IV

Graham lay upon his back, his eyes wide open. All around him he could

hear the silence――a silence broken every now and again by some faint

sound from one or another of the boys who shared his dormitory. It

was more than an hour since the lights had been put out, and all save

himself were fast asleep; but he lay awake still, thinking of the

afternoon that had just passed, and of the strange emotion it had

swept into his life. He wondered how it could have come about, and he

pondered old tales he had read――some of them long ago――tales of a pagan

world, in which this wonderful passion of friendship, then so common,

had played its part. Returning to him now, they wore a new and added

beauty, a meaning he had only dreamed before, but which at present

filled his mind with a kind of heavenly radiance. Might not his own

friendship be just the same?... Might not it, too, be something more

than a mere romantic reverie, than the shadow of a beautiful dream?

He felt an exquisite happiness in giving way to his tenderness, in

letting his imagination run on and on, like a swift, strong river, in

an ever-changing dream of love. It was as if by merely stretching out

his hand he had touched the poetry, the soul of existence; it was as if

by stretching out his hand he had awakened another spirit to beat its

wings within his own.

‘Spirit of Beauty, that dost consecrate

With thine own hues all thou dost shine upon.’

So he might have sung had he known the lines. For he felt himself

raised up as on the strong, swift wings of the morning, lifted to the

very gate of Heaven. It was on such a love as this that the Platonic

philosophy had been built; and now――now in his own life――it had come

true. Fair, and pure, and holy――down from the garden of God――it had

fallen into his soul, had poured through the open gates of Heaven,

to bathe him in its light. He turned upon his pillow and smiled. He

stretched out his arms wide to the great, fragrant mother-night, and

she bent down over him, cool and dark and silent, and kissed him softly

on his forehead, and on his mouth and eyes.

He could not sleep. A strange restlessness, a ‘spirit in his feet,’

seemed to draw him from his bed, and leaving his cubicle, he stood in

his night-dress on the cold floor. A flood of moonlight lay across the

room, and he watched it falling through the air, a silent, rapid stream.

How still everything was! how light! Softly, softly, on tip-toe, he

made his way to the window, and climbing on to a chair, looked out.

In the grounds it was light with that same cold light, clear, yet not

quite clear, earth and sky seeming to be blended in one strange misty

radiance, pale, bluish, almost white. And the moonlight lay, still and

dreamy, everywhere, more tangible, yet more shadowy, than the light of

day. If one stretched out one’s hands, one might almost feel it, he

thought, might almost brush it away like a great white silky cobweb

of woven flame. The stone gable of the house stood out sharply black

against the sky, and the shadows on the grass were black as ink. Above

the long row of still and leafless trees he saw the belt of Orion, and

to the right of that, the white, broken moon faintly edged with blue.

It was like the dawning of some wonderful, icy day upon an unexplored,

a new and mysterious world; and through the cold misty light he half

expected to see the moving forms of those who live in the unknown.

He did indeed see a figure――a figure coming toward him, stepping slowly

down a wide silver stair that reached from Heaven――a figure clad in

fair armour, and with dark hair floating out against the stars.... He

was calling to him from without ... he beckoned with his hands ... he

waited, waited....

A shudder ran through Graham’s body: he seemed no longer to be in the

dormitory, but to stand somewhere beyond the gates of death. He clasped

the bars of the window with his hands; he leaned against the iron bars;

then he opened out his arms wide and smiled....

‘What are you doing?... Iddesleigh!... Graham!’ It was Brocklehurst’s

voice. His cubicle was next the window, and he had been awakened.

‘Nothing; nothing,’ Graham answered, startled, turning quickly round.

‘I was looking out.... I forgot.... Why are you not asleep?’ He went

over to his friend, and sat down by his side. Brocklehurst had already

cuddled under the clothes again.

‘I was asleep until you wakened me. Why are you not in your bed?’ he

whispered. ‘Why were you standing there? What a mad thing to do at this

time of year! You might kill yourself!’

‘Oh, I don’t take cold easily. I suppose I wasn’t thinking of what I

was doing.’

‘But you should have put on your dressing-gown. You are only in your

night-dress. At first I thought you were walking in your sleep. You

looked like a white ghost there at the window. You will catch your

death of cold now if you stay there. Come in here beside me if you want

to talk.’

Graham got into the bed. ‘I was thinking of you,’ he said softly.

‘You’re a very strange fellow――aren’t you?’ Brocklehurst murmured.

‘Yes; I suppose so.’

‘Hush! Speak lower. If you were caught here with me, you know, there’d

be the most frightful row.... What were you looking at out of the

window?’

‘I don’t know.... I seemed to see――――’

‘What?’

‘I can’t tell you. I almost forget.’

‘You _must_ tell me.’

‘It was a knight ... a young knight in armour.’

‘Out there on the grass?’

‘It was you.... Oh, I know there wasn’t really anything there,’ he

added hastily――‘only the light of the moon on the ground.’

‘And all that you told me this afternoon――it, too, was nothing?’

‘Yes――yes, it was. Some day I will tell you all about it, from the very

beginning, but not now. It would take too long.... You see I was so

much by myself before I came here. I had no one. And――and――I could not

help speaking to you this afternoon.... You don’t understand how――how

much it is all a part of my life――how much it means to me――――’ He

broke off abruptly, and for a little Brocklehurst said nothing.

‘Tell me about what you used to do at home, if you don’t mind,’ he

whispered presently. Then he lay still, listening to a rather broken

and wandering story, which very soon he grew too sleepy to follow. ‘You

had better go back to your own bed now,’ he murmured drowsily. ‘It

wouldn’t do for you to drop off asleep here. Don’t make any noise: some

other chap may be awake.’

Graham rose obediently, but he still lingered in the cubicle, held by

a vague yet very strong desire――desire to unburden himself of that

which filled his soul, and which a feeling of shyness kept locked up

in his breast. Then suddenly he overcame his cowardice, and kneeling

down on the floor beside the bed, he kissed his friend as he lay there

half asleep. That was all: he could not have spoken if he had tried

to: even as it was his eyes were wet with tears. But he felt a kind of

ecstasy of happiness as he stole back to his own bed, for it seemed to

him that just then, when his lips had touched Harold’s cheek, he had

given himself to him for better or worse, had given him his life, his

trust. In the morning, he knew, all would be a little different; in the

morning he should have to come back to an everyday world. But he should

be no longer alone there; oh, he should never be alone again. With his

face buried in his pillow, and his cheek still a little damp, he prayed

that all might be well, prayed that Harold might come to care for him;

and day was breaking when at last he fell asleep.

V

He awoke with a feeling of delightful joyousness, a sense that

something beautiful had happened. It was as if the summer were quite

suddenly and unexpectedly come; as if the whole world were full of

happiness and sunshine.

Then he remembered――remembered it all; and a strange passionate

tenderness filled his heart. Yes! it _was_ the summer――summer

indeed――the sun shone all around him. At the same time he felt within

him a deep and unaccountable shyness, which kept him from joining his

friend, which kept him alone with his own thoughts until morning school

was finished.

By then he had turned things over in his mind, by then he had come

even to wonder a little at his first bewilderment. It all seemed now

so natural, so only what he had awaited, had come here for. Already

a thing without beginning, without end! It was simply there――there

like the air he breathed――something that had wrapped itself about his

life, his whole being. And it slid back and back, without a break,

without a pause, back into the past. There had been no first meeting

at all; he had no need even to ask a question; there was no ambiguity

to be explained, still less an anomaly. He knew, he felt; and as day

followed day, and week followed week, he knew and felt more and more.

He listened to the undertone, listened to it growing deeper and more

melodious, becoming at times almost articulate, pointing the way; only

when he strained his ear for the word, the word at last, definite,

decisive, it died back again into silence.

And yet he had had other moments――moments when he had seen, or had

seemed to see, that Brocklehurst understood little enough of all that

their friendship meant to him. How _could_ he understand? Graham, at

least, could never tell him. Ah, no one, no one but himself understood,

no one but himself knew how the gentle tone of his friend’s voice had

a power to draw the tears to his eyes, a power to sink into his inmost

soul. Oh, he loved him so dearly! There was something in the very

secrecy of his affection that permitted him to keep it passionately

apart from everything else, from his life of everyday, from any vulgar

or prosaic encroachment. He kept it in a place sacred, beautiful,

quiet; a chapel within his own spirit, a chapel into whose soft light

he passed from time to time to worship, to be alone there, alone there

with his love, alone there before the altar he had decked with candles

and flowers, with the white stainless flowers of his boyish admiration,

his innocence and faith....

Nevertheless, little by little, it was forced upon him――incredulous at

first, reluctant to believe――that Brocklehurst’s reputation was not a

good one. Nothing very precise as yet; only a few vague rumours; but

he knew, could easily see, that his friend was not liked. At first

he had found this hard to credit, inconceivable almost; but when one

boy after another practically advised him to drop his chum he could

no longer close his eyes to the fact. Naturally he felt tremendously

angry. It seemed so mean, so cowardly, so unfair; for no one, though

all were willing enough to hint, to suggest, appeared able to tell

him anything definite. He knew, of course, that Brocklehurst had been

absent from the school for a while――had been removed, more than one boy

quite plainly told him――but even were this the case (and Brocklehurst

himself had never alluded to it), the fact of his having been brought

back again, in Graham’s opinion, openly, triumphantly, established

his innocence. And innocence of what? When all was said and done, one

could be sent away for merely asserting what one believed to be one’s

rights――for impatience of routine, a hundred things that did not in

the least imply any serious fault. It must be confessed that in his

heart of hearts he now and then wondered if assertion of his rights,

any more than impatience of routine, could very greatly imperil a boy’s

popularity; but it was not until some time had elapsed that it actually

occurred to him that he ought, after all, to speak to Brocklehurst

himself of the matter, not telling him of course how far public opinion

was against him, but putting him a little on his guard, giving him a

little advice.

It was on a Sunday afternoon when they were out walking together――one

of the latter days of spring――that he finally made up his mind to adopt

this line of conduct; and he approached the subject at once, though at

first a little hesitatingly, and in a rather roundabout fashion.

‘What are you going to be, Harold, when you grow up,’ he asked――‘when

you leave school and college, I mean?’

Brocklehurst looked somewhat surprised. ‘Be!’ he echoed. ‘Oh, I can’t

tell you that. I haven’t even thought about it yet.... Besides I don’t

want to be anything in particular. I shall be myself, I suppose――just

what I have always been.’

‘But I mean what shall you do?’ Graham persisted. ‘You’ll do

_something_, of course. What do you think about when you are all alone?’

Brocklehurst smiled. ‘Very often of you,’ he said lightly. ‘Oh, I dare

say I shall manage to drift along somehow or other. That is what I do

now, you know.’

‘Drift?’

‘Yes. Don’t you think it rather charming?’ He spoke in the half-lazy,

half-ironic fashion Graham had now grown accustomed to, but which he

had noticed to have a curiously irritating effect upon other people.

It was indeed just one of the innocent causes of Brocklehurst’s

unpopularity that he had thought of alluding to, especially since it,

more than anything else, tended to make his masters dislike him.

‘I haven’t any very strong hold upon things,’ Brocklehurst amplified.

‘Everything seems nice enough until I actually do it; but immediately

afterwards it begins to bore me a little. As soon as you’ve tried a

thing, you know, it’s apt to become the least bit tiresome. That is why

I shouldn’t care to tie myself down to anything in particular.’

‘But you must, for all that, follow some definite way of life,’ Graham

answered, dissatisfied.

‘My dear fellow, I only want to follow you.’

‘Me?’

‘Yes, you. I’m not joking at all. Since I’ve known you a great deal has

changed. You’ve made me see things in a different way. It’s perhaps

rather extraordinary, but it’s true. You’re so――what shall I call

it?――good.’

‘But you don’t see them in _my_ way,’ Graham objected.

‘I know――I know. I dare say not even in a way you’d care for. But still

there is a great difference from the old way. Only I can’t exactly tell

you what it is, nor how long it will last. Probably just as long as our

friendship. That is why I want to keep close to you. I’ve been friends

with other boys than you, you see,――even with some of those who try now

to make you drop me. Look at those two rows of trees, Graham, running

side by side for a little, and then suddenly branching off in opposite

directions.’

‘Well?’

‘Well: they are like our destinies.’

Graham glanced at him. ‘Why do you say that?’ he asked a little

strangely.

Brocklehurst smiled. ‘That is, if our friendship is ever to be broken,’

he explained.

‘A real friendship can never be broken,’ answered Graham slowly. ‘If

you think that ours can, then it is not a very great one――even now.’

Brocklehurst nodded his head. ‘I wonder what you call a real

friendship!’

‘Oh, if you have to ask――――!’

‘It is only because I want you to tell me,’ he said softly.

Graham smiled. Then suddenly he saw the opening for which he had been

waiting. ‘One of the signs of a real friendship is not to be afraid to

speak openly to your friend of all that concerns both him and you.’

‘Ah, that means you have something rather unpleasant to tell me,

doesn’t it?’ Brocklehurst inquired with a not unkindly irony. ‘Friends

should have no secrets from each other, I expect?’

‘They ought to share everything,’ Graham replied simply; ‘and more than

anything else they ought to share their thoughts.’

Brocklehurst paused. ‘Shall we sit down here,’ he asked, with a faint

sigh, ‘before we begin?’

‘You make it very hard for me,’ Graham murmured, colouring a little.

‘Ah, you mustn’t mind that.’

They seated themselves on the trunk of a fallen tree, and a rather

awkward silence followed.

Below them the ground sloped down, forming a little glen of trees and

brambles, through which a narrow stream ran. The sunlight threading its

way between the branches turned the raindrops upon the mossy grass to

tiny globes of fire; and everywhere there was the fresh, life-giving

smell of spring, of earth and moist vegetation. Brocklehurst sat with

his chin between his hands; and his face, absolutely immobile, might

have been carved in bronze. The corners of his mouth were drooped; and

a deep line was drawn down his forehead between his eyes; his eyes,

almost black in colour, gazed out straight before him. He appeared to

be completely oblivious to Graham’s presence, to everything save his

own thoughts, and the latter began to wonder a little as to what was

passing in his mind.

And as he wondered a new world seemed to dawn upon his consciousness――a

world where good and evil no longer stood so very far apart, were no

longer so fixedly opposed to each other, so indissoluble as they had

been, but were, rather, bound up together, inexplicably and hopelessly,

almost defying disentanglement. A moment ago everything had been so

clear, so plain before him; now, when he looked up, the sun was a

little clouded over, and the whole colour and meaning of life stained

with a darker hue. It seemed to him that he had been living in an

atmosphere of dreamy idealism, the fruit of a plentiful lack of

knowledge; and it did not occur to him that his ignorance had been

beautiful, springing, as it did, not from stupidity, but from a peculiar

type of mind, and an inexperience of life, of evil, even of sorrow. And

a great compassion for the boy beside him welled up in his heart.

‘Do you think I tell you everything, then?’ Brocklehurst asked

suddenly, a half-mocking smile hovering at the corners of his mouth,

but in his voice just the faintest tremor.

Graham kept his eyes carefully averted from him. ‘I think you would

like to,’ he answered slowly.

Brocklehurst shook his head. ‘No; I shouldn’t like to.’

‘Well then, you――you can’t trust me very much.’

‘Ah, but I do trust you.... Why do you want to be so serious?’ He

smiled faintly. ‘I notice that you keep all your seriousness for me,

who am nevertheless supposed to be your chum.’

Graham looked doubtfully at him. ‘Tell me that everything is all

right,’ he said, ‘and I will believe you.’

‘Everything is all right.’

There was a silence.

‘Do you think you are keeping your promise?’ Brocklehurst asked, with a

little laugh.

‘No; I suppose not.’

‘What do you want to hear? What do you want me to tell you? It is

foolish, isn’t it, to bother about what is horrid, when there is so

much that isn’t?’

‘In you, do you mean?’

‘In me, if you like.’

Graham turned away while he tried to puzzle it out. Then once more

facing his companion, he seemed to himself to risk everything in a

single question: ‘Why were you sent home?’

Brocklehurst just perceptibly coloured. ‘You haven’t, you know,

considering that you are my friend, a very overwhelming confidence in

me.’

Graham looked down. ‘Yes, I have,’ he answered suddenly, impulsively.

‘You must forgive me. I am a pretty low kind of chap to have ever

doubted you; but I’ll never do so again.’

‘Not even if another fellow comes along and tells you things?’

‘Never, so long as I live.... What a beast you must think me.’

Brocklehurst shook his head. ‘I only think that some one has been doing

his best to turn you against me. I dare say it is natural enough....

You see, I used to get out at night――not very often, but now and

again――and they didn’t understand.’

‘Get out?’

‘Yes; through one of the windows.... And because I didn’t take anybody

into my confidence, they were sure I was up to no good.... I _had_ to

go.... I can’t explain.’

‘You mean, it _wasn’t_ to do any harm?’

‘It was only to be out there――to breathe the air, to be under the sky.’

‘But in the daytime――couldn’t you――――’

‘No. I wanted to run in the moonlight; to run over the meadows; to

bathe in the river; to be free.’

‘But why didn’t you tell them――when you knew what they thought?’

‘Oh, they are welcome to their thoughts. I’ve never in my life

explained any of my actions, and I’m not going to begin now. Do you

know――――?’ he hesitated.

‘Know what?’

‘Only a strange fancy I used to have at such moments. It was rather

queer’――he smiled shyly. ‘I used to feel just as if I had gone back to

the life I had always been accustomed to――as if I had just awakened, if

you can understand――while the other, my ordinary life, appeared to be a

kind of dull dream, a kind of captivity which I should have to return

to, but which, nevertheless, was not real.’

Graham watched him a moment in silence. ‘Suppose――suppose your fancy

were the truth!’

‘The truth! Oh, nonsense! How could it be?’

‘Suppose you really did, long ago, live a life like that!’

‘Among woods and meadows and streams?’

‘Long ago, long ago――――’

Brocklehurst shook his head.

‘The grass was soft under your feet,’ Graham whispered dreamily, ‘and

there was the humming of bees――――’

‘Where?――Where do you mean?’

‘And you played on the flute of Pan; and you bathed in the streams....

Do you remember?’

‘It was there that we first met?’

‘It was there that we ran in the sunlight over the green grass.’

‘It was there that we lay in the shadow of the trees.’

‘The deep sea: the dark sky: the sunshine: the waving branches: the

garden:――it is just as if I could see the reflection of them all in

your eyes.... _Do_ you remember?’

Brocklehurst shook his head again. ‘Only when you tell me,’――he laughed

somewhat ruefully. ‘After all, it is _your_ garden, you know. I can’t

get there by myself.’

‘If we really could get there!’

‘Oh, well, I’ll come with you any time if you’ll show me the way.’

‘Suppose you had a dream,’ Graham said slowly, thoughtfully, ‘and

in your dream you saw there was only _one_ way――should you have the

courage to take it? I mean, if it was a way that seemed to lead into

the darkness?――death!’

‘Death!’ Brocklehurst looked at him as he repeated the word. ‘No,’ he

half whispered, ‘not that――I hate the idea of it. I hate everything

connected with it.’

‘Still――――’

‘Have you ever seen a dead person?’

‘No.’

‘I have, then――once.... I was made to look.... It was my

grandfather.... But I’ll never look again at anything of that

kind――never――never――never.... He was so changed――you can’t think....

His face and hands were like wax.... His hands.... Oh, I didn’t like

them.... I saw them that night after I had gone to bed ... they were on

the bedclothes ... they came closer and closer ... it was horrible....

No, no, there was no garden for him, believe me!――nothing――nothing any

more.’