”
“Quite so,” said Jim.
“It has all been a terrible blow to me,” sighed Mr. Beadle. “The late Mr.
Tundering-West treated me quite as a personal friend.”
“Did he really?” Jim was going to be rude, but checked himself. He felt
an extraordinary hostility to this well-meaning but servile little
personage. “I shall go down there to-morrow,” he remarked, as he rose
to take his departure, “and I’ll probably have the house thoroughly
renovated before I go into it.”
“I don’t think you will find much that requires alteration,” Mr. Beadle
assured him, his hand raised in a gesture of deprecation. “Hasty changes
are always undesirable; and, when you have grown into the spirit of the
place I think you will find that you have a duty to the past.” He checked
himself, and bowed. “I trust you will not mind an old man giving you
that advice,” he murmured, as they shook hands. He bowed so low that it
appeared to be a complete physical collapse.
On the following day Jim motored to Eversfield in a hired open car. He
could with greater ease have gone by train to Oxford, and could have
driven over in a fly; but he wanted to have the pleasure of spending some
of his new money, and, moreover, a fifty-mile drive through the fair
lands of Berkshire and Oxfordshire in the radiance of a summer’s day
appealed to his imagination. Nor was he disappointed. He acknowledged the
beauties of the land of his birth with whole-hearted pleasure; and his
eyes, weary with long gazing upon leaden skies and burning sands, were
soothed in a manner beyond scope of words by the green fields, the soft
foliage of the trees, and grey skies of a hot, hazy morning. It is true
that the roads were extremely dusty, and that his face and clothes were
soon thickly powdered; but, as the chauffeur had provided him with a pair
of motoring glasses, he was not troubled in this respect.
The little hamlet of Eversfield lay seemingly asleep in its hollow amidst
the richly timbered hills, as, at midday, he drove up to the grey stone
gates of his future home. Here was the narrow village green just as he
had last seen it when he was a boy: on one side of the lane which opened
on to it were these imposing gates; on the other side were the little
church and moss-covered gravestones leaning at all angles, as though the
dead were whispering together deferentially at the entrance of the manor.
Upon the green were the old stocks, and the stump and worn steps of the
ancient cross; and behind them stood the thatched cottages backed by the
stately elms.
“I suppose in years to come,” he thought, “I shall be walking through
these gates to the church on Sundays, followed by the lady of my choice
and half-a-dozen children; and the villagers will nudge one another and
say ‘Here comes Squire and all his little squirrels.’ ... Good Lord!”
The exclamation was due to the sudden feeling that he had walked into a
trap, that he had been caught by immemorial society, and would soon be
forced to conform to its ways; and, as the car passed in at the gates of
the manor, he had, for a moment, a desire to jump out and run for his
life.
A short, straight drive, flanked by clipped box-trees, led to the main
door of the timbered Tudor house; and here the new owner, dusty, and
somewhat untidily dressed, was received by the gardener and his buxom
wife, who had both grown grey in his uncle’s service. The man held his
cap in his hand, and touched his wrinkled forehead with his finger
a number of times, painfully anxious to find favour; while his wife
curtseyed to him at least thrice.
“Are you the gardener?—what is your name?” Jim asked briskly, feeling
almost as awkward as the man he addressed, but determined to go through
the ordeal with honour.
“Peter, sir,” said the gardener. “Peter Longarm, sir. I rec’lect you,
sir, when you was no more’n so ’igh, I do.”
“Why, of course,” Jim replied. “I remember you now. You’re the fellow who
told my uncle when I broke the glass of the forcing frame.”
The old man looked sheepish. “I ’ad to do my dooty, sir,” he said. “I ask
your pardon.”
“Duty,” Jim thought to himself. “I’m beginning to know that word. I
wonder what it really means.” He turned to the woman. “Now, please go and
open the doors of all the rooms, and then leave me to walk through the
house by myself.” He wanted to be alone to realize his new possession and
to dream his dream of future ease. Mrs. Longarm eyed him nervously for a
moment before obeying his instructions; she told her husband afterwards,
with tears in her eyes, that she felt as though she were surrendering the
house to a cut-throat foreigner.
As he wandered, presently, from room to room he was at first overpowered
by the feeling that he was intruding upon the privacy of some sort of
family life which he did not understand. His uncle’s wife had been
dead for three or four years, but there were still many traces of her
influence: the drawing-room, for example, was furnished in a style which
called to his mind faded pictures of feminine tea-parties. Here was the
old piano upon which the good lady must have tinkled the songs of which
the music still lay in the cabinet near by—songs such as _My Mother Bids
Me Bind My Hair_, and _Ah, Welladay my Poor Heart_. And here was the
little sewing-table where had doubtless rested the silks and needles
for her embroidery. Perhaps it was she who had chosen the gilt-framed
engravings upon the walls—the depressed picture of “Hagar and Ishmael in
the Wilderness;” a youthful portrait of Alexandra, Princess of Wales;
“Jacob weeping over Joseph’s coat;” the sprightly “Hawking Party,” and
so forth.
Looking around, he experienced a sensation of mingled mirth and awe, and
he hoped that the ghost of his aunt would not haunt him when he laid
sacrilegious and violent hands upon these things, as at first he intended
to do. The chintzes appeared to be of more recent date; but these, too,
would have to go, for, as a pattern, he detested sprays of red roses tied
with blue ribbons.
The dining-room, hall and staircase, being panelled and hung with family
portraits, were impressive in their conveyance of a sense of many
generations; and the hereditary library, if sombre, was interesting.
Jim was very fond of old books, and he stood there for some time taking
the calf-bound volumes from the shelves, and turning over the ancient
pages. But, the morning-room, with its red-covered chairs, its mahogany
sideboard, and its sham Chinese vases, was distressing. Yet here, as in
the drawing-room, there was a chaste and awful solemnity, from which he
shrank, as a conscientious Don Juan might shrink at a lady’s _prie-Dieu_.
The larger bedrooms upstairs, with their mahogany wardrobes and heavy
chests of drawers full of clothes, and cupboards full of boots and hats,
were startling in their association with their late tenants. On a table
beside his uncle’s bed there lay a recent novel, which Jim himself had
also just read: it constituted a gruesome link between the living and
the dead. He glanced about him and through the window, down the drive,
almost expecting to see the apparitions of his relatives stalking up from
the family vault in the churchyard to see what he was about. His uncle
would probably think him a dreadful scallawag, for the old gentleman had
been an accredited pillar of Church and State, with, so the cupboards
testified, a mania for collecting the top hats he had worn on Sundays or
when in town. He had been a model of propriety, and the monumental stone,
the photograph of which he had seen at the solicitors, stated that he had
“nobly upheld the traditions of his race.”
Jim felt depressed, and presently went out into the garden which was
ablaze with flowers; and here, after a late meal of sandwiches, eaten
upon an ornamental stone bench, his spirits revived, for the manor and
its setting formed a very beautiful picture. If only he could get rid of
all those hats and clothes and old photographs!
A sudden idea occurred to him: he would go and find the padre, and tell
him to take these things for the poor of the parish. They must be got rid
of at once, even though every man in the village be obliged to wear a top
hat. They must all be gone before he came here again, or he would never
bring himself to live in the house at all! He hurried down the drive,
asked Peter Longarm at the lodge to point out the vicarage to him, and
thereafter hastened on his errand.
Near the church, however, and at a point where a gap in the trees
revealed a distant view of the dreaming, huddled spires of Oxford,
flanked by the lonely tower of Magdalen College, he met with a
white-bearded clergyman whom he presumed to be the vicar, and at once
accosted him.
“Excuse me,” he said, ingratiatingly, barring his way. “Would you care
to have some old hats?—I mean of course, would your flock like to wear
them?—Top hats, you know, and old boots, too, if you want them.”
The elderly gentleman was annoyed, and, with a curt “No thank you, not
to-day,” proceeded on his way. Jim, however, called after him, coaxingly:
“They are quite good hats really; they only want brushing.”
At this the man of God stopped and turned, looking at Jim’s somewhat
dusty figure with wonderment. “Do I understand that you are selling old
hats?” he asked, endeavouring to speak politely.
Jim rushed feverishly into explanation. “No, I want to get rid of
them,” he gabbled; “I want to get rid of all sorts of things—hats,
coats, trousers, dressing-gowns, shirts, vests, boots, slippers, old
photographs, umbrellas ...” He paused for breath, inwardly laughing.
Very slowly and deliberately the clergyman adjusted his eyeglasses low
down upon his nose, and stared at Jim. “Young man,” he said, “is this a
jest at my expense?”
“Good Lord, no!” Jim answered. “I’m in deadly earnest. I can’t possibly
live in the house with all these things. You _will_ help me, won’t you?
How would it be if you came over to-morrow and cleared them all out, and
then had a meeting or something, and gave them as prizes to the regular
church-goers?”
“I don’t know what you are talking about,” the clergyman responded,
gently but firmly pushing him aside. “Good-day!”
Jim stared at him as he walked. “You _are_ the vicar, aren’t you?” he
asked.
“No, I’m not,” the other replied somewhat sharply, over his shoulder;
“I’m the President of Magdalen.”
Jim uttered an exclamation of impatience, and hastened on to the Vicarage.
The servant who appeared in response to his knock, was about to ask him
his name, when the vicar, an old man with a clean-shaven, kindly face,
and grey hair, happened to cross the hall.
“Yes, what is it, what is it?” he asked, coming to the door, while the
maid retired.
“Are you the vicar?” Jim asked, beginning more cautiously.
“I am,” the other responded.
“You really are? Well I want to ask you about some old clothes. I....”
The vicar held up his hand. “No, I have none to sell you,” he said
smiling sadly. “I wear mine out.”
Jim laughed aloud. “First I’m thought to be selling them, and now you
think I’m buying them,” he exclaimed. “We certainly are a nation of
shop-keepers.”
The vicar was puzzled. “I don’t understand. What is it you want?”
“I have a lot of hats and old clothes I want to get rid of. I thought you
might like them.”
The clergyman bowed stiffly. “It is very kind of you,” he said frigidly.
“My stipend, I admit, is small, but I am not yet reduced to the
necessity of wearing a stranger’s cast-off clothing.”
“Oh, I didn’t mean that,” Jim hastily explained. “And they’re not mine:
they belonged to my late relatives. I am just coming to live at the
manor, and I thought the poor of the parish would....”
The vicar interrupted him. “I beg your pardon. Are you ...?” He
hesitated, incredulous.
“Yes, I’m the new Tundering-West,” Jim told him.
The other held out his hands. “Well, well!” he cried. “And I thought you
were....” He hesitated.
“The old clothes man,” laughed Jim.
“Oh, very droll!” the vicar smiled, shaking him warmly by the hand. “How
ridiculous of me! Do come in, my dear sir!”
Jim followed him into the drawing-room, and here he found a little
old lady, who was introduced to him as Miss Proudfoote, and a florid,
middle-aged man with a waxed moustache, who looked like a sergeant-major,
and proved to be Dr. Spooner, the local medical man. They had evidently
been lunching at the Vicarage, and were now drinking the post-prandial
concoction which the English believe to be coffee. They both greeted him
with a sort of deference, which however, did not conceal their curiosity.
During the next ten minutes Jim heard a great deal of his “poor dear
uncle” and his unfortunate cousins. The tragedy of their deaths, it
seemed, had cast the profoundest gloom over the village; but it was a
case of “the King is dead; long live the King!” and all three of his new
acquaintances appeared to be anxious to pay him every respect.
Dr. Spooner asked him from what part of England he had just come, and the
news that he had been living abroad and had not visited the land of his
birth for many years caused a sensation. The thought occurred to him that
he ought not to mention Egypt, or any other land which had recently known
him as Jim Easton; for any such revelations might bring discredit upon
him, and he wished to start his life at Eversfield without any handicap.
He therefore spoke only of California, referring to it casually as a
country where he had resided.
Miss Proudfoote turned to the vicar. “Is it not extraordinary,” she said,
“how many of our young men shoulder what Mr. Kipling calls ‘the white
man’s burden’ and go forth to live amongst the heathen?” Her geography
was evidently at fault, but out of consideration for her years and her
sex, no correction was forthcoming. “I suppose,” she proceeded, “you met
with our missionaries out there? It is wonderful what a great work the
Church Missionary Society is doing all over the world.”
The Doctor here had the hardihood to interpose. “Oh, but California is a
part of the United States of America ...” he ventured.
“How foolish of me!—of course,” smiled the old lady. “The Americans are
quite an educated people. I met an American traveller once in Oxford: a
pleasant spoken young man he seemed, so far as I could understand what he
said.”
“Yes,” remarked the vicar, “America can no longer be called ‘the common
sewer of England,’ as it was when I was a boy.”
Jim stared from one to the other in amazement. “But America is the
largest and most progressive part of the Anglo-Saxon race,” he protested.
“They are already ahead of us in many ways.”
Miss Proudfoote was shocked, and she showed it. “It is evident that you
do not know England,” she replied, coldly.
“I mean,” he emphasized, “it always seems to me a fine thought that
England can never die, because she will live again over there; and then
she’ll have another lease of life in Australia; and so on. This England
here may die, but the English will go on for ever and ever, it seems to
me. And wherever their home may be,” he added, laughing, “they’ll always
think it ‘God’s own country,’ and think themselves the chosen people.”
Miss Proudfoote looked anxiously at him, hoping that there was some good
in him. “I trust,” she said, “that it is now your intention to settle
down?”
“Yes,” he replied. “I fancy my wanderings are over.”
“Heaven has placed you in a very responsible position,” she said, gazing
earnestly at him. “I am sure our best wishes will be with you in your
duties.”
“Yes, indeed,” sighed the vicar, whose name, as Jim had just ascertained,
was Glenning. “Are you a married man, may I ask?”
“Oh no,” Jim replied.
Miss Proudfoote patted his arm. “We shall have to find you a wife,” she
smiled.
Jim was aghast, and hastily changed the subject. “Now about the old
clothes,” he began.
Mr. Glenning coloured, slightly. “What an absurd error for me to have
made,” he said. “Now, tell me, what is it you wish me to do?”
“I’m going back to London to-day,” Jim explained, “and I want you, while
I am away, to go through all my uncle’s things, and give away to the poor
everything you think I shall not want. Just use your own judgment.”
“It will be a melancholy duty,” he replied.
“I’m sure it will,” the new Squire answered, “but, I tell you frankly,
anything useless I find here when I return I shall burn.”
The vicar raised his hands; the doctor sniffed; and Miss Proudfoote
looked at the stranger indignantly.
“That is rather hasty, is it not?” she asked, tremulously.
Jim felt awkward. He had made a bad impression, and he knew it. “You
see,” he tried to explain, “my uncle died so suddenly and the place is
littered with his things. All I want to keep is the furniture, and the
silver, and the books, and that sort of thing, but I will see to that
myself.”
Miss Proudfoote turned away suddenly and Jim, to his horror, saw her
raise a handkerchief to her eyes. He could have kicked himself. He wished
the floor would open and engulf him. He looked in despair at the two men.
“You know I haven’t seen my uncle since I was a boy,” he stammered. “I am
a complete stranger.”
“He was our very dear friend,” said Mr. Glenning.