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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/16612-8.txt b/16612-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..61c5b69 --- /dev/null +++ b/16612-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,10244 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Lee Shore, by Rose Macaulay + + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + + + + +Title: The Lee Shore + + +Author: Rose Macaulay + + + +Release Date: August 28, 2005 [eBook #16612] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE LEE SHORE*** + + +E-text prepared by Suzanne Shell, Mary Meehan, and the Project Gutenberg +Online Distributed Proofreading Team (https://www.pgdp.net/ + + + +THE LEE SHORE + +by + +R. MACAULAY + +1912 + + + + + + + +TO P.R. + + + + +That division, the division of those who have and those who have not, +runs so deep as almost to run to the bottom. + + + + +CONTENTS + +CHAPTER I +A Hereditary Bequest + +CHAPTER II +The Choice of a Career + +CHAPTER III +The Hopes + +CHAPTER IV +The Complete Shopper + +CHAPTER V +The Splendid Morning + +CHAPTER VI +Hilary, Peggy, and the Boarders + +CHAPTER VII +Diana, Actæon, and Lord Evelyn + +CHAPTER VIII +Peter Understands + +CHAPTER IX +The Fat in the Fire + +CHAPTER X +The Loss of a Profession + +CHAPTER XI +The Loss of an Idea + +CHAPTER XII +The Loss of a Goblet and Other Things + +CHAPTER XIII +The Loss of the Single State + +CHAPTER XIV +Peter, Rhoda, and Lucy + +CHAPTER XV +The Loss of a Wife + +CHAPTER XVI +A Long Way + +CHAPTER XVII +Mischances in the Rain + +CHAPTER XVIII +The Breaking-Point + +CHAPTER XIX +The New Life + +CHAPTER XX +The Last Loss + +CHAPTER XXI +On the Shore + + + + +THE LEE SHORE + + + + +CHAPTER I + +A HEREDITARY BEQUEST + + +During the first week of Peter Margerison's first term at school, +Urquhart suddenly stepped, a radiant figure on the heroic scale, out of +the kaleidoscopic maze of bemusing lights and colours that was Peter's +vision of his new life. + +Peter, seeing Urquhart in authority on the football field, asked, "Who is +it?" and was told, "Urquhart, of course," with the implication "Who else +could it be?" + +"Oh," Peter said, and blushed. Then he was told, "Standing right in +Urquhart's way like that! Urquhart doesn't want to be stared at by all +the silly little kids in the lower-fourth." But Urquhart was, as a +matter of fact, probably used to it. + +So that was Urquhart. Peter Margerison hugged secretly his two pieces of +knowledge; so secret they were, and so enormous, that he swelled visibly +with them; there seemed some danger that they might even burst him. That +great man was Urquhart. Urquhart was that great man. Put so, the two +pieces of knowledge may seem to have a certain similarity; there was in +effect a delicate discrimination between them. If not wholly distinct one +from the other, they were anyhow two separate aspects of the same +startling and rather magnificent fact. + +Then there was another aspect: did Urquhart know that he, Margerison, was +in fact Margerison? He showed no sign of such knowledge; but then it was +naturally not part of his business to concern himself with silly little +kids in the lower-fourth. Peter never expected it. + +But a few days after that, Peter came into the lavatories and +found Urquhart there, and Urquhart looked round and said, "I say, +you--Margerison. Just cut down to the field and bring my cap. You'll find +it by the far goal, Smithson's ground. You can bring it to the lavatories +and hang it on my peg. Cut along quick, or you'll be late." + +Peter cut along quick, and found the velvet tasselled thing and brought +it and hung it up with the care due to a thing so precious as a fifteen +cap. The school bell had clanged while he was down on the field, and he +was late and had lines. That didn't matter. The thing that had emerged +was, Urquhart knew he was Margerison. + +After that, Urquhart did not have occasion to honour Margerison with his +notice for some weeks. It was, of course, a disaster of Peter's that +brought them into personal relations. Throughout his life, Peter's +relations were apt to be based on some misfortune or other; he always had +such bad luck. Vainly on Litany Sundays he put up his petition to be +delivered "from lightning and tempest, from plague, pestilence, and +famine, from battle and murder, and from sudden death." Disasters seemed +to crowd the roads on which he walked; so frequent were they and so +tragic that life could scarcely be lived in sober earnest; it was, for +Peter the comedian, a tragi-comic farce. Circumstances provided the +tragedy, and temperament the farce. + +Anyhow, one day Peter tumbled on to the point of his right shoulder and +lay on his face, his arm crooked curiously at his side, remarking that he +didn't think he was hurt, only his arm felt funny and he didn't think he +would move it just yet. People pressed about him; suggested carrying him +off the field; asked if he thought it was broken; asked him how he felt +now; asked him all manner of things, none of which Peter felt competent +to answer. His only remark, delivered in a rather weak and quavering +voice, was to the effect that he would walk directly, only he would like +to stay where he was a little longer, please. He said it very politely. +It was characteristic of Peter Margerison that misfortune always made him +very polite and pleasant in his manners, as if he was saying, "I am sorry +to be so tiresome and feeble: do go on with your own businesses, you more +fortunate and capable people, and never mind me." + +As they stood in uncertainty about him, someone said, "There's Urquhart +coming," and Urquhart came. He had been playing on another ground. He +said, "What is it?" and they told him it was Margerison, his arm or his +shoulder or something, and he didn't want to be moved. Urquhart pushed +through the crowd that made way for him, and bent over Margerison and +felt his arm from the shoulder to the wrist, and Margerison bit at the +short grass that was against his face. + +"That's all right," said Urquhart. "I wanted to see if it was sprained or +broken anywhere. It's not; it's just a put-out shoulder. I did that once, +and they put it in on the field; it was quite easy. It ought to be done +at once, before it gets stiff." He turned Peter over on his back, and +they saw that he was pale, and his forehead was muddy where it had +pressed on the ground, and wet where perspiration stood on it. Urquhart +was unlacing his own boot. + +"I'm going to haul it in for you," he told Peter. "It's quite easy. It'll +hurt a bit, of course, but less now than if it's left. It'll slip in +quite easily, because you haven't much muscle," he added, looking at the +frail, thin, crooked arm. Then he put his stockinged foot beneath Peter's +arm-pit, and took the arm by the wrist and straightened it out. The other +thin arm was thrown over Peter's pale face and working mouth. The muddy +forehead could be seen getting visibly wetter. Urquhart threw himself +back and pulled, with a long and strong pull. Sharp gasps came from +beneath the flung-up left arm, through teeth that were clenched over a +white jersey sleeve. The thin legs writhed a little. Urquhart desisted, +breathing deeply. + +"Sorry," he said; "one more'll do it." The one more was longer and +stronger, and turned the gasps into semi-groans. But as Urquhart had +predicted, it did it. + +"There," said Urquhart, resting and looking pleased, as he always did +when he had accomplished something neatly. "Heard the click, didn't +you? It's in all right. Sorry to hurt you, Margerison; you were jolly +sporting, though. Now I'm going to tie it up before we go in, or it'll +be out again." + +So he tied Peter's arm to Peter's body with his neck scarf. Then he took +up the small light figure in his arms and carried it from the field. + +"Hurt much now?" he asked, and Peter shook an untruthful head and grinned +an untruthful and painful grin. Urquhart was being so inordinately decent +to him, and he felt, even in his pain, so extremely flattered and exalted +by such decency, that not for the world would he have revealed the fact +that there had been a second faint click while his arm was being bound +to his side, and an excruciating jar that made him suspect the abominable +thing to be out again. He didn't know how the mechanism worked, but he +was sure that the thing Urquhart had with such labour hauled in had +slipped out and was disporting itself at large in unlawful territory. He +said nothing, a little because he really didn't think he could quite make +up his mind to another long and strong pull, but chiefly because of +Urquhart and his immense decency. Success was Urquhart's rôle; one did +not willingly imagine him failing. If heroes fail, one must not let them +know it. Peter shut his eyes, and, through his rather sick vision of +trespassing rabbits popping in and out through holes in a fence, knew +that Urquhart's arms were carrying him very strongly and easily and +gently. He hoped he wasn't too heavy. He would have said that he could +walk, only he was rather afraid that if he said anything he might be +sick. Besides, he didn't really want to walk; his shoulder was hurting +him very much. He was so white about the cheeks and lips that Urquhart +thought he had fainted. + +After a little while, Urquhart was justified in his supposition; it was +characteristic of Peter to convert, as promptly as was feasible, any +slight error of Urquhart's into truth. So Peter knew nothing when +Urquhart carried him indoors and delivered him into other hands. He +opened his eyes next on the doctor, who was untying his arm and cutting +his sleeve and saying cheerfully, "All right, young man, all right." + +The next thing he said was, "I was told it had been put in." + +"Yes," said Peter languidly. "But it came out again, I think." + +"So it seems. Didn't they discover that down there?" + +Peter moved his head limply, meaning "No." + +"But you did, did you? Well, why didn't you say so? Didn't want to have +it hauled at again, I suppose? Well, we'll have it in directly. You won't +feel it much." + +So the business was gone through again, and this time Peter not only half +but quite groaned, because it didn't matter now. + +When the thing was done, and Peter rigid and swathed in bed, the doctor +was recalled from the door by a faint voice saying, "Will you please not +tell anyone it came out again?" + +"Why not?" The doctor was puzzled. + +"Don't know," said Peter, after finding that he couldn't think of a +reason. But then he gave the true one. + +"Urquhart thought he'd got it in all right, that's all." + +"Oh." The doctor was puzzled still. "But that's Urquhart's business, not +yours. It wasn't your fault, you know." + +"Please," said Peter from the bed. "Do you mind?" + +The doctor looked and saw feverish blue lamps alight in a pale face, and +soothingly said he did not mind. "Your shoulder, no one else's, isn't +it?" he admitted. "Now you'd better go to sleep; you'll be all right +directly, if you're careful not to move it or lie on it or anything." + +Peter said he would be careful. He didn't at all want to move it or lie +on it or anything. He lay and had waking visions of the popping rabbits. +But they might pop as they liked; Peter hid a better thing in his inmost +soul. Urquhart had said, "Sorry to hurt you, Margerison. You were jolly +sporting, though." In the night it seemed incredible that Urquhart had +stooped from Valhalla thus far; that Urquhart had pulled in his arm with +his own hands and called him sporting to his face. The words, and the +echo of the soft, pleasant, casual voice, with its unemphasised +intonations, spread lifting wings for him, and bore him above the aching +pain that stayed with him through the night. + +Next morning, when Peter was wishing that the crumbs of breakfast that +got between one's back and one's pyjamas were less sharp-cornered, and +wondering why a dislocated shoulder should give one an aching bar of pain +across the forehead, and feeling very sad because a letter from home had +just informed him that his favourite guinea-pig had been trodden on by +the gardener, Urquhart came to see him. + +Urquhart said, "Hullo, Margerison. How are you this morning?" and Peter +said he was very nearly all right now, thanks very much. He added, +"Thanks awfully, Urquhart, for putting it in, and seeing after me and +everything." + +"Oh, that's all right." Urquhart's smile had the same pleasant quality as +his voice. He had never smiled at Peter before. Peter lay and looked at +him, the blue lamps very bright in his pale face, and thought what a +jolly voice and face Urquhart had. Urquhart stood by the bed, his hands +in his pockets, and looked rather pleasantly down at the thin, childish +figure in pink striped pyjamas. Peter was fourteen, and looked less, +being delicate to frailness. Urquhart had been rather shocked by his +extreme lightness. He had also been pleased by his pluck; hence the +pleasant expression of his eyes. He was a little touched, too, by the +unmistakable admiration in the over-bright blue regard. Urquhart was not +unused to admiration; but here was something very whole-hearted and +rather pleasing. Margerison seemed rather a nice little kid. + +Then, quite suddenly, and still in his pleasant, soft, casual tones, +Urquhart dragged Peter's immense secret into the light of day. + +"How are your people?" he said. + +Peter stammered that they were quite well. + +"Of course," Urquhart went on, "I don't remember your mother; I was only +a baby when my father died. But I've always heard a lot about her. Is +she..." + +"She's dead, you know," broke in Peter hastily, lest Urquhart should make +a mistake embarrassing to himself. "A long time ago," he added, again +anxious to save embarrassment. + +"Yes--oh yes." Urquhart, from his manner, might or might not have known. + +"I live with my uncle," Peter further told him, thus delicately and +unobstrusively supplying the information that Mr. Margerison too was +dead. He omitted to mention the date of this bereavement, having always +a delicate sense of what did and did not concern his hearers. The decease +of the lady who had for a brief period been Lady Hugh Urquhart, might be +supposed to be of a certain interest to her stepson; that of her second +husband was a private family affair of the Margerisons. + +(The Urquhart-Margerison connection, which may possibly appear +complicated, was really very simple, and also of exceedingly little +importance to anyone but Peter; but in case anyone feels a desire to have +these things elucidated, it may here be mentioned that Peter's mother had +made two marriages, the first being with Urquhart's father, Urquhart +being already in existence at the time; the second with Mr. Margerison, a +clergyman, who was also already father of one son, and became Peter's +father later. Put so, it sounds a little difficult, chiefly because they +were all married so frequently and so rapidly, but really is simplicity +itself.) + +"I live with my uncle too," Urquhart said, and the fact formed a shadowy +bond. But Peter's tone had struck a note of flatness that faintly +indicated a lack of enthusiasm as to the ménage. This note was, to +Peter's delicately attuned ears, absent from Urquhart's voice. Peter +wondered if Lord Hugh's brother (supposing it to be a paternal uncle) +resembled Lord Hugh. To resemble Lord Hugh, Peter had always understood +(till three years ago, when his mother had fallen into silence on that +and all other topics) was to be of a charm.... One spoke of it with a +faint sigh. And yet of a charm that somehow had lacked something, the +intuitive Peter had divined; perhaps it had been too splendid, too +fortunate, for a lady who had loved all small, weak, unlucky things. +Anyhow, not long after Lord Hugh's death (he was killed out hunting) she +had married Mr. Margerison, the poorest clergyman she could find, and the +most devoted to the tending of the unprosperous. + +Peter remembered her--compassionate, delicate, lovely, full of laughter, +with something in the dance of her vivid dark-blue eyes that hinted at +radiant and sad memories. She had loved Lord Hugh for a glorious and +brief space of time. The love had perhaps descended, a hereditary +bequest, with the deep blue eyes, to her son. Peter would have understood +the love; the thing he would not have understood was the feeling that +had flung her on the tide of reaction at Mr. Margerison's feet. Mr. +Margerison was a hard liver and a tremendous giver. Both these things +had come to mean a great deal to Sylvia Urquhart--much more than they +had meant to the girl Sylvia Hope. + +And hence Peter, who lay and looked at Lord Hugh Urquhart's son with +wide, bright eyes. With just such eyes--only holding, let us hope, an +adoration more masked--Sylvia Hope had long ago looked at Lord Hugh, +seeing him beautiful, delicately featured, pale, and fair of skin, built +with a strong fineness, and smiling with pleasant eyes. Lord Hugh's +beauty of person and charm of manner had possibly (not certainly) meant +more to Sylvia Hope than his son's meant to her son; and his prowess at +football (if he had any) had almost certainly meant less. But, apart from +the glamour of physical skill and strength and the official glory of +captainship, the same charm worked on mother and son. The soft, quick, +unemphasised voice, with the break of a laugh in it, had precisely the +same disturbing effect on both. + +"Well," Urquhart was saying, "when will they let you play again? You must +buck up and get all right quickly.... I shouldn't wonder if you made a +pretty decent three-quarter sometime.... You ought to use your arm as +soon as you can, you know, or it gets stiff, and then you can't, and +that's an awful bore.... Hurt like anything when I hauled it in, didn't +it? But it was much better to do it at once." + +"Oh, much," Peter agreed. + +"How does it feel now?" + +"Oh, all right. I don't feel it much. I say, do you think I ought to use +it at once, in case it gets stiff?" Peter's eyes were a little anxious; +he didn't much want to use it at once. + +But Urquhart opined that this would be over-great haste. He departed, and +his last words were, "You must come to breakfast with me when you're up +again." + +Peter lay, glorified, and thought it all over. Urquhart knew, then; he +had known from the first. He had known when he said, "I say, you, +Margerison, just cut down to the field ..." + +Not for a moment did it seem at all strange to Peter that Urquhart should +have had this knowledge and given no sign till now. What, after all, was +it to a hero that the family circle of an obscure individual such as he +should have momentarily intersected the hero's own orbit? School has this +distinction--families take a back place; one is judged on one's own +individual merits. Peter would much rather think that Urquhart had come +to see him because he had put his arm out and Urquhart had put it in +(really though, only temporarily in) than because his mother had once +been Urquhart's stepmother. + +Peter's arm did not recover so soon as Urquhart's sanguineness had +predicted. Perhaps he began taking precautions against stiffness too +soon; anyhow he did not that term make a decent three-quarter, or any +sort of a three-quarter at all. It always took Peter a long time to get +well of things; he was easy to break and hard to mend--made in Germany, +as he was frequently told. So cheaply made was he that he could perform +nothing. Defeated dreams lived in his eyes; but to light them there +burned perpetually the blue and luminous lamps of undefeated mirth, and +also an immense friendliness for life and mankind and the delightful +world. Like the young knight Agenore, Peter the unlucky was of a mind +having no limits of hope. Over the blue and friendly eyes that lit the +small pale face, the half wistful brows were cocked with a kind of +whimsical and gentle humour, the same humour that twitched constantly +at the corners of his wide and flexible mouth. Peter was not a beautiful +person, but one liked, somehow, to look at him and to meet his +half-enquiring, half-amused, wholly friendly and sympathetic regard. +By the end of his first term at school, he found himself unaccountably +popular. Already he was called "Margery" and seldom seen by himself. He +enjoyed life, because he liked people and they liked him, and things in +general were rather jolly and very funny, even with a dislocated +shoulder. Also the great Urquhart would, when he remembered, take a +little notice of Peter--enough to inflate the young gentleman's spirit +like a blown-out balloon and send him soaring skywards, to float gently +down again at his leisure. + +Towards the end of the term, Peter's half-brother Hilary came to visit +him. Hilary was tall and slim and dark and rather beautiful, and he lived +abroad and painted, and he told Peter that he was going to be married to +a woman called Peggy Callaghan. Peter, who had always admired Hilary from +afar, was rather sorry. The woman Peggy Callaghan would, he vaguely +believed, come between Hilary and his family; and already there were more +than enough of such obstacles to intercourse. But at tea-time he saw the +woman, and she was large and fair and laughing, and called him, in her +rich, amused voice "little brother dear," and he did not mind at all, +but liked her and her laugh and her mirthful, lazy eyes. + +Peter was a large-minded person; he did not mind that Hilary wore no +collar and a floppy tie. He did not mind this even when they met Urquhart +in the street. Peter whispered as he passed, "_That's_ Urquhart," and +Hilary suddenly stopped and held out his hand, and said pleasantly, "I am +glad to meet you." Peter blushed at that, naturally (for Hilary's cheek, +not for his tie), and hoped that Urquhart wasn't much offended, but that +he understood what half-brothers who lived abroad and painted were, and +didn't think it was Peter's fault. Urquhart shook hands quite pleasantly, +and when Hilary added, "We shared a stepmother, you and I; I'm Peter's +half-brother, you know," he amiably agreed. Peter hoped he didn't think +that the Urquhart-Margerison connection was being strained beyond due +bounds. Hilary said further, "You've been very good to my young brother, +I know," and it was characteristic of Peter that, even while he listened +to this embarrassing remark, he was free enough from self-consciousness +to be thinking with a keen though undefined pleasure how extraordinarily +nice to look at both Hilary and Urquhart, in their different ways, were. +(Peter's love of the beautiful matured with his growth, but in intensity +it could scarcely grow.) Urquhart was saying something about bad luck and +shoulders; it was decent of Urquhart to say that. In fact, things were +going really well till Hilary, after saying, "Good-bye, glad to have met +you," added to it the afterthought, "You must come and stay at my uncle's +place in Sussex some time. Mustn't he, Peter?" At the same time--fitting +accompaniment to the over-bold words--Peter saw a half-crown, a round, +solid, terrible _half-crown_, pressed into Urquhart's unsuspecting hand. +Oh, horror! Which was the worse, the invitation or the half-crown? Peter +could never determine. Which was the more flagrant indecency--that he, +young Margerison of the lower fourth, should, without any encouragement +whatever, have asked Urquhart of the sixth, captain of the fifteen, head +of his house, to come and stay with him; or that his near relative should +have pressed half-a-crown into the great Urquhart's hand as if he +expected him to go forthwith to the tuck-shop at the corner and buy +tarts? Peter wriggled, scarlet from his collar to his hair. + +Urquhart was a polite person. He took the half-crown. He murmured +something about being very glad. He even smiled his pleasant smile. And +Peter, entirely unexpectedly to himself, did what he always did in the +crises of his singularly disastrous life--he exploded into a giggle. So, +some years later, he laughed helplessly and suddenly, standing among the +broken fragments of his social reputation and his professional career. He +could not help it. When the worst had happened, there was nothing else +one could do. One laughed from a sheer sense of the completeness of the +disaster. Peter had a funny, extremely amused laugh; hardly the laugh of +a prosperous person; rather that of the unhorsed knight who acknowledges +the utterness of his defeat and finds humour in the very fact. It was as +if misfortune--and this misfortune of the half-crown and the invitation +is not to be under-estimated--sharpened all the faculties, never blunt, +by which he apprehended humour. So he looked from Hilary to Urquhart, +and, mentally, from both to his cowering self, and exploded. + +Urquhart had passed on. Hilary said, "What's the matter with _you_?" and +Peter recovered himself and said "Nothing." He might have cried, with +Miss Evelina Anvill, "Oh, my dear sir, I am shocked to death!" He did +not. He did not even say, "Why did you stamp us like that?" He would not +for the world have hurt Hilary's feelings, and vaguely he knew that this +splendid, unusual half-brother of his was in some ways a sensitive +person. + +Hilary said, "The Urquharts ought to invite you to stay. The connection +is really close. I believe your mother was devoted to that boy as a baby. +You'd like to go and stay there, wouldn't you?" + +Peter looked doubtful. He was nervous. Suppose Hilary met Urquhart +again.... Dire possibilities opened. Next time it might be "Peter must go +and stay at _your_ uncle's place in Berkshire." That would be worse. Yes, +the worst had not happened, after all. Urquhart might have met Peggy. +Peggy would in that case have said, "You nice kind boy, you've been such +a dear to this little brother of ours, and I hear you and these boys used +to share a mamma, so you're really brothers, and so, of course, _my_ +brother too; and _what_ a nice face you've got!" There were in fact, +no limits to what Peggy might say. Peggy was outrageous. But it was +surprising how much one could bear from her. Presumably, Peter used to +reflect in after years, when he had to bear from her a very great deal +indeed, it was simply by virtue of her being Peggy. It was the same with +Hilary. They were Hilary and Peggy, and one took them as such. Indeed, +one had to, as there was certainly no altering them. And Peter loved both +of them very much indeed. + +When Peter went home for the holidays, he found that Hilary's alliance +with the woman Peggy Callaghan was not smiled upon. But then none of +Hilary's projects were ever smiled upon by his uncle, who always said, +"Hilary must do as he likes. But he is acting with his usual lack of +judgment." For four years he had been saying so, and he said it again +now. To Hilary himself he further said, "You can't afford a wife at all. +You certainly can't afford Miss Callaghan. You have no right whatever to +marry until you are earning a settled livelihood. You are not of the +temperament to make any woman consistently happy. Miss Callaghan is the +daughter of an Irish doctor, and a Catholic." + +"It is," said Hilary, "the most beautiful of all the religions. If +I could bring myself under the yoke of any creed at all ..." + +"Just so," said his uncle, who was a disagreeable man; "but you can't," +and Hilary tolerantly left it at that, merely adding, "There will be no +difficulty. We have arranged all that. Peggy is not a bigot. As to the +rest, I think we must judge for ourselves. I shall be earning more now, +I imagine." + +Hilary always imagined that; imagination was his strong point. His +initial mistake was to imagine that he could paint. He did not think that +he had yet painted anything very good; but he knew that he was just about +to do so. He had really the artist's eye, and saw keenly the beauty that +was, though he did not know it, beyond his grasp. His uncle, who knew +nothing about art, could have told him that he would never be able to +paint, simply because he had never been, and would never be, able to +work. That gift he wholly lacked. Besides, like young Peter, he seemed +constitutionally incapable of success. A wide and quick receptiveness, +a considerable power of appreciation and assimilation, made such genius +as they had; the power of performance they desperately lacked; their +enterprises always let them through. Failure was the tragi-comic note +of their unprosperous careers. + +However, Hilary succeeded in achieving marriage with the cheerful Peggy +Callaghan, and having done so they went abroad and lived an uneven and +rather exciting life of alternate squalor and luxury in one story of what +had once been a glorious roseate home of Venetian counts, and was now +crumbling to pieces and let in flats to the poor. Hilary and his wife +were most suitably domiciled therein, environed by a splendid dinginess +and squalor, pretentious, tawdry, grandiose, and superbly evading the +common. Peggy wrote to Peter in her large sprawling hand, "You dear +little brother, I wish you'd come and live with us. We have _such_ +fun...." That was the best of Peggy. Always and everywhere she had such +fun. She added, "Give my sisterly regards to the splendid hero who shared +your mamma, and tell him we too live in a palace." That was so like +Peggy, that sudden and amused prodding into the most secret intimacies +of one's emotions. Peggy always discerned a great deal, and was blind +to a great deal more. + + + + +CHAPTER II + +THE CHOICE OF A CAREER + + +Hilary, stretching his slender length wearily in Peter's fat arm-chair, +was saying in his high, sweet voice: + +"It's the merest pittance, Peter, yours and mine. The Robinsons have it +practically all. The _Robinsons_. Really, you know ..." + +The sweet voice had a characteristic, vibrating break of contempt. Hilary +had always hated the Robinsons, who now had it practically all. Hilary +looked pale and tired; he had been settling his dead uncle's affairs for +the last week. The Margerisons' uncle had not been a lovable man; Hilary +could not pretend that he had loved him. Peter had, as far as he had been +permitted to do so; Peter found it possible to be attached to most of the +people he came across; he was a person of catholic sympathies and +gregarious instincts. Even when he heard how the Robinsons had it +practically all, he bore no resentment either against his uncle or the +Robinsons. Such was life. And of course he and Hilary did not make wise +use of money; that they had always been told. + +"You'll have to leave Cambridge," Hilary told him. "You haven't enough to +keep you here. I'm sorry, Peter; I'm afraid you'll have to begin and try +to earn a living. But I can't imagine how, can you? Has any paying line +of life ever occurred to you as possible?" + +"Never," Peter assured him. "But I've not had time to think it over yet, +of course. I supposed I should be up here for two years more, you see." + +At Hilary's "You'll have to leave Cambridge," his face had changed +sharply. Here was tragedy indeed. Bother the Robinsons.... But after +a moment's pause for recovery he answered Hilary lightly enough. Such, +again, was life. A marvellous two terms and a half, and then the familiar +barred gate. It was an old story. + +Hilary's thoughts turned to his own situation. They never, to tell the +truth, dwelt very long on anybody else's. + +"We," he said, "are destitute--absolutely. It's simply frightful, the +wear and strain of it. Peggy, of course," he added plaintively, "is _not_ +a good manager. She likes spending, you know--and there's so seldom +anything to spend, poor Peggy. So life is disappointing for her. The +babies, I needn't say, are growing up little vagabonds. And they will +bathe in the canals, which isn't respectable, of course; though one is +relieved in a way that they should bathe anywhere." + +"If he was selling any pictures," Peter reflected, "he would tell me," so +he did not enquire. Peter had tact as to his questions. One rather needed +it with Hilary. But he wondered vaguely what the babies had, at the +moment, to grow up upon, even as little vagabonds. Presently Hilary +enlightened him. + +"I edit a magazine," he said, and Peter perceived that he was both proud +and ashamed of the fact. "At least I am going to. A monthly publication +for the entertainment and edification of the Englishman in Venice. Lord +Evelyn Urquhart is financing it. You know he has taken up his residence +in Venice? A pleasant crank. Venice is his latest craze. He buys glass. +And, indeed, most other things. He shops all day. It's a mania. When he +was young I believe he had a very fine taste. It's dulled now--a fearful +life, as they say. Well, his last fancy is to run a magazine, and I'm to +edit it. It's to be called 'The Gem.' 'Gemm' Adriatica,' you know, and +all that; besides, it's more or less appropriate to the contents. It's to +be largely concerned with what Lord Evelyn calls 'charming things.' +Things the visiting Englishman likes to hear about, you know. It aims at +being the Complete Tourist's Guide. I have to get hold of people who'll +write articles on the Duomo mosaics, and the galleries and churches and +palaces and so on, and glass and lace and anything else that occurs to +them, in a way calculated to appeal to the cultivated British resident or +visitor. I detest the breed, I needn't say. Pampered hotel Philistines +pretending to culture and profaning the sanctuaries, Ruskin in hand. +_Ruskin_. Really, you know.... Well, anyhow, my mission in life for +the present is to minister to their insatiable appetite for rhapsodising +over what they feel it incumbent on them to admire." + +"Rather fascinating," Peter said. It was a pity that Hilary always +so disliked any work he had to do. Work--a terrific, insatiable god, +demanding its hideous human sacrifices from the dawn of the world till +twilight--so Hilary saw it. The idea of being horrible, all the concrete +details into which it was translated were horrible too. + +"If it was me," said Peter, "I should minister to my own appetite, no one +else's. Bother the cultivated resident. He'd jolly well have to take what +I gave him. And glass and mosaic and lace--what glorious things to write +about.... I rather love Lord Evelyn, don't you." + +Peter remembered him at Astleys, in Berkshire--Urquhart's uncle, tall +and slim and exquisite, with beautiful waistcoats and white, attractive, +nervous hands, that played with a monocle, and a high-pitched voice, and +a whimsical, prematurely worn-out face, and a habit of screwing up +short-sighted eyes and saying, with his queer, closed enunciation, "Quate +charming. Quate." He had always liked Peter, who had been a gentle and +amused boy and had reminded him of Sylvia Hope, lacking her beauty, but +with a funny touch of her charm. Peter had loved the things he loved, +too--the precious and admirable things he had collected round him through +a recklessly extravagant life. Peter at fifteen, in the first hour of his +first visit to Astleys, had been caught out of the incredible romance of +being in Urquhart's home into a new marvel, and stood breathless before a +Bow rose bowl of soft and mellow paste, ornamented with old Japan May +flowers in red and gold and green, and dated "New Canton, 1750." + +"Lake it?" a high voice had asked behind his shoulder. "Lake the sort +of thing?" and there was the tall, funny man swaying on his heels and +screwing his glass into his eye and looking down on Peter with whimsical +interest. Little Peter had said shyly that he did. + +"Prefer chaney to cricket?" asked Urquhart's uncle, with his agreeable +laugh that was too attractive to be described as a titter, a name that +its high, light quality might have suggested. But to that Peter said +"No." He had been asked to Astleys for the cricket week; he was going to +play for Urquhart's team. Not that he was any good; but to scrape through +without disgrace (of course he didn't) was at the moment the goal of +life. + +Lord Evelyn had seemed disappointed. "If I could get you away from +Denis," he said, "I'll be bound cricket wouldn't be in the 'also rans.'" + +And at that moment Denis had sauntered up, and Peter's worshipping regard +had turned from Lord Evelyn's rose bowl to his nephew, and it was Bow +china that was not among the also rans. At that too Lord Evelyn had +laughed, with his queer, closed mirth. + +"Keep that till you fall in love," he had inwardly admonished Peter's +back as the two walked away together. "I daresay she won't deserve it any +better--but that's a law of nature, and this is sheer squandering. My +word, how that boy does lake things--and people!" After all, it was +hardly for any Urquhart to condemn squandering. + +That was Lord Evelyn, as he lived in Peter's memory--a generous, +whimsical, pleasant crank, touched with his nephew's glamour of charm. + +When Peter said, "I rather love him, don't you," Hilary replied, "He's a +fearful old spendthrift." + +Peter demurred at the old. It jarred with one's conceptions of Lord +Evelyn. "I don't suppose he's much over fifty," he surmised. + +"No, I daresay," Hilary indifferently admitted. "He's gone the pace, of +course. Drugs, and all that. He soon won't have a sound faculty left. Oh, +I'm attached to him; he's entertaining, and one can really talk to him, +which is exceptional in Venice, or, indeed, anywhere else. Is his nephew +still up here, by the way?" + +"Yes. He's going down this term." + +"You see a good deal of him, I suppose?" + +"Off and on," said Peter. + +"Of course," said Hilary, "you're almost half-brothers. I do feel that +the Urquharts owe us something, for the sake of the connexion. I shall +talk to Lord Evelyn about you. He was very fond of your mother.... I am +very sorry about you, Peter. We must think it over sometime, seriously." + +He got up and began to walk about the room in his nervous, restless way, +looking at Peter's things. Peter's room was rather pleasing. Everything +in it had the air of being the selection of a personal and discriminating +affection. There was a serene self-confidence about Peter's tastes; he +always knew precisely what he liked, irrespective of what anyone else +liked. If he had happened to admire "The Soul's Awakening" he would +beyond doubt have hung a copy of it in his room. What he had, as a matter +of fact, hung in his room very successfully expressed an aspect of +himself. The room conveyed restfulness, and an immense love, innate +rather than grafted, of the pleasures of the eye. The characteristic of +restfulness was conveyed partly by the fat green sofa and the almost +superfluous number of extremely comfortable arm-chairs, and Peter's +attitude in one of them. On a frame in a corner a large piece of +embroidery was stretched--a cherry tree in blossom coming to slow birth +on a green serge background. Peter was quite good at embroidery. He +carried pieces of it (mostly elaborately designed book-covers) about in +his pockets, and took them out at tea-parties and (surreptitiously) at +lectures. He said it was soothing, like smoking; only smoking didn't +soothe him, it made him feel ill. On days when he had been doing tiresome +or boring or jarring things, or been associating with a certain type of +person, he did a great deal of embroidery in the evenings, because, as he +said, it was such a change. The embroidery stood for a symbol, a type of +the pleasures of the senses, and when he fell to it with fervour beyond +the ordinary, one understood that he had been having a surfeit of the +displeasures of the senses, and felt need to restore the balance. + +Hilary stopped before a piece of extremely shabby, frayed and dingy +tapestry, that had the appearance of having once been even dingier and +shabbier. It looked as if it had lain for years in a dusty corner of +a dusty old shop, till someone had found it and been pleased by it and +taken possession, loving it through its squalor. + +"Rather nice," said Hilary. "Really good, isn't it?" + +Peter nodded. "Gobelin, of the best time. Someone told me that +afterwards. When I bought it, I only knew it was nice. A man wanted to +buy it from me for quite a lot." + +Hilary looked about him. "You've got some good things. How do you pick +them up?" + +"I try," said Peter, "to look as if I didn't care whether I had them or +not. Then they let me have them for very little. The man I got that +tapestry from didn't know how nice it was. I did, but I cheated him." + +"Well," Hilary said, passing his hand wearily over his forehead, "I must +go to your detestable station and catch my train.... I've got a horrible +headache. The strain of all this is frightful." + +He looked as if it was. His pale face, nervous and strained, stabbed at +Peter's affection for him. Peter's affection for Hilary had always been +and always would be an unreasoning, loyal, unspoilably tender thing. + +He went to the station to help Hilary to catch his train. The enterprise +was a failure; it was not a job at which either Margerison was good. They +had to wait in the detestable station for another. The annoyance of that +(it is really an abnormally depressing station) worked on Hilary's +nervous system to such an extent that he might have flung himself on the +line and so found peace from the disappointments of life, had not Peter +been at hand to cheer him up. There were certainly points about young +Peter as a companion for the desperate. + +Peter, having missed hall, as well as Hilary's train, went back to his +room and put an egg on to boil. He lay back in his most comfortable chair +to watch it; he needed comfort rather. He was going down. It had been so +jolly--and it was over. + +He had not got much to show for the good time he had had. Physically, he +was more of a wreck than he had been when he came up. He was slightly +lame in one leg, having broken it at football (before he had been +forbidden to play) and had it badly set. He mended so badly always. He +was also at the moment right-handed (habitually he used his left) and +that was motor bicycling. He had not particularly distinguished himself +in his work. He was good at nothing except diabolo, and not very good at +that. And he had spent more money than he possessed, having drawn +lavishly on his next year's allowance. He might, in fact, have been +described as an impoverished and discredited wreck. But for such a one +he had looked very cheerful, till Hilary had said that about going down. +That was really depressing. + +Peter, as the egg boiled, looked back rather wistfully over his year. +It seemed a very long time ago since he had come up. His had been an +undistinguished arrival; he had not come as a sandwich man between two +signboards that labelled his past career and explained his path that was +to be; he had been unaddressed to any destination. The only remark on his +vague and undistinguished label had perhaps been of the nature of +"Brittle. This side up with care." He had no fame at any game; he did not +row; he was neither a sporting nor, in any marked degree, a reading man. +He did a little work, but he was not very fond of it or very good. The +only things one could say of him were that he seemed to have an immense +faculty of enjoyment and a considerable number of friends, who knew him +as Margery and ate muffins and chocolates between tea and dinner in his +rooms. + +He had been asked at the outset by one of these friends what sort of +things he meant to "go in for." He had said that he didn't exactly know. +"Must one go in for anything, except exams?" The friend, who was +vigorously inclined, had said that one certainly ought. One could--he had +measured Peter's frail physique and remembered all the things he couldn't +do--play golf. Peter had thought that one really couldn't; it was such a +chilly game. Well, of course, one might speak at the Union, said the +persevering friend, insisting, it seemed, on finding Peter a career. +"Don't they talk about politics?" enquired Peter. "I couldn't do that, +you know. I don't approve of politics. If ever I have a vote I shall sell +it to the highest female bidder. Fancy being a Liberal or a Conservative, +out of all the nice things there are in the world to be! There are +health-fooders, now. I'd rather be that. And teetotallers. A man told me +he was a teetotaller to-day. I'll go in for that if you like, because +I don't much like wine. And I hate beer. These are rather nice +chocolates--I mean, they were." + +The indefatigable friend had further informed him that one might be a +Fabian and have a red tie, and encourage the other Fabians to wash. Or +one might ride. + +"One might--" Peter had made a suggestion of his own--"ride a motor +bicycle. I saw a man on one to-day; I mean he had been on it--it was on +him at the moment; it had chucked him off and was dancing on him, and +something that smelt was coming out of a hole. He was such a long way +from home; I was sorry about it." + +His friend had said, "Serve him right. Brute," expressing the general +feeling of the moment about men who rode motor bicycles. + +"Isn't it funny," Peter had reflectively said. "They must get such an +awful headache first--and then to be chucked off and jumped on so hard, +and covered with the smelly stuff--and then to have to walk home dragging +it, when it's deformed and won't run on its wheels. Unless, of course, +one is blown up into little bits and is at rest.... But it is so awfully, +frightfully ugly, to look at and to smell and to hear. Like your +wallpaper, you know." + +Peter's eyes had rested contentedly on his own peaceful green walls. He +really hadn't felt in the least like "going in for" anything, either +motor bicycling or examinations. + +"I suppose you'll just footle, then," his friend had summed it up, and +left him, because it was half-past six, and they had dinner at that +strange hour. That was why they were able to run it into their tea, +since obviously nothing could be done between, even by Peter's energetic +friend. This friend had little hope for Peter. Of course, he would just +footle; he always had. But one was, nevertheless, rather fond of him. +One would like him to do things, and have a sporting time. + +As a matter of fact, Peter gave his friend an agreeable surprise. He went +in, or attempted to go in, for a good many things. He plunged ardently +into football, though he had never been good, and though he always got +extremely tired over it, which was supposed to be bad for him, and +frequently got smashed up, which he knew to be unpleasant for him. This +came to an abrupt end half way through the term. Then he took, quite +suddenly, to motor bicycling. All this is merely to say that the +incalculable factor that sets temperament and natural predilection at +nought had entered into Peter's life. Of course, it was absurd. Urquhart, +being what he was, could successfully do a number of things that Peter, +being what _he_ was, must inevitably come to grief over. But still he +indomitably tried. He even profaned the roads and outraged all æsthetic +fitness in the endeavour, clacking into the country upon a hired +motor-bicycle and making his head ache badly and getting very cold, and +being from time to time thrown off and jumped upon and going about in +bandages, telling enquirers that he supposed he must have knocked against +something somewhere, he didn't remember exactly. The energetic friend had +been caustic. + +"I've no intention of sympathising with you," he had remarked; "because +you deserve all you get. You ass, you know when it's possible to get +smashed up over anything you're safe to do it, so what on earth do you +expect when you take up a thing like this?" + +"Instant death every minute," Peter had truly replied. (His nerves had +been a little shaken by his last ride, which had set his trouser-leg on +fire suddenly, and nearly, as he remarked, burnt him to death.) "But I +go on. I expect the worst, but I am resigned. The hero is not he who +feels no fear, for that were brutal and irrational." + +"What do you _do_ it for?" his friend had querulously and superfluously +demanded. + +"It's so frightfully funny," Peter had said, reflecting, "that I should +be doing it. That's why, I suppose. It makes me laugh. You might take to +the fiddle if you wanted a good laugh. I take to my motor-bicycle. It's +the only way to cheer oneself up when life is disappointing, to go and do +something entirely ridiculous. I used to stand on my head when I'd been +rowed or sat upon, or when there was a beastly wind; it cheered me a lot. +I've given that up now; so I motor-bicycle. Besides," he had added, "you +said I must go in for something. You wouldn't like it if I did my +embroidery all day." + +But on the days when he had been motor-bicycling, Peter had to do a great +deal of embroidery in the evenings, for the sake of the change. + +"I don't wonder you need it," a friend of the more æsthetically cultured +type remarked one evening, finding him doing it. "You've been playing +round with the Urquhart-Fitzmaurice lot to-day, haven't you? Nice man, +Fitzmaurice, isn't he? I like his tie-pins. You know, we almost lost him +last summer. He hung in the balance, and our hearts were in our mouths. +But he is still with us. You look as if he had been very much with you, +Margery." + +Peter looked meditative and stitched. "Old Fitz," he murmured, "is one of +the best. A real sportsman.... Don't, Elmslie; I didn't think of that, I +heard Childers say it. Childers also said, 'By Jove, old Fitz knocks +spots out of 'em every time,' but I don't know what he meant. I'm trying +to learn to talk like Childers. When I can do that, I shall buy a tie-pin +like Fitzmaurice's, only mine will be paste. Streater's is paste; he's +another nice man." + +"He certainly is. In fact, Margery, you really are _not_ particular +enough about the company you keep. You shun neither the over-bred nor the +under-bred. Personally I affect neither, because they don't amuse me. You +embrace both." + +"Yes," Peter mildly agreed. "But I don't embrace Streater, you know. I +draw the line at Streater. Everyone draws the line at Streater; he's of +the baser sort, like his tie-pins. Wouldn't it be vexing to have people +always drawing lines at you. There'd be nothing you could well do, except +to draw one at them, and they wouldn't notice yours, probably, if they'd +got theirs in first. You could only sneer. One can always sneer. I +sneered to-day." + +"You can't sneer," Elmslie told him brutally; "and you can't draw lines; +and what on earth you hang about with so many different sorts of idiots +for I don't know.... I think, if circumstances absolutely compelled me to +make bosom friends of either, I should choose the under-bred poor rather +than the over-bred rich. That's the sort of man I've no use for. The sort +of man with so much money that he has to chuck it all about the place to +get rid of it. The sort of man who talks to you about beagles. The sort +of man who has a different fancy waistcoat for each day of the week." + +"Well," said Peter, "that's nice. I wish I had." + +His friend turned a grave regard on him. "The sort of man who rides a +motor-bicycle.... You really should, Margery," he went on, "learn to be +more fastidious. You mustn't let yourself be either dazzled by fancy +waistcoats or sympathetically moved by unclean collars. Neither is +interesting." + +"I never said they were," Peter said. "It's the people inside them...." + +Peter, in brief, was a lover of his kind, and the music life played to +him was of a varied and complex nature. But, looking back, it was easy to +see how there had been, running through all the variations, a dominant +motive in the piece. + +As Peter listened to the boiling of his egg, and thought how hard it +would be when he took it off, the dominant motive came in and stood by +the fire, and looked down on Peter. He jingled things in his pockets and +swayed to and fro on his heels like his uncle Evelyn, and he was slim in +build, and fair and pale and clear-cut of face, and gentle and rather +indifferent in manner, and soft and casual in voice, and he was in his +fourth year, and life went extremely well with him. + +"It boils," he told Peter, of the egg. + +Peter took it off and fished it out with a spoon, and began rummaging for +an egg-cup and salt and marmalade and buns in the locker beneath his +window seat. Having found these things, he composed himself in the fat +arm-chair to dine, with a sigh of satisfaction. + +"You slacker," Urquhart observed. "Well, can you come to-morrow? The drag +starts at eleven." + +"It's quite hard," said Peter, unreasonably disappointed in it. "Oh, yes, +rather; I'll come." How short the time for doing things had suddenly +become. + +Urquhart remarked, looking at the carpet, "What a revolting mess. Why?" + +"My self-filling bath," Peter explained. "I invented it myself. Well--it +did fill itself. Quite suddenly and all at once, you know. It was a very +beautiful sight. But rather unrestrained at present. I must improve +it.... Oh, this is my last term." + +"Sent down?" Urquhart sympathetically enquired. It was what one might +expect to happen to Peter. + +"Destitute," Peter told him. "The Robinsons have it practically all. +Hilary told me to-day. I am thrown on the world. I shall have to work. +Hilary is destitute too, and Peggy has nothing to spend, and the babies +insist on bathing in the canals. Bad luck for us, isn't it. Oh, and +Hilary is going to edit a magazine called 'The Gem,' for your uncle in +Venice. That seems rather a nice plan. The question is, what am I to +apply _my_ great gifts to?" + +Urquhart whistled softly. "As bad as all that, is it?" + +"Quite as bad. Worse if anything.... The only thing in careers that I +can fancy at the moment is art dealing--picking up nice things cheap and +selling them dear, you know. Only I should always want to keep them, of +course. If I don't do that I shall have to live by my needle. If they +pass the Sweated Industries Bill, I suppose one will get quite a lot. +It's the only Bill I've ever been interested in. My uncle was extremely +struck by the intelligent way I took notice of it, when I had +disappointed him so much about Tariff Reform and Education." + +"You'd probably be among the unskilled millions whom the bill turns out +of work." + +"Then I shall be unemployed, and march with a flag. I shall rather like +that.... Oh, I suppose somehow one manages to live, doesn't one, whether +one has a degree or not. And personally I'd rather not have one, because +it would be such a mortifying one. Besides," Peter added, after a +luminous moment of reflection, "I don't believe a degree really matters +much, in my profession. You didn't know I had a profession, I expect; +I've just thought of it. I'm going to be a buyer for the Ignorant Rich. +Make their houses liveable-in. They tell me what they want--I get hold +of it for them. Turn them out an Italian drawing-room--Della Robbia +mantel-piece, Florentine fire-irons, Renaissance ceiling, tapestries and +so on. Things they haven't energy to find for themselves or intelligence +to know when they see them. I love finding them, and I'm practised at +cheating. One has to cheat if one's poor but eager.... A poor trade, +but my own. I can grub about low shops all day, and go to sales at +Christie's. What fun." + +Urquhart said, "You'd better begin on Leslie. You're exactly what he +wants." + +"Who's Leslie?" Peter was eating buns and marmalade, in restored spirits. + +"Leslie's an Ignorant Rich. He's a Hebrew. His parents weren't called +Leslie, but never mind. Leslie rolls. He also bounds, but not +aggressively high. One can quite stand him; in fact, he has his good +points. He's rich but eager. Also he doesn't know a good thing when he +sees it. He lacks your discerning eye, Margery. But such is his eagerness +that he is determined to have good things, even though he doesn't know +them when he sees them. He would like to be a connoisseur--a collector of +world-wide fame. He would like to fill his house with things that would +make people open their eyes and whistle. But at present he's got no guide +but price and his own pure taste. Consequently he gets hopelessly let in, +and people whistle, but not in the way he wants. He's quite frank; he +told me all about it. What he wants is a man with a good eye, to do his +shopping for him. It would be an ideal berth for a man with the desire +but not the power to purchase; a unique partnership of talent with +capital. There you are. You supply the talent. He'd take you on, for +certain. It would be a very nice little job for you to begin with. By +the time you've decorated his town house and his country seat and his +shooting-box and all his other residences, you'll be fairly started in +your profession. I'll write to him about you." + +Peter chuckled. "How frightfully funny, though. I wonder why anyone +should want to have things unless they like to have them for themselves. +Just as if I were to hire Streater, say, to buy really beautiful +photographs of actresses for me!... Well, suppose he didn't like the +things I bought for him? Suppose our tastes didn't agree? Should I have +to try and suit his, or would he have to put up with mine?" + +"There's only one taste in the matter," Urquhart told him. "He hasn't got +any. You could buy him any old thing and tell him it was good and he'd +believe you, provided it cost enough. That's why he has to have a buyer +honest though poor--he couldn't check him in the least. I shall tell him +that, however many the things you might lie about, you are a George +Washington where your precious bric-a-brac is concerned, because it's +the one thing you care about too much to take it flippantly." + +Peter chuckled again. Life, having for a little while drifted perilously +near to the shores of dullness, again bobbed merrily on the waters of +farce. What a lot of funny things there were, all waiting to be done! +This that Urquhart suggested should certainly, if possible, be one of +them. + +A week later, when Mr. Leslie had written to engage Peter's services, +Urquhart's second cousin Rodney came into Peter's room (a thing he had +never done before, because he did not know Peter much) and said, "But why +not start a curiosity shop of your own? Or be a travelling pedlar? It +would be so much more amusing." + +Peter felt a little flattered. He liked Rodney, who was in his third year +and had never before taken any particular notice of him. Rodney was a +rather brilliant science man; he was also an apostle, a vegetarian, a +fine football player, an ex-Fabian, and a few other things. He was a +large, emaciated-looking person, with extraordinarily bright grey eyes, +inspiring a lean, pale, dark-browed face--the face of an ascetic, lit by +a flame of energising life. He looked as if he would spend and be spent +by it to the last charred fragment, in pursuit of the idea. There was +nothing in his vivid aspect of Peter Margerison's gentle philosophy of +acquiescence; he looked as if he would to the end dictate terms to life +rather than accept them--an attitude combined oddly with a view which +regarded the changes and chances of circumstance as more or less +irrelevant to life's vital essence. + +Peter didn't know why Rodney wanted him to be a travelling pedlar--except +that, as he had anyhow once been a Socialist, he presumably disliked the +rich (ignorant or otherwise) and included Leslie among them. Peter always +had a vague feeling that Rodney did not wholly appreciate his cousin +Urquhart, for this same reason. A man of means, Rodney would no doubt +have held, has much ado to save his soul alive; better, if possible, be +a bricklayer or a mendicant friar. + +"Some day," said Peter politely, "I may have to be a travelling pedlar. +This is only an experiment, to see if it works." + +He was conscious suddenly of two opposing principles that crossed swords +with a clash. Rodney and Urquhart--poverty and wealth--he could not +analyse further. + +But Rodney was newly friendly to him for the rest of that term. Urquhart +commented on it. + +"Stephen always takes notice of the destitute. The best qualification for +his regard is to commit such a solecism that society cuts you, or such a +crime that you get a month's hard. Short of that, it will do to have a +hole in your coat, or paint a bad picture, or produce a yesterday's +handkerchief. He probably thinks you're on the road to that. When you +get there, he'll swear eternal friendship. He can't away with the +prosperous." + +"What a mistake," Peter said. It seemed to him a singularly perverse +point of view. + + + + +CHAPTER III + +THE HOPES + + +It was rather fun shopping for Leslie. Leslie was a stout, quiet, +ponderous person between thirty and forty, and he really did not bound +at all; Urquhart had done him less than justice in his description. There +was about him the pathos of the very rich. He was generous in the +extreme, and Peter's job proved lucrative as well as pleasant. He grew +curiously fond of Leslie; his attitude towards him was one of respect +touched with protectiveness. No one should any more "do" Leslie, if he +could help it. + +"He's let me," Peter told his cousin Lucy, "get rid of all his horrible +Lowestoft forgeries; awful things they were, with the blue hardly dry on +them. Frightful cheek, selling him things like that; it's so insulting. +Leslie's awfully sweet-tempered about being gulled, though. He's very +kind to me; he lets me buy anything I like for him. And he recommends me +to his friends, too. It's a splendid profession; I'm so glad I thought +of it. If I hadn't I should have had to go into a dye shop, or be a +weaver or something. It wouldn't have been good form; it wouldn't even +have been clean. I should have had a day-before-yesterday's handkerchief +and Rodney would have liked me more, but Denis would probably have cut +me. As it is I'm quite good form and quite clean, and I move in the best +circles. I love the Ignorant Rich; they're so amusing. I know such +a nice lady. She buys potato rings. She likes them to be Dublin +hall-marked and clearly dated seventeen hundred and something--so, +naturally, they always were till I began to buy them for her. I've +persuaded her to give away the most blatant forgeries to her god-children +at their baptisms. Babies like them, sham or genuine." + +Peter was having tea with his cousin Lucy and Urquhart in the White City. +Peter and Lucy were very fond of the White City. Peter's cousin Lucy was +something like a small, gay spring flower, with wide, solemn grey eyes +that brimmed with sudden laughters, and a funny, infectious gurgle of a +laugh. She was a year younger than Peter, and they had all their lives +gone shares in their possessions, from guinea-pigs to ideas. They admired +the same china and the same people, with unquestioning unanimity. Lucy +lived in Chelsea, with an elder sister and a father who ran at his own +expense a revolutionary journal that didn't pay, because those who would +have liked to buy it couldn't, for the most part, afford to, and because +those who could have afforded to didn't want to, and because, in short, +journals run by nice people never do pay. + +Lucy played the 'cello, the instrument usually selected by the small +in stature. In the intervals of this pursuit, she went about the world +open-eyed to all new-burnished joys that came within her vision, and +lived by admiration, hope and love, and played with Peter at any game, +wise or foolish, that turned up. Often Urquhart played with them, and +they were a happy party of three. Peter and Lucy shared, among other +things, an admiration of Urquhart. + +Peter was finding the world delightful just now. This first winter in +London was probably the happiest time he ever had. He hardly missed +Cambridge; he certainly didn't miss the money that the Robinsons had. +His profession was to touch and handle the things he loved; the Ignorant +Rich were delightful; the things he bought for them were beyond all +words; the sales he attended were revels of joy; it was all extremely +entertaining, and Leslie a dear, and everyone very kind. The affection +that always found its way to Peter through his disabilities spoke for +something in him that must, it would seem, be there; possibly it was +merely his friendly smile. He was anyhow of the genus comedian, that +readily endears itself. + +He and Urquhart and Lucy all knew how to live. They made good use of +most of the happy resources that London offers to its inhabitants. They +went in steamers to and fro between Putney and Greenwich, listening to +concertinas and other instruments of music. They looked at many sorts of +pictures, talked to many sorts of people, and attended many sorts of +plays. Urquhart and Peter had even become associates of the Y.M.C.A. +(representing themselves as agnostics seeking for light) on account of +the swimming-baths. As Peter remarked, "Christian Young Men do not +bathe very much, and it seems a pity no one should." On the day when they +had tea at the White City, they had all had lunch at a very recherché +café in Soho, where the Smart Set like to meet Bohemians, and you can +only get in by being one or the other, so Peter and Lucy went as the +Smart Set, and Urquhart as a Bohemian, and they liked to meet each other +very much. + +The only drawback to Peter's life was the bronchitis that sprang at him +out of the fogs and temporarily stopped work. He had just recovered from +an attack of it on the day when he was having tea at the White City, and +he looked a weak and washed-out rag, with sunken blue eyes smiling out of +a very white face. + +"You would think, to look at him," Urquhart said to Lucy, "that he had +been going in extensively for the flip-flap this afternoon. It's a pity +Stephen can't see you, Margery; you look starved enough to satisfy even +him. You never come across Stephen now, I suppose? You wouldn't, of +course. He has no opinion of the Ignorant Rich. Nor even of the +well-informed rich, like me. He's blindly prejudiced in favour of the +Ignorant Poor." + +Lucy nodded. "I know. He's nice to me always. I go and play my 'cello to +his friends." + +"I always keep him in mind," said Peter, "for the day when my patrons get +tired of me. I know Rodney will be kind to me directly I take to street +peddling or any other thoroughly ill-bred profession. The kind he +despises most, I suppose, are my dear Ignorant Rich--the ill-bred but by +no means breadless. (That's my own and not very funny, by the way.) Did +I tell you, Denis, that Leslie is going to begin educating the People in +Appreciation of Objects of Art? Isn't it a nice idea? I'm to help. +Leslie's a visionary, you know. I believe plutocrats often are. They've +so much money and are so comfortable that they stop wanting material +things and begin dreaming dreams. I should dream dreams if I was a +plutocrat. As it is my mind is earthly. I don't want to educate anyone. +Well, anyhow we're going to Italy in the spring, to pick things up, as +Leslie puts it. That always sounds so much as if we didn't pay for them. +Then we shall bring them home and have free exhibits for the Ignorant +Poor, and I shall give free and instructive lectures. Isn't it a pleasant +plan? We're going to Venice. There's a Berovieri goblet that some +Venetian count has, that Leslie's set his heart on. We are to acquire +it, regardless of expense, if it turns out to be all that is rumoured." + +Urquhart scoffed here. + +"Nice to be infallible, isn't it. You and your goblets and your Ignorant +Rich. And your brother Hilary and my uncle Evelyn. Your great gifts seem +to run in the family. My uncle, I hear, is ruining himself with buying +the things your brother admires. My poor uncle, Miss Hope, is getting so +weak-sighted that he can't judge for himself as he used, so he follows +the advice of Margery's brother. It keeps him very happy and amused, +though he'll soon be bankrupt, no doubt." + +Lucy, as usual, laughed at the Urquhart family and the Margerison family +and the world at large. When she laughed, she opened her grey eyes wide, +while they twinkled with dancing light. + +Then she said, "Oh, I want to go on the flip-flap. Peter mustn't come, +because it always makes him sick; so will you?" + +Urquhart said he would, so they did, and Peter watched them, hoping +Urquhart didn't mind much. Urquhart never seemed to mind being ordered +about by Lucy. And Lucy, of course, had accepted him as an intimate +friend from the first, because Peter had said she was to, and because, as +she remarked, he was so astonishingly nice to look at and to listen to. + +Among the visitors who frequented Lucy's home, people whom she considered +astonishingly pleasant to look at and to listen to did not abound; so +Lucy enjoyed the change all the more. + +The first time Peter took Urquhart down to Chelsea to call on his Hope +uncle and cousins, one Sunday afternoon, he gave him a succinct account +of the sort of people they would probably meet there. + +"They have oddities in, you know--and particularly on Sunday afternoons. +They usually have one or two staying in the house, too. They keep open +house for wastrels. A lot of them are aliens--Polish refugees, Russian +anarchists, oppressed Finns, massacred Armenians who do embroidery; +violinists who can't earn a living, decayed chimney-sweeps and so forth. +'Disillusioned (or still illusioned) geniuses, would-bes, theorists, +artistic natures, failed reformers, knaves and fools incompetent or +over-old, broken evangelists and debauchees, inebriates, criminals, +cowards, virtual slaves' ... Anyhow it's a home for Lost Hopes. (Do you +see that?) My uncle is keen on anyone who tries to revolt against +anything--governments, Russians, proprieties, or anything else--and +Felicity is keen on anyone who fails." + +"And your other cousin--what is she keen on?" + +"Oh, Lucy's too young for the Oddities, like me. She and I sit in a +corner and look on. It's my uncle and Felicity they like to talk to. They +talk about Liberty to them, you know. My uncle is great on Liberty. And +they give them lemon in their tea, and say how wicked Russians are, and +how stupid Royal Academicians are, and buy the Armenians' embroidery, +and so forth. Lucy and I don't do that well. I disapprove of liberty for +most people, I think, and certainly for them; and I don't like lemon in +my tea, and though I'm sure Russians are wicked, I believe oppressed +Poles are as bad--at least their hair is as bushy and their nails as +long--and I prefer the embroidery I do myself; I do it quite nicely, I +think. And I don't consider that Celtic poets or Armenian Christians wash +their hands often enough.... They nearly all asked me the time last +Sunday. I was sorry about it." + +"You feared they were finding their afternoon tedious?" + +"No; but I think their watches were up the spout, you see. So I was +sorry. I never feel so sorry for myself as when mine is. I'm really +awfully grateful to Leslie; if it wasn't for him I should never be able +to tell anyone the time. By the way, Leslie's awfully fond of Felicity. +He writes her enormous cheques for her clubs and vagabonds and so on. But +of course she'll never look at him; he's much too well-off. It's not low +to tell you that, because he makes it so awfully obvious. He'll probably +be there this afternoon. Oh, here we are." + +They found the Hopes' small drawing-room filled much as Peter had +predicted. Dermot Hope was a tall, wasted-looking man of fifty-five, with +brilliant eyes giving significance to a vague face. He had very little +money, and spent that little on "Progress," whose readers were few and +ardent, and whose contributors were very cosmopolitan, and full of zeal +and fire; several of them were here this afternoon. Dermot Hope himself +was most unconquerably full of fire. He could be delightful, and +exceedingly disagreeable, full of genial sympathy and appreciation, and +of a biting irony. He looked at Urquhart, whom he met for the first time, +with a touch of sarcasm in his smile. He said, "You're exactly like your +father. How do you do," and seemed to take no further interest in him. +He had certainly never taken much in Lord Hugh, during the brief year of +their brotherhood. + +For Peter his glance was indulgent. Peter, not being himself a reformer, +or an idealist, or a lover of progress, or even, according to himself, of +liberty, but an acceptor of things as they are and a lover of the good +things of this world, was not particularly interesting to his uncle, of +course; but, being rather an endearing boy, and the son of a beloved +sister, he was loved; and, even had he been a stranger, his position +would have been regarded as more respectable than Urquhart's, since he +had so far failed to secure many good things. + +Felicity, a gracious and lovely person of twenty-nine, gave Peter and +Urquhart a smile out of her violet eyes and murmured "Lucy's in the +corner over there," and resumed the conversation she was trying to divide +between Joseph Leslie and a young English professor who was having a +holiday from stirring up revolutions at a Polish university. The division +was not altogether easy, even to a person of Felicity's extraordinary +tact, particularly as they both happened to be in love with her. Felicity +had a great deal of listening to do always, because everyone told her +about themselves, and she always heard them gladly; if she hastened the +end a little sometimes, gently, they never knew it. She, in fact, wanted +to hear about them as much--really as much, though the desire in these +proportions is so rare as to seem incredible--as they wanted to let her +hear. Her wish to hear was a temptation to egotism; those who disliked +egotism in themselves had to fight the temptation, and seldom won. +She did not believe--no one but a fool (and she was not that) could have +believed--all the many things that were told her; the many things that +must always, while pity and the need to be pitied endure, be told to the +pitiful; but she seldom said so. She merely looked at the teller with her +long and lovely violet eyes, that took in so much and gave out such +continual friendship, and saw how, behind the lies, the need dwelt +pleading. Then she gave, not necessarily what the lies asked for, but +what, in her opinion, pity owed to that which pleaded. She certainly +gave, as a rule, quite too much, in whatever coin she paid. That was +inevitable. + +"You give from the emotions," Joseph Leslie told her, "instead of +from reason. How bad for you: how bad for them. And worse when it is +friendship than when it is coin that you can count and set a limit to. +Yes. Abominably bad for everyone concerned." + +"Should one," wondered Felicity, "give friendship, as one is supposed to +give money, on C.O.S. principles? Perhaps so; I must think about it." + +But her thinking always brought her back to the same conclusion as +before. Consequently her circle of friends grew and grew. She even +included in it a few of the rich and prosperous, not wishing her chain +of fellowship, whose links she kept in careful repair, to fail anywhere. +But it showed strain there. It was forged and flung by the rich and +prosperous, and merely accepted by Felicity. + +Leslie, though rich and prosperous, stepped into the linked circle led +by Peter, who was neither. Having money, and a desire to make himself +conscious of the fact by using it, he consulted Miss Hope as to how +best to be philanthropic. He wanted, it seemed, to be a philanthropist as +well as a collector, and felt incapable of being either otherwise than +through agents. His personal share in both enterprises had to be limited +to the backing capital. + +Miss Hope said, "Start a settlement," and he had said, "I can't unless +you'll work it for me. Will you?" So he started a settlement, and she +worked it for him, and he came about the place and got in the way and +wrote heavy cheques and adored Felicity and suggested at suitable +intervals that she should marry him. + +Felicity had no intention of marrying him. She called him a rest. No one +likes being called a rest when they desire to be a stimulant, or even a +gentle excitement. Felicity was an immense excitement to Mr. Leslie +(though he concealed it laboriously under a heavy and matter-of-fact +exterior) and it is of course pleasanter when these things are +reciprocal. But Mr. Leslie perceived that she took much more interest +even in her young cousin Peter than in him. "Do you find him a useful +little boy?" she asked him this afternoon, before Peter and Urquhart +arrived. + +Leslie nodded. "Useful boy--very. And pleasant company, you know. I don't +know much about these things, but he seems to have a splendid eye for a +good thing. Funny thing is, it works all round--in all departments. +Native genius, not training. He sees a horse between a pair of shafts in +a country lane; looks at it; says 'That's good. That would have a fair +chance for the Grand National'--Urquhart buys it for fifty pounds +straight away--and it _does_ win the Grand National. And he knows nothing +special about horses, either. That's what I call genius. It's the same +eye that makes him spot a dusty old bit of good china on a back shelf of +a shop among a crowd of forged rubbish. I've none of that sort of sense; +I'm hopeless. But I like good things, and I can pay for them, and I give +that boy a free rein. He's furnishing my house well for me. It seems to +amuse him rather." + +"He loves it," said Felicity. "His love of pleasant things is what he +lives by. Including among them Denis Urquhart, of course." + +"Yes." Leslie pursed thoughtful lips over Denis Urquhart. He was perhaps +slightly touched with jealousy there. He was himself rather drawn towards +that tranquil young man, but he knew very well that the drawing was +one-sided; Urquhart was patently undrawn. + +"Rather a flash lot, the Urquharts, aren't they?" he said; and Peter, who +liked him, would have had to admit that the remark was perilously near to +a bound. "Seem to have a sort of knack of dazzling people." + +"He's an attractive person, of course," Miss Hope replied; and she didn't +say it distantly; she was so sorry for people who bounded, and so many of +her friends did. "It's pleasing to see, isn't it--such whole-souled +devotion?" + +Mr. Leslie grunted. "I won't say pearls before swine--because Urquhart +isn't a swine, but a very pleasant, ordinary young fellow. But worship +like that can't be deserved, you know; not by anyone, however +beautifully he motors through life. Margerison's too--well, too nice, +to put it simply--to give himself to another person, body and soul, like +that. It's squandering." + +"And irritates you," she reflected, but merely said, "Is squandering +always a bad thing, I wonder?" + +It was at this point that Peter and Urquhart came in. Directed by +Felicity to Lucy in an obscure corner, they found her being talked to by +one of the Oddities; he looked rather like an oppressed Finn. He was +talking and she was listening, wide-eyed and ingenuous, her small hands +clasped on her lap. Peter and Urquhart sat down by her, and the oppressed +Finn presently wandered away to talk to Lucy's father. + +Lucy gave a little sigh of relief. + +"_Wish_ they wouldn't come and talk to me," she said. "I'm no good to +them; I don't understand; and I hate people to be unhappy. I'm dreadfully +sorry they are. I don't want to have to think about them. Why can't they +be happy? There are so many nice things all about. 'Tis such _waste_." +She looked up at Urquhart, and her eyes laughed because he was happy and +clean, and shone like a new pin. + +"It's nicest," she said, "to be happy and clean. And it's not bad to be +happy and dirty; or _very_ bad to be unhappy and clean; but ..." She shut +her lips with a funny distaste on the remaining alternative. "And I'm +horribly afraid Felicity's going to get engaged to Mr. Malyon, that young +one talking to her, do you see? He helps with conspiracies in Poland." + +"But he's quite clean," said Urquhart, looking at him. + +Lucy admitted that. "But he'll get sent to Siberia soon, don't you see, +and Felicity will go too, I know." + +Peter said, "If I was Felicity I'd marry Leslie; I wouldn't hesitate for +a moment. I wish it was me he loved so. Fancy marrying into all those +lovely things I'm getting for him. Only I hope she won't, because then +she'd take over the shopping department, and I should be left unemployed. +Oh, Lucy, he's let me buy him the heavenliest pair of Chelsea +_jardinières_, shaped like orange-tubs, with Cupids painted on blue +panels. You must come and see them soon." + +Lucy's eyes, seeing the delightful things, widened and danced. She loved +the things Peter bought. + +Suddenly Peter, who had a conscience somewhere, felt a pang in it, and, +to ease it, regretfully left the corner and wandered about among his +uncle's friends, being pleasant and telling them the time. He did that +till the last of them had departed. Urquhart then had to depart also, and +Peter was alone with his relatives. It was only after Urquhart had gone +that Peter realised fully what a very curious and incongruous element he +had been in the room. Realising it suddenly, he laughed, and Lucy laughed +too. Felicity looked at them indulgently. + +"Babies. What's the matter now?" + +"Only Denis," explained Peter. + +"That young man," commented Dermot Hope, without approbation, "is +remarkably well-fed, well-bred, and well-dressed. Why do you take him +about with you?" + +"That's just why, isn't it, Peter," put in Lucy. "Peter and I _like_ +people to be well-fed and well-bred and well-dressed." + +Felicity touched her chin, with her indulgent smile. + +"Baby again. You like no such thing. You'd get tired of it in a week." + +"Oh, well," said Lucy, "a week's a long time." + +"He's got no fire in all his soul and body," complained Dermot Hope. +"He's a symbol of prosperous content--of all we're fighting. It's people +like him who are the real obstructionists; the people who don't see, not +because they're blind, but because they're too pleased with their own +conditions to look beyond them. It's people like him who are pouring +water on the fires as they are lit, because fires are such bad form, +and might burn up their precious chattels if allowed to get out of hand. +Take life placidly; don't get excited, it's so vulgar; that's their +religion. They've neither enthusiasm nor imagination in them. And so ..." + +And so forth, just as it came out in "Progress" once a month. Peter +didn't read "Progress," because he wasn't interested in the future, being +essentially a child of to-day. Besides, he too hated conflagrations, +thinking the precious chattels they would burn up much too precious for +that. Peter was no lover either of destruction or construction; perhaps +he too was an obstructionist; though not without imagination. His uncle +knew he had a regrettable tendency to put things in the foreground and +keep ideas very much in the background, and called him therefore a +phenomenalist. Lucy shared this tendency, being a good deal of an artist +and nothing at all of a philosopher. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +THE COMPLETE SHOPPER + + +Six months later Peter called at the Hopes' to say good-bye before he +went to Italy. He found Lucy in, and Urquhart was there too, talking +to her in a room full of leaping fire-shadows. Peter sat down on the +coal-scuttle (it was one of those coal-scuttles you can sit on +comfortably) and said, "Leslie's taking me to Italy on Sunday. Isn't +it nice for me. I wish he was taking you too." + +Lucy, clasping small hands, said, "Oh, Peter, I wish he was!" + +Urquhart, looking at her said, "Do you want to go?" and she nodded, with +her mouth tight shut as if to keep back floods of eloquence on that +subject. "So do I," said Urquhart, and added, in his casual way, "Will +you and your father come with me?" + +"You paying?" said Lucy, in her frank, unabashed way like a child's; and +he smiled down at her. + +"Yes. Me paying." + +"'Twould be nice," she breathed, her grey eyes wide with wistful +pleasure. "I would love it. But--but father wouldn't, you know. He +wouldn't want to go, and if he did he'd want to pay for it himself, +and do it his own way, and travel third-class and be dreadfully +uncomfortable. Wouldn't he, Peter?" + +Peter feared that he would. + +"Thank you tremendously, all the same," said Lucy, prettily polite. + +"I shall have to go by myself, then," said Urquhart. "What a bore. I +really am going, you know, sometime this spring, to stay with my uncle +in Venice. I expect I shall come across you, Margery, with any luck. I +shan't start yet, though; I shall wait for better motoring weather. No, +I can't stop for tea, thanks; I'm going off for the week-end. Good-bye. +Good-bye, Margery. See you next in Venice, probably." + +He was gone. Lucy sat still in her characteristic attitude, hands clasped +on her knees, solemn grey eyes on the fire. + +"He's going away for the week-end," she said, realising it for herself +and Peter. "But it's more amusing when he's here. When he's in town, I +mean, and comes in. That's nice and funny, isn't it." + +"Yes," said Peter. + +"But one can go out into the streets and see the people go by--and that's +nice and funny too. And there are the Chinese paintings in the British +Museum ... and concerts ... and the Zoo ... and I'm going to a theatre +to-night. It's _all_ nice and funny, isn't it." + +"Yes," said Peter again. He thought so too. + +"Even when you and he are both gone to Italy," said Lucy, reassuring +herself, faintly interrogative. "Even then ... it can't be dull. It can't +be dull ever." + +"It hasn't been yet," Peter agreed. "But I wish you were coming too to +Italy. You must before long. As soon as ..." He left that unfinished, +because it was all so vague at present, and he and Lucy always lived in +the moment. + +"Well," said Lucy, "let's have tea." They had it, out of little Wedgwood +cups, and Lucy's mood of faint wistfulness passed over and left them +chuckling. + +Lucy was a little sad about Felicity, who was now engaged to the young +professor who was conspiring in Poland. + +"I knew she would, of course. I told you so long ago. He's quite sure +to get arrested before long, so that settled it. And they're going to +be married directly and go straight out there and plot. He excites the +students, you know; as if students needed exciting by their +professors.... I shall miss Felicity horribly. _'Tis_ too bad." + +Peter, to cheer her up, told her what he and Leslie were going to do in +Italy. + +"I'll write, of course. Picture post cards, you know. And if ever I've +twopence halfpenny to spare I'll write a real letter; there'll be a lot +to tell you." Peter expected Leslie to be rather funny in Italy, picking +things up. + +"A great country, I believe, for picking things up," he had said. +"Particularly for the garden." He had been referring to his country seat. + +"I see," said Peter. "You want to Italianise the garden. I'm not quite +sure.... Oh, you might, of course. Iron-work gates, then; and carved +Renaissance oil-tanks, and Venetian well-heads, and such-like. All right; +we'll see what we can steal. But it's rather easy to let an Italianised +garden become florid; you have to be extremely careful with it." + +"That's up to you," said Mr. Leslie tranquilly. + +So they went to Italy, and Peter picked things up with judgment, and +Leslie paid for them with phlegm. They picked up not only carved +olive-oil tanks and well-heads and fifteenth-century iron-work gates from +ancient and impoverished gardens, but a contemporarily copied Della +Robbia fireplace, and designs for Renaissance ceilings, and a rococo +carved and painted altar-piece from a mountain church whose _parroco_ was +hard-up, and a piece of 1480 tapestry that Peter loved very much, whereon +St. Anne and other saints played among roses and raspberries, beautiful +to behold. These things made both the picker-up and the payer exceedingly +contented. Meanwhile Peter with difficulty restrained Leslie from +"picking up" stray pieces of mosaic from tessellated pavements, and other +curios. Oddly together with Leslie's feeling for the costly went the +insane and indiscriminate avidity of the collecting tourist. + +"You can't do it," Peter would shrilly and emphatically explain. "It's +like a German tripper collecting souvenirs. Things aren't interesting +merely because you happen to have been to the places they belong to. What +do you want with that bit of glass? It isn't beautiful; when it's taken +out of the rest of its pattern like that it's merely ridiculous. I +thought you wanted _beautiful_ things." + +Leslie would meekly give in. His leaning on Peter in this matter of +what he wanted was touching. In the matter of what he admired, where no +questions of acquisition came in, he and his shopping-man agreed less. +Leslie here showed flashes of proper spirit. He also read Ruskin in the +train. Peter had small allegiance there; he even, when irritated, called +Ruskin a muddle-head. + +"He's a good man, isn't he?" Leslie queried, puzzled. "Surely he knows +what he's talking about?" and Peter had to admit that that was so. + +"He tells me what to like," the self-educator said simply. "And I try to +like it. I don't always succeed, but I try. That's right, isn't it?" + +"I don't know." Peter was puzzled. "It seems to me rather a funny way of +going about it. When you've succeeded, are you much happier? I mean, what +sort of a liking is it? Oh, but I don't understand--there aren't two +sorts really. You either like a thing, or ... well." + +At times one needed a rest from Leslie. But outside the province of art +and the pleasures of the eye he was lovable, even likeable, having here +a self-dependence and a personality that put pathos far off, and made +him himself a rest. And his generosity was limitless. It was almost an +oppression; only Peter, being neither proud nor self-conscious, was not +easily oppressed. He took what was lavished on him and did his best to +deserve it. But it was perhaps a little tiring. Leslie was a thoroughly +good sort--a much better sort than most people knew--but Italy was +somehow not the fit setting for him. Nothing could have made Peter +dislike things pleasant to look at; but Leslie's persevering, +uncomprehending groping after their pleasantness made one feel desirous +to dig a gulf between them and him. It was rather ageing. Peter missed +Urquhart and Lucy; one felt much younger with them. The thought of their +clean, light, direct touch on life, that handled its goods without +fumbling, and without the need of any intervening medium, was as +refreshing as a breath of fresh air in a close room. + +Rodney too was refreshing. They came across him at Pietrasanta; he was +walking across Tuscany by himself, and came to the station, looking very +dusty and disreputable, to put the book he had finished into his bag that +travelled by train and get out another. + +"Come out of that," he said to Peter, "and walk with me to Florence. +Trains for bags; roads for men. You can meet your patron in Florence. +Come along." + +And Peter, after a brief consultation with the accommodating Leslie, did +come along. It was certainly more than amusing. The road in Tuscany is +much better than the railway. And Rodney was an interesting and rather +attractive person. Since he left Cambridge he had been pursuing abstruse +chemical research in a laboratory he had in a Westminster slum. Peter +never saw him in London, because the Ignorant Rich do not live in slums, +and because Rodney was not fond of the more respectable quarters of the +city. + +Peter was set speculating vaguely on Rodney's vivid idealism. To Peter, +ideas, the unseen spirits of life, were remote, neither questioned nor +accepted, but simply in the background. In the foreground, for the +moment, were a long white road running through a river valley, and little +fortress cities cresting rocky hills, and the black notes of the +cypresses striking on a background of silver olives. In these Peter +believed; and he believed in blue Berovieri goblets, and Gobelin +tapestries, and in a great many other things that he had seen and saw at +this moment; he believed intensely, with a poignant vividness of delight, +in all things visible. For the rest, it was not that he doubted or +wondered much; he had not thought about it enough for that; but it was +all very remote. What was spirit, apart from form? Could it be? If so, +would it be valuable or admirable? It was the shapes and colours of +things, after all, that mattered. As to the pre-existence of things and +their hereafter, Peter seldom speculated; he knew that it was through +entering the workshop (or the play-room, he would rather have said) of +the phenomenal, where the idea took limiting lines and definite shape and +the tangible charm of the sense-apprehended, that life for him became +life. Rodney attained to his real by looking through the manifold veils +of the phenomenal, as through so much glass; Peter to his by an adoring +delight in their complex loveliness. He was not a symbolist; he had no +love of mystic hints and mist-veiled distances; he was George Herbert's + + Man who looks on glass + And on it rests his eye, + +because glass was so extremely jolly. Rodney looked with the mystic's +eyes on life revealed and emerging behind its symbols; Peter with the +artist's on life expressed in the clean and lovely shapes of things, +their colours and tangible sweetness. To Peter Rodney's idealism would +have been impossibly remote; things, as things, had a delightful concrete +reality that was its own justification. They needed to interpret nothing; +they were themselves; no veils, but the very inner sanctuary. + +Both creeds, that of things visible and that of the idea, were good, and +suited to the holders; but for those on whom fortune frequently frowns, +for those whose destiny it is to lose and break and not to attain, +Peter's has drawbacks. Things do break so; break and get lost and are no +more seen; and that hurts horribly. Remains the idea, Rodney would have +said; that, being your own, does not get lost unless you throw it away; +and, unless you are a fool, you don't throw it away until you have +something better to take its place. + +Anyhow they walked all day and slept on the road. On the third night +they slept in an olive garden; till the moon, striking in silver slants +between silver trees, lit on Rodney's face, and he opened dreamy eyes on +a pale, illumined world. At his side Peter, still in the shadows, slept +rolled up in a bag. Rodney slept with a thin plaid shawl over his knees. +He glanced for a moment at Peter's pale face, a little pathetic in sleep, +a little amused too at the corners of the lightly-closed lips. Rodney's +brief regard was rather friendly and affectionate; then he turned from +the dreaming Peter to the dreaming world. They had gone to sleep in a +dark blue night lit by golden stars, and the olive trees had stood dark +and unwhispering about them, gnarled shapes, waiting their +transformation. Now there had emerged a white world, a silver mystery, +a pale dream; and for Rodney the reality that shone always behind the +shadow-foreground dropped the shadows like a veil and emerged in clean +and bare translucence of truth. The dome of many-coloured glass was here +transcended, its stain absorbed in the white radiance of the elucidating +moon. So elucidating was the moon's light that it left no room for +confusion or doubt. So eternally silver were the still ranks of the +olives that one could imagine no transformation there. That was the pale +and immutable light that lit all the worlds. Getting through and behind +the most visible and obvious of the worlds one was in the sphere of true +values; they lay all about, shining in unveiled strangeness, eternally +and unalterably lit. So Rodney, who had his own value-system, saw them. + +Peter too was caught presently into the luminous circle, and stirred, and +opened pleased and friendly eyes on the white night--Peter was nearly +always polite, even to those who woke him--then, half apologetically, +made as if to snuggle again into sleep, but Rodney put out a long thin +arm and shoved him, and said, "It's time to get up, you slacker," and +Peter murmured: + +"Oh, bother, all right, have you made tea?" + +"No," said Rodney. "You can do without tea this morning." + +Peter sat up and began to fumble in his knapsack. + +"I see no morning," he patiently remarked, as he struck a match and lit +a tiny spirit-lamp. "I see no morning; and whether there is a morning or +merely a moon I cannot do without tea. Or biscuits." + +He found the biscuits, and apparently they had been underneath him all +night. + +"I thought the ground felt even pricklier than usual," he commented. "I +do have such dreadfully bad luck, don't I. Crumbs, Rodney? They're quite +good, for crumbs. Better than crusts, anyhow. I should think even you +could eat crumbs without pampering yourself. And if crumbs then tea, or +you'll choke. Here you are." + +He poured tea into two collapsible cups and passed one to Rodney, who had +been discoursing for some time on his special topic, the art of doing +without. + +Then Peter, drinking tea and munching crumbs, sat up in his bag and +looked at what Rodney described as the morning. He saw how the long, +pointed olive leaves stood with sharp edges against pale light; how +the silver screen was, if one looked into it, a thing of magic details +of delight, of manifold shapes and sharp little shadowings and delicate +tracery; how gnarled stems were light-touched and shadow-touched and +silver and black; how the night was delicate, marvellous, a radiant +wonder of clear loveliness, illustrated by a large white moon. Peter +saw it and smiled. He did not see Rodney's world, but his own. + +But both saw how the large moon dipped and dipped. Soon it would dip +below the dim land's rim, and the olive trees would be blurred and +twisted shadows in a still shadow-world. + +"Then," said Peter dreamily, "we shall be able to go to sleep again." + +Rodney pulled him out of his bag and firmly rolled it up. + +"Twelve kilometres from breakfast. Thirty from tea. No, we don't tea +before Florence. Go and wash." + +They washed in a copper bucket that hung beside a pulley well. It was +rather fun washing, till Peter let the bucket slip off the hook and +gurgle down to the bottom. Then it was rather fun fishing for it with +the hook, but it was not caught, and they abandoned it in sudden alarm at +a distant sound, and hastily scrambled out of the olive garden onto the +white road. + +Beneath their feet lay the thick soft dust, unstirred as yet by the day's +journeyings. The wayfaring smell of it caught at their breath. Before +them the pale road wound and wound, between the silver secrecy of the +olive woods, towards the journeying moon that dipped above a far and +hidden city in the west. Then a dim horizon took the dipping moon, and +there remained a grey road that smelt of dust and ran between shadowed +gardens that showed no more their eternal silver, but gnarled and twisted +stems that mocked and leered. + +One traveller stepped out of his clear circle of illumined values into +the shrouded dusk of the old accustomed mystery, and the road ran faint +to his eyes through a blurred land, and he had perforce to take up +again the quest of the way step by step. Reality, for a lucid space of +time emerging, had slipped again behind the shadow-veils. The ranks of +the wan olives, waiting silently for dawn, held and hid their secret. + +The other traveller murmured, "How many tones of grey do you suppose +there are in an olive tree when the moon has set? But there'll be more +presently. Listen...." + +The little wind that comes before the dawn stirred and shivered, and +disquieted the silence of the dim woods. Peter knew how the stirred +leaves would be shivering white, only in the dark twilight one could not +see. + +The dusk paled and paled. Soon one would catch the silver of up-turned +leaves. + +On the soft deep dust the treading feet of the travellers moved quietly. +One walked with a light unevenness, a slight limp. + + + + +CHAPTER V + +THE SPLENDID MORNING + + +"Listen," said Peter again; and some far off thing was faintly jarring +the soft silence, on a crescendo note. + +Rodney listened, and murmured, "Brute." He hated them more than Peter +did. He was less wide-minded and less sweet-tempered. Peter had a gentle +and not intolerant æsthetic aversion, Rodney a fervid moral indignation. + +It came storming over the rims of twilight out of an unborn dawn, and the +soft dust surged behind. Its eyes flamed, and lit the pale world. It was +running to the city in the dim west; it was in a hurry; it would be there +for breakfast. As it ran it played the opening bars of something of +Tchaichowsky's. + +Rodney and Peter leant over the low white wall and gazed into grey +shivering gardens. So could they show aloof contempt; so could they +elude the rioting dust. + +The storming took a diminuendo note; it slackened to a throbbing murmur. +The brute had stopped, and close to them. The brute was investigating +itself. + +"Perhaps," Rodney hoped, but not sanguinely, "they'll have to push it all +the way to Florence." Still contempt withheld a glance. + +Then a pleasant, soft voice broke the hushed dusk with half a laugh, and +Peter wheeled sharply about. The man who had laughed was climbing again +into his seat, saying, "It's quite all right." That remark was extremely +characteristic; it would have been a suitable motto for his whole career. + +The next thing he said, in his gentle, unsurprised voice, was to the +bare-headed figure that smiled up at him from the road. + +"You, Margery?... What a game. But what have you done with the Hebrew? +Oh, that's Stephen, isn't it. That accounts for it: but how did he get +you? I say, you can't have slept anywhere; there's _been_ nowhere, for +miles. And have you left Leslie to roam alone among the Objects of Beauty +with his own unsophisticated taste for guide? I suppose he's chucked +you at last; very decent-spirited of him, I think, don't you, Stephen?" + +"I chucked him," Peter explained, "because he bought a sham Carlo Dolci. +I drew the line at that. Though if one must have a Carlo Dolci, I suppose +it had better be a sham one, on the whole. Anyhow, I came away and took +to the road. We sleep in ditches, and we like it very much, and I make +tea every morning in my little kettle. I'm going to Florence to help +Leslie to buy bronze things for his grates--dogs, you know, and shovels +and things. Leslie will have been there for three days now; I do wonder +what he's bought." + +"You'd better come on in the car," Urquhart said. "Both of you. Why is +Stephen looking so proud? I shall be at Florence for breakfast. _You_ +won't, though. Bad luck. Come along; there's loads of room." + +Rodney stood by the wall. He was unlike Peter in this, that his +resentment towards a person who motored across Tuscany between dusk and +dawn was in no way lessened by the discovery of who it was. + +Peter stood, his feet deep in dust, and smiled at Urquhart. Rodney +watched the two a little cynically from the wall. Peter looked what he +was--a limping vagabond tramp, dust-smeared, bare-headed, very much +part of the twilight road. In spite of his knapsack, he had the air of +possessing nothing and smiling over the thought. + +Peter said, "How funny," meaning the combination of Urquhart and the +motor-car and Tuscany and the grey dawn and Rodney and himself; Urquhart +was smiling down at them, his face pale in the strange dawn-twilight. +The scene was symbolical of their whole relations; it seemed as if +Urquhart, lifted triumphantly above the road's dust, had always so smiled +down on Peter, in his vagabond weakness. + +"I don't think," Urquhart was saying, "that you ought to walk so far in +the night. It's weakening." To Urquhart Peter had always been a brittle +incompetent, who could not do things, who kept breaking into bits if +roughly handled. + +"Rodney and I don't think," Peter returned, in the hushed voice that +belonged to the still hour, "that you ought to motor so loud in the +night. It's common. Rodney specially thinks so. Rodney is sulking; he +won't come and speak to you." + +Urquhart called to his cousin: "Come with me to Florence, you and +Margery. Or do you hate them too much?" + +"Much too much," Rodney admitted, coming forwards perforce. "Thank you," +he added, "but I'm on a walking tour, and it wouldn't do to spoil it. +Margery isn't, though. You go, Margery, if you like." + +Urquhart said, "Do, Margery," and Peter looked wistful, but declined. He +wanted horribly badly to go with Urquhart; but loyalty hindered. + +Urquhart said he was going to Venice afterwards, to stay with his uncle +Evelyn. + +"Good," said Peter. "Leslie and I are going to do Venice directly we've +cleared Florence of its Objects of Beauty. You can imagine the way Leslie +will go about Florence, his purse in his hand, asking the price of the +Bargello. 'Worth having, isn't it? A good thing, I think?' If we decide +that it is he'll have it, whatever the price; he always does. He's a +sportsman; I can't tell you how attached I am to him." Peter had not told +even Urquhart that one was ever glad of a rest from Leslie. + +Urquhart said, "Well, if you _won't_ come," and hummed into the paling +twilight, and before him fled the circle of golden light and after him +swept the dust. Peter's eyes followed the golden light and the surging +whiteness till a bend in the road took them, and the world was again dim +and grey and very still. Only the little cool wind that soughed among the +olive leaves was like the hushed murmuring of quiet waves. Eastwards, +among the still, mysterious hills and silver plains, a translucent dawn +was coming. + +Peter's sigh was very unobtrusive. "After all," he murmured, "motoring +does make me feel sick." + +Rodney gave half a cynical smile with the corner of his mouth not +occupied with his short and ugly pipe. Peter was pipeless; smoking, +perhaps, had the same disastrous effect. + +"But all the same," said Peter, suddenly aggrieved, "you might be +pleasant to your own cousin, even if he is in a motor. Why be proud?" + +He was really a little vexed that Rodney should look with aloofness +on Urquhart. For him Urquhart embodied the brilliance of life, its +splendidness and beauty and joy. Rodney, with his fanatical tilting at +prosperity, would, Peter half consciously knew, have to see Urquhart +unhorsed and stripped bare before he would take much notice of him. + +"Too many things," said Rodney, indistinctly over his thick pipe. +"That's all." + +Peter, irritated, said, "The old story. The more things the better; why +not? You'd be happy on a desert island full of horrid naked savages. You +think you're civilised, but you're really the most primitive person +I know." + +Rodney said he was glad; he liked to be primitive, and added, "But +you're wrong, of course. The naked savages would like anything they could +get--beads or feathers or top hats; they're not natural ascetics; the +simple life is enforced.... St. Francis took off all his clothes in the +Piazza and began his new career without any." + +"Disgusting," murmured Peter. + +"That," said Rodney, "is what people like Denis should do. They need to +unload, strip bare, to find themselves, to find life." + +"Denis," said Peter, "is the most alive person I know, as it happens. +He's found life without needing to take his clothes off--so he scores +over St. Francis." + +Denis had rushed through the twilight vivid like a flame--he had lit it +for a moment and left it grey. Peter knew that. + +"But he hasn't," Rodney maintained, "got the key of the thing. If he +did take his clothes off, it would be a toss-up whether he found more +life or lost what he's got. That's all wrong, don't you see. That's what +ails all these delightful, prosperous people. They're swimming with +life-belts." + +"You'll be saying next," said Peter, disgusted, "that you admire +Savonarola and his bonfire." + +"I do, of course. But he'd only got hold of half of it--half the gospel +of the empty-handed. The point is to lose and laugh." For a moment Rodney +had a vision of Peter standing bare-headed in the dust and smiling. "To +drop all the trappings and still find life jolly--just because it _is_ +life, not because of what it brings. That's what St. Francis did. That's +where Italy scores over England. I remember at Lerici the beggars +laughing on the shore, with a little maccaroni to last them the day. +There was a man all done up in bandages, hopping about on crutches and +grinning. Smashed to bits, and his bones sticking out of his skin for +hunger, but there was the sun and the sea and the game he was playing +with dice, and he looked as if he was saying, '_Nihil habentes, omnia +possidentes_; isn't it a jolly day?' When Denis says that, I shall begin +to have hopes for him. At present he thinks it's a jolly day because he's +got money to throw about and a hundred and one games to play at and +friends to play them with, and everything his own way, and a new +motor.... Well, but look at that now. Isn't it bare and splendid--all +clean lines--no messing and softness; it might be cut out of rock. Oh, +I like Tuscany." + +They had rounded a bend, and a spacious country lay there stretched to +the morning, and over it the marvel of the dawn opened and blossomed like +a flower. From the basin of the shining river the hills stood back, and +up their steep sides the vine-hung mulberries and close-trimmed olives +climbed (olives south of the Serchio are diligently pruned, and lack the +generous luxuriance of the north), and against the silver background the +sentinel cypresses stood black, like sharp music notes striking abruptly +into a vague symphony; and among the mulberry gardens and the olives and +the cypresses white roads climbed and spiralled up to little cresting +cities that took the rosy dawn. Tuscany emerging out of the dim mystery +of night had a splendid clarity, an unblurred cleanness of line, an +austere fineness, as of a land hewn sharply out of rock. + +Peter would not have that fine bareness used as illustration; it was too +good a thing in itself. Rodney the symbolist saw the vision of life in +it, Peter the joy of self-sufficient beauty. + +The quiet road bore them through the hushed translucence of the +dawn-clear land. Everything was silent in this limpid hour; the little +wind that had whitened the olives and set the sea-waves whispering +there had dropped now and lay very still. + +The road ran level through the river basin. Far ahead they could see it +now, a white ribbon laid beside a long golden gleam that wound and wound. + +Peter sighed, seeing so much of it all at once, and stopped to rest on +the low white wall, but instead of sitting on it he swayed suddenly +forward, and the hill cities circled close about him, and darkened and +shut out the dawn. + +The smell of the dust, when one was close to it, was bitter and odd. +Somewhere in the further darkness a voice was muttering mild and +perplexed imprecations. Peter moved on the strong arm that was supporting +him and opened his eyes and looked on the world again. Between him and +the rosy morning, Rodney loomed large, pouring whisky into a flask. + +It all seemed a very old and often-repeated tale. One could not do +anything; one could not even go a walking-tour: one could not (of this +one was quite sure) take whisky at this juncture without feeling horribly +sick. The only thing that occurred to Peter, in the face of the dominant +Rodney, was to say, "I'm a teetotaller." Rodney nodded and held the flask +to his lips. Rodney was looking rather worried. + +Peter said presently, still at length in the dust, "I'm frightfully +sorry. I suppose I'm tired. Didn't we get up rather early and walk rather +fast?" + +"I suppose," said Rodney, "you oughtn't to have come. What's wrong, you +rotter?" + +Peter sat up, and there lay the road again, stretching and stretching +into the pink morning. + +"Thirty kilometres to breakfast," murmured Peter. "And I don't know that +I want any, even then. Wrong?... Oh ... well, I suppose it's heart. I +have one, you know, of a sort. A nuisance, it's always been. Not +dangerous, but just in the way. I'm sorry, Rodney--I really am." + +Rodney said again, "You absolute rotter. Why didn't you tell me? What in +the name of anything induced you to walk at all? You needn't have." + +Peter looked down the long road that wound and wound into the morning +land. "I wanted to," he said. "I wanted to most awfully.... I wanted to +try it.... I thought perhaps it was the one thing.... Football's off +for me, you know--and most other things.... Only diabolo left ... and +ping-pong ... and jig-saw. I'm quite good at those ... but oh, I did want +to be able to walk. Horribly I wanted it." + +"Well," said Rodney practically, "it's extremely obvious that you aren't. +You ought to have got into that thing, of course. Only then, as you +remarked, you would have felt sick. Really, Margery...." + +"Oh, I know," Peter stopped him hastily. "_Don't_ say the usual things; +I really feel too unwell to bear them. I know I'm made in Germany and all +that--I've been hearing so all my life. And now I should like you to go +on to Florence, and I'll follow, very slow. It's all very well, Rodney, +but you were going at about seven miles an hour. Talk of motors--I +couldn't see the scenery as we rushed by. That's such a Vandal-like +way of crossing Tuscany." + +"Well, you can cross the rest of Tuscany by train. There's a station at +Montelupo; we shall be there directly." + +Peter, abruptly renouncing his intention of getting up, lay back giddily. +The marvellous morning was splendid on the mountains. + +"How extremely lucky," remarked Peter weakly, "that I wasn't in this +position when Denis came by. Denis usually does come by at these crucial +moments you know--always has. He probably thinks by now that I am an +escaped inhabitant of the Permanent Casualty Ward. Bother. I wish he +didn't." + +"Since it's obvious," said Rodney, "that you can't stand, let alone walk, +I had better go on to Montelupo and fetch a carriage of sorts. I wonder +if you can lie there quietly till I come back, or if you'll be having +seizures and things? Well, I can't help it. I must go, anyhow. There's +the whisky on your left." + +Peter watched him go; he went at seven miles an hour; the dust ruffled +and leapt at his heels. + +Peter sat very still leaning back against the rough white wall, and +thought what a pity it all was. What a pity, and what a bore, that one +could not do things like other people. Short of being an Urquhart, who +could do everything and had everything, whose passing car flamed +triumphant and lit the world into a splendid joy, and was approved under +investigation with "quite all right"--short of that glorious competence +and pride of life, one might surely be an average man, who could walk +from San Pietro to Florence without tumbling on the road at dawn. Peter +sighed over it, rather crossly. The marvellous morning was insulted by +his collapse; it became a remote thing, in which he might have no share. +As always, the inexorable "Not for you" rose like a barred gate between +him and the lucid country the white road threaded. + +Peter in the dust began to whistle softly, to cheer himself, and because +he was really feeling better, and because anyhow, for him or not for him, +the land at dawn was a golden and glorious thing, and he loved it. What +did it matter whether he could walk through it or not? There it lay, +magical, clear-hewn, bathed in golden sunrise. + +Round the turn of the road a bent figure came, stepping slowly and with +age, a woodstack on his back. Heavier even than a knapsack containing a +spirit kettle and a Decameron and biscuit remainders in a paper bag, it +must be. Peter watched the slow figure sympathetically. Would he sway and +topple over; and if he did would the woodstack break his fall? The whisky +flask stood ready on Peter's left. + +Peter stopped whistling to watch; then he became aware that once more the +hidden distances were jarring and humming. He sat upright, and waited; a +little space of listening, then once again the sungod's chariot stormed +into the morning. + +Peter watched it grow in size. How extremely fortunate.... Even though +one was again, as usual, found collapsed and absurd. + +The woodstack pursued its slow advance. The music from Tchaichowsky +admonished it, as a matter of form, from far off, then sharply, +summarily, from a lessening distance. The woodstack was puzzled, vaguely +worried. It stopped, dubiously moved to one side, and pursued its +cautious way a little uncertainly. + +Urquhart, without his chauffeur this time, was driving over the +speed-limit, Peter perceived. He usually did. But he ought to slacken +his pace now, or he would miss Peter by the wall. He was nearing the +woodstack, just going to pass it, with a clear two yards between. It was +not his doing: it was the woodstack that suddenly lessened the distance, +lurching over it, taking the middle of the road. + +Peter cried, "Oh, don't--oh, _don't_," idiotically, sprawling on hands +and knees. + +The car swung sharply about like a tugged horse; sprang to the other side +of the road, hung poised on a wheel, as near as possible capsized. A less +violent jerk and it would have gone clean over the woodstack that lay in +the road on the top of its bearer. + +By the time Peter got there, Urquhart had lifted the burden from the old +bent figure that lay face downwards. Gently he turned it over, and they +looked on a thin old face gone grey with more than age. + +"He can't be," said Urquhart. "He can't be. I didn't touch him." + +Peter said nothing. His eyes rested on the broken end of a chestnut-stick +protruding from the faggot, dangling loose by its bark. Urquhart's glance +followed his. + +"I see," said Urquhart quietly. "That did it. The lamp or something must +have struck it and knocked him over. Poor old chap." Urquhart's hand +shook over the still heart. Peter gave him the whisky flask. Two minutes +passed. It was no good. + +"His heart must have been bad," said Urquhart, and the soft tones of his +pleasant voice were harsh and unsteady. "Shock, I suppose. How--how +absolutely awful." + +How absolutely incongruous, Peter was dully thinking. Urquhart and +tragedy; Urquhart and death. It was that which blackened the radiant +morning, not the mercifully abrupt cessation of a worn-out life. For +Peter death had two sharply differentiated aspects--one of release to +the tired and old, for whom the grasshopper was a burden; the other of +an unthinkable blackness of tragedy--sheer sharp loss that knew no +compensation. It was not with this bitter face that death had stepped +into their lives on this clear morning. One could imagine that weary +figure glad to end his wayfaring so; one could even imagine those steps +to death deliberately taken; and one did imagine those he left behind +him accepting his peace as theirs. + +Peter said, "It wasn't your fault. It was his doing--poor chap." + +The uncertain quaver in his voice brought Urquhart's eyes for a moment +upon his face, that was always pale and was now the colour of putty. + +"You're ill, aren't you?... I met Stephen.... I was coming back anyhow; +I knew you weren't fit to walk." + +He muttered it absently, frowning down on the other greyer face in the +grey dust. Again his hand unsteadily groped over the still heart, and lay +there for a moment. + +Abruptly then he looked up, and met Peter's shadow-circled eyes. + +"I was over-driving," he said. "I ought to have slowed down to pass him." +He stood up, frowning down on the two in the road. + +"We've got to think now," he said, "what to do about it." + +To that thinking Peter offered no help and no hindrance. He sat in the +road by the dead man and the bundle of wood, and looked vaguely on the +remote morning that death had dimmed. Denis and death: Peter would have +done a great deal to sever that incredible connection. + +But it was, after all, for Denis to effect that severing, to cut himself +loose from that oppressing and impossible weight. + +He did so. + +"I don't see," said Denis, "that we need ... that we can ... do anything +about it." + +Above the clear mountains the sun swung up triumphant, and the wide river +valley was bathed in radiant gold. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +HILARY, PEGGY, AND HER BOARDERS + + +When Leslie and Peter went to Venice to pick up Berovieri goblets and +other things, Leslie stayed at the Hotel Europa and Peter in the Palazzo +Amadeo. The Palazzo Amadeo is a dilapidated palace looking onto the Rio +delle Beccarie; it is let in flats to the poor; and in the sea-story +suite of the great, bare, dingy, gilded rooms lived Hilary and Peggy +Margerison, and three disreputable infants who insisted on bathing in the +canals, and the boarders. The boarders were at the moment six in number; +Peter made seven. The great difficulty with the boarders, Peggy told him, +was to make them pay. They had so little money, and such a constitutional +reluctance to spend that little on their board. + +"The poor things," said Peggy, who had a sympathetic heart. "I'm sure I'm +sorry for them, and I hate to ask them for it. But one's got to try and +live." + +She was drying Illuminato (baptized in that name by his father's +desire, but by his mother called Micky) before the stove in the great +dining-room. Illuminato had just tumbled off the bottom step into the +water, and had been fished out by his uncle Peter; he was three, and had +humorous, screwed-up eyes and a wide mouth like a frog's, so that Hilary, +who detested ugliness, could really hardly be fond of him. Peggy was; but +then Peggy always had more sense of humour than Hilary. + +A boarder looked in to see if lunch was ready. It was not, but Peggy +began preparations by screaming melodiously for Teresina. They heard the +boarder sigh. He was a tall young man with inspired eyes and oily hair. +Peter had observed him the night before, with some interest. + +"That's Guy Vyvian," Peggy told him, looking for Illuminato's dryer suit +in the china cupboard. + +"Fancy," said Peter. + +"Yes," said Peggy, pulling out a garment and dropping a plate out of its +folds on the polished marble floor. "There now! Micky, you're a tiresome +little ape and I don't love you. Guy Vyvian's an ape, too, entirely; his +one merit is that he writes for 'The Gem,' so that Hilary can take the +rent he won't pay out of the money he gives him for his articles. It +works out pretty well, on the whole, I fancy; they're neither of them +good at paying, so it saves them both bother. ("È pronto, Teresina?" +"Subito, subito," cried Teresina from the kitchen.) "I can't abide +Vyvian," Peggy resumed. "The babies hate him, and he makes himself horrid +to everyone, and lets Rhoda Johnson grovel to him, and stares at the +stains on the table-cloth, as if his own nails weren't worse, and turns up +his nose at the food. Poor little Rhoda! You saw her? The little thin +girl with a cough, who hangs on Vyvian's words and blushes when her +mother speaks. She's English governess to the Marchesa Azzareto's +children. Mrs. Johnson's a jolly old soul; I'm fond of her; she's the +best of the boarders, by a lot. Now, precious, if you tumble in again +this morning, you shall sit next to Mr. Vyvian at dinner. You go and tell +the others that from me. It isn't respectable, the way you all go on. +Here's the minestra at last." + +Teresina, clattering about the marble floor with the minestra, screamed +"Pronto," very loud, and the boarders trailed in one by one. First came +Mr. Guy Vyvian, sauntering with resignedly lifted brows, and looking as +if it ought to have been ready a long time ago; he was followed by Mrs. +Johnson, a stout and pleasant lady, who looked as if she was only too +delighted that it was ready now, and the more the better; her young +daughter, Rhoda, wearing a floppy smocked frock and no collar but a bead +necklace, coughed behind her; she looked pale and fatigued, and as if it +didn't matter in the least if it was never ready at all. She was being +talked to by a round-faced, fluffy-haired lady in a green dress and +pince-nez, who took an interest in the development of her deplorably +uncultured young mind--a Miss Barnett, who was painting pictures to +illustrate a book to be called "Venice, Her Spirit." The great hope for +young Rhoda, both Miss Barnett and Mr. Vyvian felt, was to widen the gulf +between her and her unspeakable mother. They, who quarrelled about +everything else, were united in this enterprise. The method adopted +was to snub Mrs. Johnson whenever she spoke. That was no doubt why, as +Peggy had told Peter, Rhoda blushed on those frequent occasions. + +The party was completed by a very young curate, and an elderly spinster +with mittens and many ailments, the symptoms of which she lucidly +specified in a refined undertone to any lady who would listen; with +gentlemen, however, she was most discreet, except with the curate, who +complained that his cloth was no protection. Finally Hilary came in and +took the head of the table, and Peggy and the children took the other +end. Peter found himself between Mrs. Johnson and Miss Barnett, and +opposite Mr. Vyvian and Rhoda. + +Mrs. Johnson began to be nice to him at once, in her cheery way. + +"Know Venice?" and when Peter said, "Not yet," she told him, "Ah, you'll +like it, I know. So pleasant as it is. Particlerly for young people. It +gives me rheumatics, so much damp about. But my gel Rhoder is that fond +of it. Spends all her spare time--not as she's got much, poor gel--in the +gall'ries and that. Art, you know. She goes in for it, Rhoder does. I +don't, now. I'm a stupid old thing, as they'll all tell you." She nodded +cheerfully and inclusively at Mr. Vyvian and Rhoda and Miss Barnett. They +did not notice. Vyvian, toying disgustedly with his burnt minestra, was +saying in his contemptuous voice, "Of course, if you like _that_, you may +as well like the Frari monuments at once and have done." + +Rhoda was crimson; she had made another mistake. Miss Barnett, who +disputed the office of mentor with Vyvian, whom she jealously disliked, +broke in, in her cheery chirp, "I don't agree with you, Mr. Vyvian. I +consider it a very fine example of Carpaccio's later style; I think you +will find that some good critics are with me." She addressed Peter, +ignoring the intervening solidity of Mrs. Johnson. "Do you support me, +Mr. Margerison?" + +"I've not seen it yet," Peter said rather timidly. "It sounds very nice." + +Miss Barnett gave him a rather contemptuous look through her pince-nez +and turned to Hilary. + +"Lor!" whispered Mrs. Johnson to Peter. "They do get so excited about +pictures. Just like that they go on all day, squabblin' and peckin' each +other. Always at Rhoder they are too, tellin' her she must think this and +mustn't think that, till the poor gel don't know if she's on her head or +her heels. She don't like _me_ to interfere, or it's all I can do +sometimes not to put in my word and say, 'You stick to it, Rhoder my +dear; you stand up to 'em and your mother'll back you.' But Rhoder don't +like that. 'Mother,' she says, quite sharp, 'Mother, you don't know a +thing about Art, and they do. You let be, and don't put me to shame +before my friends.' That's what she'd like to say, anyhow, if she's too +good a gel to say it. Rhoder's ashamed of my ignorance, that's what it +is." This was a furtive whisper, for Peter's ear alone. Having thus +unburdened herself Mrs. Johnson cleared her throat noisily and said very +loud, "An' what do you think of St. Mark's?" That was a sensible and +intelligent question, and she hoped Rhoda heard. + +Peter said he thought it was very nice. That Rhoda certainly heard, and +she looked at him with a curious expression, in which hope predominated. +Was this brother of the Margerisons another fool, worse than her? Would +he perhaps make her folly shine almost like wisdom by comparison? She +exchanged a glance with Vyvian; it was extraordinarily sweet to be able +to do that; so many glances had been exchanged àpropos of _her_ remarks +between Vyvian and Miss Barnett. But here was a young man who thought St. +Mark's was very nice. "The dear Duomo!" Miss Barnett murmured, protecting +it from Tourist Insolence. + +Mrs. Johnson agreed enthusiastically with Peter. + +"I call it just sweet. You should see it on a Sunday, Mr. Margerison--Mr. +Peter, as I should say, shouldn't I?--all the flags flying, and the sun +shining on the gilt front an' all, and the band playing in the square; +an' inside half a dozen services all at once, and the incense floatin' +everywhere. Not as I'm partial to incense; it makes me feel a bit +squeamish--and Miss Gould there tells me it affects her similarly, don't +it, Miss Gould? Incense, I say--don't it give you funny feelin's within? +Seem to upset you, as it were?" + +Miss Gould, disturbed in her intimate conversation with the curate, held +up mittened hands in deprecating horror, either at the delicacy of the +question called across the table with gentlemen present, or at the memory +it called up in her of the funny feelings within. + +Mrs. Johnson took it as that, and nodded. "Just like me, she is, in that +way. But I like to see the worship goin' on, all the same. Popish, you +know, of course," she added, and then, bethinking herself, "But perhaps +you're a Roman, Mr. Peter, like your dear brother and sister? Well, Roman +or no Roman, I always say as how Mrs. Margerison is one of the best. A +dear, cheery soul, as has hardships to contend with; and if she finds the +comforts of religion in graven images an' a bead necklace, who am I to +say her no?" + +"Peggy," said Hilary wearily across the table, "Illuminato is making a +little beast of himself. Put him out." + +Peggy scrubbed Illuminato's bullet head dry with her handkerchief (it had +been lying in his minestra bowl), slapped him lightly on the hands, and +said absently, "Don't worry poor Daddy, who's so tired." She was wishing +that the _risotto_ had been boiled a little; one gathered from the +hardness of the rice that that process had been omitted. Vyvian, who +was talking shop with Hilary, sighed deeply and laid down his fork. He +wondered why he ever came in to lunch. One could get a much better one +nearly as cheap at a restaurant. + +Miss Barnett, with an air of wishing to find out how bad a fool Peter +was, leaned across Mrs. Johnson and said, "What are you to Venice, Mr. +Margerison, and Venice to you? What, I mean, are you going to get out +of her? Which of her aspects do you especially approach? She has so +infinitely many, you know. What, in fact, is your connecting link?" She +waited with some interest for what Peter would say. She had not yet +"placed" him. + +Peter said, "Oh, well ... I look at things, you know ... much the same +as anyone else, I expect. And I go in gondolas; and then there are the +things one would like to buy." + +Mrs. Johnson approved this. "Lovely, ain't they! Only one never has the +money to spend." + +"I watch other people spending theirs," said Peter, "which is the next +best thing, I suppose ... I'm sorry I'm stupid, Miss Barnett--but it's +all so jolly that I don't like to be invidious." + +"Do you write?" she enquired. + +"Sometimes," he admitted. "You're illustrating a book about Venice, +aren't you? That must be awfully interesting." + +"I am trying," she said, "to catch the most elusive thing in the +world--the Spirit of Venice. It breaks my heart, the pursuit. Just +round the corner, always; you know Browning's 'Love in a Life'? + + Heart, fear nothing, for heart, thou shalt find her, + Next time herself!--not the trouble behind her ... + Still the same chance! she goes out as I enter. + Spend my whole day in the quest;--who cares? ... + +It's like that with me and my Venice. It hurts rather--but I have to go +on." + +"You shouldn't, my dear," Mrs. Johnson murmured soothingly. "I'm sure you +should be careful. We mustn't play tricks with our constitutions." + +Rhoda kicked Peter under the table in mistake for her mother, and never +discovered the error. + +"Can you tell me," Miss Barnett added abruptly, in her cheerful voice, +"where it hides?" + +Peter looked helpful and intelligent, and endeared himself to her +thereby. She thought him a sympathetic young man, with possibilities, +probably undeveloped. + +Vyvian, who regarded Miss Barnett and "Venice, Her Spirit," with +contemptuous jealousy, thought that Rhoda was paying them too much +attention, and effectually called her away by saying, "If you care to +come with me to the Schiavoni, I can better explain to you what I mean." + +Rhoda kindled and flushed and looked suddenly pretty. Peter heard a +smothered sigh on his left. + +"I don't like it," Mrs. Johnson murmured to him. "No, I don't. If it was +you, now, as offered to take her--But there, I daresay you wouldn't be +clever enough to suit Rhoder; she's so partic'lar. You and me, now--we +get on very well; seems as if we liked to talk on the same subjects, as +it were; but Rhoder's different. When we go about together, it's always, +'Mother, not so loud! Oh, mother, you mustn't! Mother, that ain't really +beautiful at all, and you're givin' of us away. Mother, folks are +listening.' Let 'em listen is what I say. They won't hear anything that +could hurt 'em from me. But Rhoder's so quiet; she hates a bit of notice. +Not that she minds when she's with _him_; he talks away at the top of his +voice, and folks do turn an' listen--I've seen 'em. But I suppose that's +clever talk, so Rhoder don't mind." + +She raised her voice from the thick and cautious whisper which she +thought suitable for these remarks, and addressed Peggy. + +"Well, we've had a good dinner, my dear--plenty of it, if the rice _was_ +a bit underdone." + +"A grain," Miss Gould was murmuring to the curate, "a single grain would +have had unspeakable effects...." + +Peggy was endeavouring to comb Caterina's exceedingly tangled locks with +the fingers of one hand, while with the other she slapped Silvio's +(Larry's) bare and muddy feet to make him take them off the table-cloth. +Not that they made much difference to the condition of the table-cloth; +but still, there are conventions. + +"It is a disgrace," Hilary remarked mechanically, "that my children can't +behave like civilised beings at a meal ... Peter, what are you going to +do this afternoon?" + +The boarders rose. Mrs. Johnson patted Peter approvingly on the arm, and +said, "I'm glad to of had the pleasure. One day we'll go out together, +you and me. Seem as if we look at things from the same point of view, as +it were. You mayn't be so clever as some, but you suit me. Now, my dear, +I'm goin' to help you about the house a bit. The saloon wants dustin', I +noticed." + +Peggy sighed and said she was sure it did, and Teresina was hopeless, and +Mrs. Johnson was really too kind, but it was a shame to bother her, and +the saloon could go another while yet. She was struggling with the +children's bibs and rather preoccupied. + +The boarders went out to pursue their several avocations; Rhoda and Mr. +Vyvian to the church of San Giorgio degli Schiavoni, that Mr. Vyvian +might the better explain what he meant; Miss Barnett, round-about and +cheerful, sketch-book in hand, to hunt for "Venice, Her Spirit," in the +Pescaria; Miss Gould to lie down on her bed and recover from lunch; the +curate to take the air and photographs for his magic lantern lectures +to be delivered in the parish-room at home; and Mrs. Johnson to find a +feather broom. + +Hilary sat down and lit a cigar, and Illuminato crawled about his legs. + +"I'm going out with Leslie," said Peter. "We're going to call on the +prince and see the goblet and begin the haggling. We must haggle, though +as a matter of fact Leslie means to have it at any price. It must be a +perfectly ripping thing.... Now let me have a number of 'The Gem' to +read. I've not seen it yet, you know." + +"It's very dull, my dear," Peggy murmured, rinsing water over the place +on the table-cloth where Silvio's feet had been. + +Hilary was gazing into the frog-like countenance of his youngest son. It +gave him a disappointment ever new, that Illuminato should be so plain. +"But your mother's handsome, frog," he murmured, "and I'm not worse than +my neighbours to look at." (But he knew he was better than most of them). +"Let's hope you have intellect to make up. Now crawl to your uncle Peter, +since you want to." + +Illuminato did want to. He adored his uncle Peter. + +"The Gem, Peter?" said Hilary. "Bother the Gem. As Peggy remarks, it's +very dull, and you won't like it. I don't know that I want you to read +it, to say the truth." + +Peter was in the act of doing so. He had found three torn pages of it on +the floor. He was reading an article called "Osele." Hilary glanced at +it, with the slight nervous frown frequent with him. + +"What have you got hold of?... Oh, that." His frown seemed to relax +a little. "I really don't recommend the thing for your entertainment, +Peter. It'll bore you. I have to provide two things--food for the +interested visitor, and guidance for Lord Evelyn's mania for purchasing." + +"So I am gathering," Peter said. "I'm reading about _osele_, marked with +the Mocenigo rose. Signor Antonio Sardi seems to be a man worth a visit. +I must take Leslie there. That's just the sort of thing he likes. And +sixteenth-century visiting cards. Yes, he'd like those too. By all means +we'll go to your friend Sardi. You wrote this, I suppose?" + +Hilary nodded. His white nervous fingers played on the arm of his chair. +It seemed to be something of an ordeal to him, this first introduction of +Peter to the Gem. + +Peggy, assisting Teresina to bundle the crockery off the table, shot a +swift glance at the group--at Hilary lying back smoking, with slightly +knitted forehead, one unsteady hand playing on his chair; at Peter +sitting on the marble floor with the torn fragments of paper in his hands +and Illuminato astride on his knee. Peggy's grey, Irish eyes were at the +moment a little speculative, touched with a dispassionate curiosity and a +good deal of sisterly and wifely and maternal and slightly compassionate +affection. She was so fond of them all, the dear babes. + +Peter had gone on from _osele_ to ivory plaques. He was not quite so much +interested in reading about them because he knew more about them for +himself, but he took down the name of a dealer who had, according to +the Gem, some good specimens, and said he should take Leslie there too. + +Hilary got up rather suddenly, and jerked his cigar away into a corner +(marble floors are useful in some ways) and said, "Is Leslie going to buy +the whole place up? I'm sick of these wealthy Jews. They're ruining +Venice. Buying all the palaces, you know. I suppose Leslie'll be wanting +to do that next. There's altogether too much buying in this forsaken +world. Why can't people admire without wanting to acquire? Lord Evelyn +can't. The squandering old fool; he's ruining himself over things he's +too blind even to look at properly. And this Leslie of yours, who can't +even appreciate, still must get and have, of course; and the more he gets +the more he wants. Can't you stop him, Peter? It's such a monstrous +exhibition of the vice of the age." + +"It's not my profession to stop him," Peter said. "And, after all, why +shouldn't they? If it makes them happy--well--" His finality conveyed his +creed; if it makes them happy, what else is there? To be happy is to have +reached the goal. Peter was a little sad about Hilary, who seemed as far +as ever from that goal. Why? Peter wondered. Couldn't one be happy in +this lovable water-city, which had, after all, green ways of shadow and +gloom between the peeling brick walls of ancient houses, and, beyond, the +broad spaces of the sea? Couldn't one be happy here even if the babies +did poise muddy feet on a table-cloth, not, after all, otherwise clean; +and even if the poor boarders wouldn't pay their rent and the rich Jews +would buy palaces and plaques? Bother the vice of the age, thought Peter, +as he crossed the sun-bathed piazza and suddenly smelt the sea. There +surely never was such a jolly world made as this, which had Venice in it +for laughter and breathless wonder and delight, and her Duomo shining +like a jewel. + +"An' the sun shinin' on the gilt front an' all," murmured Peter. "I call +it just sweet." + +He went in (he was to meet Leslie there), and the soft dusk rippled about +him, and beyond the great pillars stretched the limitless, hazy horizons +of a dream. + +Presently Leslie came. He had an open "Stones of Venice" in his hand, and +said, "Now for those mosaics." Leslie was a business-like person, who +wasted no time. So they started on the mosaics, and did them for an hour. +Leslie said, "Good. Capital," with the sober, painstaking, conscientious +appreciation he was wont to bestow on unpurchasable excellence; and Peter +said, "How jolly," and felt glad that there were some excellences +unpurchasable even by rich Jews. + +They then went to the Accademia and looked at pictures. There Leslie had +a clue to merit. "Anything on hinges, I presume," he remarked, "is worth +inspection. Only why don't they hinge _more_ of the good ones? They ought +to give us a hint; they really ought. How's a man to be sure he's on the +right tack?" + +After an hour of that they went to see the prince who had the goblet. +Half an hour's conversation with him, and the goblet belonged to Leslie. +It was a glorious thing of deep blue glass and translucent enamel and +silver, with the Berovieri signature cut on it. Peter looked at it much +as he had seen a woman in the Duomo look up at her Lady's shrine, much +as Rodney had looked on the illumined reality behind the dreaming silver +world. + +Peter said, "My word, suppose it broke!" It was natural that he should +think of that; things so often broke. Only that morning his gold watch +had broken, in Illuminato's active hands. Only that afternoon his +bootlace had broken, and he had had none to replace it because Caterina +had been sailing his other boots in the canal. Peter sighed over the +lovely and brittle world. + +Then he and Leslie visited Signor Sardi's shop and looked at _osele_ and +sixteenth-century visiting cards. Peter said he knew nothing about either +personally, but quoted Hilary in the Gem, to Leslie's satisfaction. + +"Your brother's a good man," said Leslie. "Knows what's what, doesn't he? +If he says these are good _osele_, we may take it that they _are_ good +_osele_, though we don't know one _osele_ from another. That's right, +isn't it?" + +Peter said he supposed it was, if one wanted _osele_ at all, which +personally he didn't care about; but one never knew, of course, what +might come in useful. Anyhow Leslie bought some, and a visiting card +belonging to the Count Amadeo Vasari, which gave him much satisfaction. +Then they visited the person who, the Gem had said, had good plaques, and +inspected them critically. Then they had tea at Sant' Ortes' tearoom, and +then Peter went home. + +Hilary, who was looking worried, said, "Lord Evelyn wants us to dine with +him to-night," and passed Peter a note in delicate, shaky handwriting. + +"Good," said Peter. Hilary wore a bored look and said, "I suppose we must +go," and then proceeded to question Peter concerning Leslie's shopping +adventures. He seemed on the whole more interested in the purchase of +_osele_ than of the Berovieri goblet. + +"But," said Peter presently, "your plaque friend wasn't in form to-day. +He had only shams. Rather bright shams, but still--So we didn't get any, +which, I suppose, will please you to hear. Leslie was disappointed. I +told your friend we would look in on a better day, when he had some of +the real thing. He wasn't pleased. I expect he passes off numbers of +those things on people as antiques. You ought to qualify your remarks +in the Gem, Hilary--add that Signor Leroni has to be cautiously dealt +with--or you'll be letting the uncritical plaque-buyer through rather +badly." + +"I daresay they can look after themselves," Hilary said, easily; and +Peggy added: + +"After all, so long as they _are_ uncritical, it can't matter to them +what sort of a plaque they get!" which of course, was one point of view. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +DIANA, ACTÆON, AND LORD EVELYN + + +Hilary and Peter gondoled to Lord Evelyn Urquhart's residence, a rather +exquisite little old palace called Ca' delle Gemme, and were received +affectionately by the tall, slim, dandified-looking young-old man, with +his white ringed hands and high sweet voice and courtly manner. He had +aged since Peter remembered him; the slim hands were shakier and the +near-sighted eyes weaker and the delicate face more deeply lined with the +premature lines of dissipation and weak health. He put his monocle in his +left eye and smiled at Peter, with the old charming smile that was like +his nephew's, and tilted to and fro on his heels. + +"Not changed at all, as far as I can see," he said to Peter, with the +same mincing, finicking pronunciation that had pleased the boy Peter +eight years ago. "Only my sight isn't what it was. _Are_ you changed at +all? Do you still like Bow rose-bowls better than anything except Denis? +Denis is coming here soon, you know, so I shall be able to discover. Oh, +I beg pardon--Mr. Peter Margerison, Mr. Cheriton." + +Mr. Cheriton was a dark, sturdy young man with an aggressive jaw, who +bowed without a smile and looked one rather hard in the face. Peter was +a little frightened of him--these curt, brisk manners made him nervous +always--and felt a desire to edge behind Hilary. He gathered that Hilary +and Cheriton did not very much like one another. He knew what that slight +nervous contraction of Hilary's forehead meant. + +Dinner was interesting. Lord Evelyn told pleasant and funny stories in +his high, tittering voice, addressing himself to all his guests, but +looking at Peter when he came to his points. (People usually looked at +Peter when they came to the points of their stories.) Hilary talked a +good deal and drank a good deal and ate very little, and was obviously +on very friendly terms with Lord Evelyn and on no terms at all with Mr. +Cheriton. Cheriton looked a good deal at Peter, with very bright and +direct eyes, and flung into the conversation rather curt and spasmodic +utterances in a slightly American accent. He seemed a very decided and +very much alive young man, a little rude, thought Peter, but possibly +that was only his trans-Atlantic way, if, as his voice hinted, he came +from America. Once or twice Peter met the direct and vivid regard fixed +upon him, and nearly was startled into "I beg your pardon," for there +seemed to him an odd element of accusation in the look. + +"But it isn't my fault," he told himself reassuringly. "I've not done +anything, I'm sure I haven't. It's just the way he's made, I expect. Or +else people have done him badly once or twice, and he's always thinking +it's going to happen again. Rough luck on him; poor chap." + +After dinner they went into what Lord Evelyn called the saloon. "Where +I keep my especial treasures," he remarked to Peter. "You'd like to walk +round and look at some of them, I expect. These bronzes, now--," he +indicated two statuettes on brackets by the door. + +Peter looked at them, then swiftly up at Lord Evelyn, who swayed at his +side, his glass screwed into one smiling eye. + +Lord Evelyn touched the near statuette with his light, unsteady, +beautifully-ringed hand. + +"Rather lovely, isn't she," he said, caressing her. "We found her and the +Actæon in a dusty hole of a place in a miserable little _calle_ off the +Campo delle Beccarie, kept by a German Jew. Quite a find, the old sinner. +What an extortioner, though! Eh, Margerison? How much has the old +Schneller got out of my pocket? It was your brother who discovered him +for me, young Peter. He took me there, and we found the Diana together. +Like her? Giacomo Treviso, a pupil of Verrocchio's. Heard of him? The +Actæon's not so good now. Same man, but not so happy." + +He turned the Diana about; he posed her for Peter's edification. Peter +looked from her to the Actæon, from the Actæon to Lord Evelyn's face. He +opened his lips to say something, and closed them on silence. He looked +past Lord Evelyn to Hilary, who stood in the background, leaning a little +against a chair. It seemed to Peter that there was a certain tensity, a +strain, in his face. + +Then Peter met full the bright, hard, vivid gaze of the alert Cheriton. +It had an odd expression at this moment; unmistakably inimical, +observantly curious, distinctly sardonic. A faint ironic smile just +touched the corners of his determined mouth. Peter returned the look +with his puzzled, enquiring eyes that sought to understand. + +This much, anyhow, he seemed to understand: his rôle was silence. If +Cheriton didn't speak (and Cheriton's expression showed that he knew) and +if Hilary didn't speak ... well, he, Peter, couldn't speak either. He +must acquiesce in what appeared to be a conspiracy to keep this pathetic, +worn-out dilettante in a fool's paradise. + +The pathos of it gripped Peter's heart. Lord Evelyn had once known so +well. What havoc was this that one could apparently make of one's +faculties? It wasn't only physical semi-blindness; it was a blindness of +the mind, a paralysis of the powers of discrimination and appreciation, +which, was pitiful. Peter was angry. He thought Hilary and Cheriton so +abominably, unmitigatedly wrong. And yet he himself had said, "If it +makes them happy"--and left that as the indubitable end. Ah, but one +didn't lie to people, even for that. + +Peter was brought up sharply, as he had often been before, against +Hilary's strange Hilaryish, perverted views of the conduct of life's +businesses. Then, as usual when he should have felt furthest from +mirth, he abruptly collapsed into sudden helpless laughter. + +Lord Evelyn turned the eye-glass on him. + +"Eh?" he queried. "Why so? But never mind; you always suffered in that +way, I remember. Get it from your mother, I think; she did, too. Never +explain jokes; they lose so in the telling. Now I want to show you +something over here." + +Peter crossed the room, his laughter dead. After all, funny wasn't what +it really was. Mainly, it was perplexing. Till he could have it out with +Hilary, he couldn't understand it at all. + +He saw more of Lord Evelyn's treasures, and perplexity grew. He did not +laugh again; he was very solemn and very silent and very polite where he +could not admire. Where he could he did; but even here his admiration was +weighed down to soberness by the burden of the things beyond the pale. + +Lord Evelyn found him lukewarm, changed and dulled from the vivid +devotee of old, who had coloured up all over his pale face at the sight +of a Bow rose-bowl. He coloured indeed now, when Lord Evelyn said "Like +it?"--coloured and murmured indistinguishable comments into his collar. +He coloured most when Lord Evelyn said, as he frequently did, "Your +brother's find. A delicious little man in some _sotto-portico_ or +other--quite an admirable person. Eh, Margerison?" + +Hilary in the background would vaguely assent. Peter, who looked at him +no more, felt the indefinable challenge of his tone. It meant either, +"I've as much right to my artistic taste as you have, Peter, and I'm +not ashamed of it," or, "Speak out, if you want to shatter the illusions +that make the happiness of his ridiculous life; if not, be silent." + +And all the time the vivid stare of Jim Cheriton was turned like a +search-light on Peter's face, and his odd smile grew and grew. Cheriton +was watching, observing, taking in something new, trying to solve some +problem. + +At the end of half an hour Lord Evelyn said, "Peter Margerison, you've +lost some of the religious fervour of your youth. The deceitfulness of +riches and the cares of this world--is that it? What's come to you that +you're so tepid about this Siena chalice? Don't be tepid, young Peter; +it's the symptom of a ruined soul." + +He polished his glass, screwed it into his left eye, and looked down on +Peter with his whimsical, kindly scrutiny. Peter did not return the look; +he stood with bent head, looking vaguely down at the Sienese chalice. +That too was one of Hilary's finds. Hilary it seemed, had approved its +seller in an article in the Gem. + +"Damme," said Lord Evelyn suddenly, with unusual explosiveness, "if I +didn't like you better when you were fifteen! Now, you _blasé_ and +soulless generation, I suppose you want to play bridge. Do you play as +badly as ever, Peter? A remarkable player you were, I remember--quite +remarkable. Denis always told you so. Now Cheriton will tell you so, +because he's rude." + +Bridge was a relief to Peter, though he was still a rather remarkable +player. He played with Cheriton, who was not rude, because he was +absolutely silent. It was an absurd game. Cheriton was a brilliant +player, even when he was only giving half his mind to it, as he seemingly +was to-night. Lord Evelyn had been a brilliant player once, and was now +brilliant with alternations of eccentricity; he talked most of the time, +making the game the centre of his remarks, from which he struck out along +innumerable paths of irrelevancy. The Margerisons too were irrelevant; +Hilary thought bridge a bore, and Peter, who thought nothing a bore, was +always a little alarmed by anything so grown-up. But to-night he didn't +much mind what he did, so long as he stopped looking at Lord Evelyn's +things. Peter only wanted to get away; he was ashamed and perplexed and +sorry and angry, and stabbed through with pity. He wanted to get out of +Lord Evelyn's house, out of the range of his kindly, whimsical smile and +Cheriton's curious hostile stare; he wanted to be alone with Hilary, and +to understand. + +The irony of Cheriton's look increased during bridge; it was certainly +justified by the abstraction of Peter's play. + +Lord Evelyn laughed at him. "You need Denis to keep you in order, young +Peter. Lord, how frightened you used to be when Denis was stern. Smiled +and pretended you weren't, but I knew...." He chuckled at the painted +ceiling. "Knew a man at Oxford, Peter ... well, never mind that story +now, you're too young for it.... Anyhow I make it no trumps." + +At eleven o'clock Hilary and Peter went home. Lord Evelyn shook hands +with Peter rather affectionately, and said, "Come and see me again soon, +dear boy. Lunch with me at Florian's to-morrow--you and your wealthy +friend. Busy sight-seeing, are you? How banal of you. Morning in the +Duomo, afternoon on the Lido, and the Accademia to fill the spare hours; +I know the dear old round. Never could be worried with it myself; too +much else to do. But one manages to enjoy life even without it, so don't +overwork. And come and see my toys again by daylight, and try to enthuse +a little more over them next time. You're too young to be _blasé_. +You'd better read the Gem, to encourage yourself in simple pleasures. +Good-night. Good-night, Margerison." + +He shook hands with them both again, possibly to make up for Cheriton, +who did not shake hands at all, but stood with his own in his pockets, +leaning against the wall, his eyes still on Peter's face. + +"Queer manners you have, dear Jim," was what they heard Lord Evelyn say +as they stepped into the Ca' delle Gemme gondola, that was taking them +back to the Rio delle Beccarie. + +They swung out into the faintly-shining darkness of the water-road, into +which the climbing moon could not look--a darkness crossed and flecked by +the red gleamings of the few gondola and sandolo lights abroad at this +hour in the quiet street. They sent their own red path before them as +they softly travelled; and round it the stars flickered and swam, deep +down. Peter could have sworn he heard their thin, tinkling, submerged, +funny song, somewhere above or beneath the soft and melodious "Chérie +Birri-Bim," that someone (not Lord Evelyn's beautifully trained and +taciturn _poppe_) was crooning near at hand. + +The velvet darkness of a bridge drowned the stars for a moment; then, +with a musical, abrupt cry of "Sta--i!" they swung round a corner into +a narrow way that was silver and green in the face of the climbing moon. + +The musically lovely night, the peace of the dim water-ways, the +shadowing mystery of the steep, shuttered houses, with here and there a +lit door or window ajar, sending a slant of yellow light across the deep +green lane full of stars and the moon, the faint crooning of music far +off, made a cool marvel of peace for strung nerves. Peter sat by Hilary +in silence, and no longer wanted to ask questions. In the strange, +enveloping wonder of the night, minor wonders died. What did it matter, +anyhow? Hilary and Venice--Venice and Hilary--give them time, and one +would explain the other. + +It was Hilary who began to talk, and he talked about Cheriton, his +nervous voice pitched on a high note of complaint. + +"I do intensely dislike that man. The sort of person I've no use for, you +know. So horribly on the spot; such sharp, unsoftened manners. All the +terrible bright braininess of the Yankee combined with the obstreperous +energy of the Philistine Briton. His mother is a young American, about to +be married for the third time. The sort of exciting career one would +expect from a parent of the delightful Jim. I cannot imagine why Lord +Evelyn, who is a person of refinement, encourages him. Really, you know!" + +He grew very plaintive over it. Peter really did not wonder. + +Peter's subconscious mind registered a dim impression that this was +defensive talk, to fill the silence. Hilary was a nervous person, easily +agitated. Probably the evening had agitated him. But he was no good at +defence. His complaint of Jim Cheriton broke weakly on an unsteady laugh. +Peter nodded assent, and looked up the street of dim water, his chin +propped in his hands, and thought how extraordinarily pleasant was the +red light that slanted across the dark water from green doors ajar in +steep house-walls. + +Hilary tried to light a cigar, and flung broken matches into spluttering +darkness. At last he succeeded; and then, when he had smoked in silence +for two minutes, he turned abruptly on Peter and said, "Well?" + +Peter, dreamily turning towards him, felt the nervous challenge of his +tone, and read it in his pale, tired face. + +Peter pulled himself together and collected his thoughts. After all, one +might as well know. + +"Oh, well ... what? Yes, what about those ghastly statuettes, and all the +rest of them? Why, when, how ... and what on earth for?" + +Hilary, after a moment of silence, said, with a rather elaborate +carelessness, "I saw you didn't like them." + +At that Peter started a little, and the dreaminess of the night fell away +from him. + +"You saw ... oh." For a moment he couldn't think of anything else to say. +Then he laughed a little. "Why, yes, I imagine you did.... But what's the +object of it all? Have you and Cheriton (by the way, why does he glare at +us both so?) come to the conclusion that it's worth while playing that +sort of game? If you have, I can't tell you how utterly wrong I think you +are. Make him happy--oh, I know--but what extraordinary cheek on your +part! I as near as possible gave you away--I did really. Besides, what +did he mean by saying you'd advised him to buy the things--praised them +in the Gem, and all that? You can't have gone so far as that--did you?" + +After a moment of silence, Hilary turned abruptly and looked Peter in the +face, taking the long cigar out of his mouth and holding it between two +white, nervous fingers. + +"Upon my word," said Hilary, speaking rather slowly, "Talk of cheek! +Do you know what you're accusing me of? You and your precious taste! +Leslie and your other fool patrons seem to have given you a fair +opinion of yourself. Because you, in your omniscience, think a thing bad, +which I ... which I obviously consider good, and have stated so in +print ... you don't so much as deign to argue the question, but get upon +your pedestal and ask me why I tell lies. You think one thing and I think +another; of course, you must know best, but I presume I may be allowed to +hold my misguided and ill-informed opinion without being accused blankly +of fraud. Upon my word, Peter ... it's time you took to some other line +of life, I think." + +His high, unsteady voice trailed away into silence. Peter, out of all the +dim beauty of the night, saw only the pale, disturbed, frowning face, the +quivering hand that held the lean cigar. All the strangeness and the +mystery of the mysterious world were here concentrated. Numbly and dully +he heard the soft, rhythmic splashing of the dipping oar, the turning +cry of "Premié!" Then, sharper, "Sciar, Signori, sciar!" as they nearly +jostled another gondola, swinging round sharply into a moonless lane of +ancient palaces. + +Peter presently said, "But ..." and there stopped. What could he say, +beyond "but?" + +Hilary answered him sharply, "Well?" and then, after another pause, +Peter pulled himself together, gave up trying to thread the maze of his +perplexity, and said soberly, "I beg your pardon, Hilary. I'm an ass." + +Hilary let out his breath sharply, and resumed his cigar. + +"It's possible, of course," he said, more quietly, "that you may be right +and I wrong about the things. That's another question altogether. I may +be a fool: I only resent being called a knave. _Really_, you know!" + +"I never meant that," Peter hopelessly began to explain. And, indeed, now +that Hilary disclaimed it, it did seem a far too abominable thing that he +had implied. He had hurt Hilary; he deserved to be kicked. His anger with +himself rose. To hurt anyone was atrocious; to hurt Hilary unforgivable. +He would have done a great deal now to make amends. + +He stammered over it. "I did think, I'm afraid, that you and Cheriton +were doing it to make him happy or something. I'm awfully sorry; I was +an ass; I ought to have known. But it never occurred to me that you +didn't kn--that you had a different opinion of the things. I say, +Hilary--Cheriton knows! I saw him know. He knew, and he was wondering +what I was going to say." + +"Knew, knew, knew!" Hilary nervously exploded. "There you go again. +You're intolerable, Peter, really. All the spoiling you've had has gone +to your head." + +"I beg your pardon," said Peter again. "I meant, Cheriton agreed with me, +I'm sure.... But, Hilary--those statuettes--you can't really.... They're +mid-Victorian, and positively offensive!" His voice rose shrilly. They +had been so horrible, Diana and Actæon. He couldn't forget them, in their +podgy sentimentality. "And--and that chalice ..." he shuddered over +it--"and--" + +"That'll do, thanks," Hilary broke in. "You can say at once that you +disagree with me about everything I admire, and leave it there. But, if +I may ask you, don't say so to Lord Evelyn, if you can resist the +temptation to show me up before him. It will only bother and disturb him, +whichever of us he ends by agreeing with. He's shown that he trusts my +taste more or less, by giving me his paper to edit, and I should think +we might leave it at that." + +"Yes, the paper"--Peter was reminded of it, and it became a distracting +puzzle. Hilary thought Diana and Actæon and the Siena chalice good +things--and Hilary edited an art paper. What in the name of all that was +horrible did he put in it? A light was shed on Signor Leroni, who was, +said the Gem, a good dealer in plaques, and who was, Peter had thought, +a bare-faced purveyor of shams. Peter began to question the quality of +the _osele_, that Leslie had purchased from Signor Sardi. + +How curious it was; and rather tragic, too. For Hilary, like Lord Evelyn, +had known once. Had Hilary too, in ruining much else of himself, ruined +his critical faculties? And could one really do that and remain ignorant +of the fact? Or would one rather have a lurking suspicion, and therefore +be all the more defiantly corroborative of one's own judgment? In either +case one was horribly to be pitied; but--but one shouldn't try to edit +art papers. And yet this couldn't be conveyed without a lacerating of +feelings that was unthinkable. There was always this about Hilary--one +simply couldn't bear to hurt him. He was so easily hurt and so often; +life used him so hardly and he felt it so keenly, that it behoved Peter, +at least, to insert as many cushions as possible between him and the +sharp edges of circumstance. Peter was remorseful. He had taken what +he should have seen before was an unforgivable line; he had failed +abominably in comprehension and decent feeling. Poor Hilary. Peter +was moved by the old impulse to be extraordinarily nice to him. + +They turned out of the Rio della Madonnetta into the narrow rio that was +the back approach to the Palazzo Amadeo. It is a dark little canal, a rio +of the poor. The doors that stood open in the peeling brick walls above +the water let out straggling shafts of lamplight and quarrelling voices +and singing and the smell of wine. The steep house walls leant to meet +one another from either side; from upper windows the people who hadn't +gone to bed talked across a space of barely six feet. + +The gondola crept cautiously under two low bridges, then stopped outside +the water-washed back steps of the Palazzo Amadeo. + +One pleasant thing about Lord Evelyn's exquisitely mannered _poppe_ was +that one didn't feel that he was thinking "I am not accustomed to taking +my master's visitors to such low haunts." In the first place, he probably +was. In the second, he was not an English flunkey, and not a snob. He was +no more a snob than the Margerisons were, or Lord Evelyn himself. He +deposited them at the Palace back door, politely saluted, and slipped +away down the shadowy water-street. + +Hilary and Peter stepped up two water-washed steps to the green door, and +Peggy opened it from within. Peggy (Peter occasionally wondered when, if +ever, she went to bed) was in the hall, nursing Illuminato, who couldn't +sleep--a small bundle of scarlet night-shirt and round bullet head, +burrowing under his mother's left arm and staring out from that place of +comfort with very bright and wakeful eyes. When, indeed, it might have +been asked, did any of the Margerison family take their rest? No one of +them ever felt or expressed any surprise at finding any other awake and +active at any hour of the night. + +Peggy looked at her three male infants with her maternal serenity touched +with mirth. There were nearly always those two elements in Peggy's +look--a motherly sympathy and desire to cheer and soothe, and a glint +from some rich and golden store of amusement. + +She patted Peter on the arm, softly. + +"Was it a nice evening, then? No, not very, I think. Dear, dear! You both +look so unutterably tired. I wonder had you better go to bed, quite +straight?" + +It seemed to be suggested as a last resource of the desperate, though the +hour was close on midnight. + +"And the children have been pillow-fighting, till Mr. Vyvian--the +creature--came down with nothing in particular on, to complain to me +that he couldn't sleep. Sleep, you know! It wasn't after ten--but it +seems he had a headache, as usual, because Mrs. Johnson had insisted +on going to look at pictures with him and Rhoda, and her remarks were +such--Nervous prostration, poor Mr. Vyvian. So I've had Illuminato +down here with me since then. He wants to go to you, Peter, as usual." + +Peter took the scarlet bundle, and it burrowed against his shirt-front +with a contented sigh. Peggy watched the two for a moment, then said to +the uncle, "You poor little boy, you're tireder than Hilary even. You +must surely go to bed. But isn't Lord Evelyn rather a dear?" + +"Quite a dear," Peter answered her, his face bent over the round cropped +head. "Altogether charming and delightful. Do you know, though, I'm not +really fond of bridge. Jig-saw is my game--and we didn't have it. That's +why I'm tired I expect. And because there was a Mr. Cheriton, who stared, +and seemed somehow to have taken against us--didn't he, Hilary? Or +perhaps it was only his queer manners, dear Jim. Anyhow, he made me feel +shy. It takes it out of one, not being liked. Nervous prostration, like +poor Mr. Vyvian. So let's go to bed, Hilary, and leave these two to watch +together." + +"Give me the froglet." She took it from his arms, gently, and kissed +first one then the other. + +"Good night, little Peter. You are a darling entirely, and I love you. +And don't worry, not over not being liked or anything else, because it +surely isn't worth it." + +She was always affectionate and maternal to Peter; but to-night she was +more so than usual. Looking at her as she stood in her loose, slatternly +_negligé_, beneath the extravagantly blazing chandelier, the red bundle +cuddling a round black head into her neck, her grey eyes smiling at him, +lit with love and laughter and a pity that lay deeper than both, Peter +was caught into her atmosphere of debonair and tranquil restfulness, that +said always, "Take life easy; nothing's worth worrying over, not problems +or poverty or even one's sins." How entirely true. Nothing _was_ worth +worrying over; certainly other people's strange points of view weren't. +It was a gospel of ease and _laissez-faire_ well suited to Peter's +temperament. He smiled at Peggy and Hilary and their son, and went up +the marble stairs to bed. He was haunted till he slept by the memory of +Hilary's nervous, tired face as he had seen it in the moonlight in the +gondola, and again in the hall as he said good night. Hilary wasn't +coming to bed yet. He stayed to talk to Peggy. If anything could be good +for Hilary's moods of depression, thought Peter, Peggy would. How jolly +for Hilary to be married to her! She was such a refreshment always. She +was so understanding; and was there a lapse somewhere in that very +understandingness of her that made it the more restful--that made her +a relaxation to strained minds? To those who were breaking their moral +sense over some problem, she would return simply, "There isn't any +problem. Take things as they come and make the best of them, and don't, +don't worry!" "I'm struggling with a temptation to steal a purse," Peter +imagined himself saying to her, "What can I do about it?" And her swift +answer came, with her indulgent, humorous smile, "Dear little boy, if it +makes you any happier--do it!" And then she would so well understand +the ensuing remorse; she would be so sympathetic, so wholly dear and +comforting. She would say anything in the world to help, except "Put it +back." Even that she would say if one's own inclinations were tending in +that direction. But never if they weren't. She would never be so hard, so +unkind. That sort of uncongenial admonition might be left to one's +confessor; wasn't that what confessors were there for? + +But why think of stealing purses so late at night? No doubt merely +because it was late at night. Peter curled himself up and drew the sheet +over his ears and sighed sleepily. He seemed to hear the rich, pleasant +echoes of Peggy's best nursery voice far off, and Hilary's high, +plaintive tones rising above it. + +But above both, dominant and insistent, murmured the lapping voice of the +wonderful city at night. A faint rhythm of snoring beyond a thin wall +somehow suggested Mrs. Johnson, and Peter laughed into his pillow. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +PETER UNDERSTANDS + + +On the shores of the Lido, three days later, Peter and Leslie came upon +Denis Urquhart. He was lying on the sand in the sun on the Adriatic side, +and building St. Mark's, rather well. Peter stood and looked at it +critically. + +"Not bad. But you'd better let us help you. We've been studying the +original exhaustively, Leslie and I." + +"A very fine and remarkable building," said Leslie, ponderously, and +Peter laughed for the sheer pleasure of seeing Urquhart's lazy length +stretched on the warm sand. + +"Cheriton's somewhere about," said Urquhart. "But he wouldn't help me +with St. Mark's. He was all for walking round the island at a great pace +and seeing how long it took him. So superfluously energetic, isn't he? +Fancy being energetic in Venice." + +Peter was thankful that he was. The thought of Cheriton's eyes upon him +made him shudder. + +"He has his good points," Urquhart added; "but he excites himself too +much. Always taking up some violent crusade against something or other. +Can't live and let live. Another dome here, I think." + +Peter wondered if Cheriton's latest crusade was against Hilary's taste +in art, and if so what Urquhart thought on that subject. It was an +uncomfortable thought. He characteristically turned away from it. + +"The intense blue of the sea, contrasted with the fainter blue of the +Euganean Hills," said Leslie suddenly, "is most remarkable and beautiful. +What?" + +He was proud of having noticed that. He was always proud of noticing +beauty unaided. He made his remark with the simple pleasure of a child +in his own appreciation. His glance at Peter said, "I am getting on, I +think?" + +The others agreed that he was correct. He then bent his great mind to the +completion of St. Mark's, and Urquhart discovered what Peter had long +known, that he could really play in earnest. The reverse art--handling +serious issues with a light touch--he was less good at. Grave subjects, +like the blue of the sea or the shape of a goblet, he approached with the +same solidity of earnestness which he brought to bear on sand cathedrals. +It was just this that made him a little tiring. + +But the three together on the sands made a happy and congruous party of +absorbed children, till Cheriton the energetic came swinging back over +the sand-hills. Peter saw him approaching, watched the resolute lunge +of his stride. His mother was about to be married for the third time: one +could well believe it. + +"I hope he is going to be nicer to me to-day," Peter thought. Even as he +hoped it, and before Cheriton saw the party on the sands, Peter saw the +determined face stiffen, and into the vivid eyes came the blank look of +one who is cutting somebody. Peter turned and looked behind him to see +who it was, and saw Mr. Guy Vyvian approaching. It was obvious from his +checked recognition that he thought he knew Cheriton, and that Cheriton +did not share the opinion. Peter saw Vyvian's mortified colour rise; he +was a vain and sensitive person. + +Cheriton came and sat down among them. His words as he did so, audibly +muttered, were, "The most unmitigated cad!" He looked angry. Then he saw +Peter, and seemed a little surprised, but did not cut him; he hardly +could. Peter supposed that he owed this only to the accident of +Urquhart's presence, since this young man seemed to go about the world +ignoring everyone who did not please his fastidious fancy, and Peter +could not hope that he had done that. + +Peter looked after Vyvian's retreating figure. He could detect injured +pride in his back. + +He got up and brushed the sand from him. + +"I must go and talk to that man," he said. "He's lodging with my +brother." + +The situation for a moment was slightly difficult. Leslie and Urquhart +had both heard Cheriton's description of Peter's brother's lodger. +Besides, they had seen him, and that was enough. + +It was unlike Peter to make awkward situations. He ended this one +abruptly by leaving it to itself, and walking away after his brother's +lodger. + +Vyvian greeted him huffily. It needed all Peter's feeling for a hurt man +to make him anything but distantly aloof. Cheriton's description was so +manifestly correct. The man was a cad--an oily bounder with a poisonous +mind. Peter wondered how Hilary could bear to have his help on the Gem. + +Vyvian broke out about Cheriton. + +"Did you see that grand fellow who was too proud to know me? Driven you +away too, has he? We don't know people in boarding-houses--we're in our +private flat ourselves! It makes me sick!" + +But his vulgarity when he was angry was a shade less revolting, because +more excusable, than when he wasn't. So Peter bore it, and even tried to +be comforting, and to talk about pictures. Vyvian really knew something +about art; Peter was a little surprised to find that he knew so much, +remembering certain curious blunders of his in the Gem. + +He did not talk about the Gem to Vyvian; instinctively he avoided it. +Peter had a rather useful power of barring his mind against thoughts that +he did not desire to have there; without reasoning about it, he had +placed the Gem in this category. + +He was absently watching the dim blue of the Euganean Hills against the +clearer blue of the sky when he discovered that Vyvian was talking about +Rhoda Johnson. + +"A dear little gurl, with real possibilities, if one could develop them. +I do my best. She's fond enough of me to let me mould her atrocious +taste. But what can one do to fight the lifelong influence of a home like +that--a mother like that? Oh, frightful! But she _is_ fond of me, and +there's her hope--" + +"Good-bye," said Peter. "I must go." He could not for the life of him +have said any of the other things he was thinking. He would have given +a lot to have been Cheriton for the moment, so that he wouldn't mind +being rude and violent. It was horribly feeble; all he could say was +"Good-bye." Having said it, he went abruptly. + +He sighed as he went back to Urquhart and Leslie. Things were so +difficult to manage. One left one's friends to comfort a hurt bounder; +that was all very well, but what if the bounder comforted was much more +offensive than the bounder hurt? However, it was no good reasoning about +these things. Peter knew that one had to try and cheer up the hurt, in +the face of all reason, simply because one felt so uncomfortable +oneself if one didn't. + +But it was almost worth while to have a few rather revolting people +about; they threw the others into such glorious relief. As long as there +were the nice people, who laughed at life and themselves, playing about +the world, nothing else in particular mattered. And it was really +extraordinarily good luck that Urquhart should happen to be playing about +Venice at the same time as Peter. In spite of Cheriton, they would have +a good time together. And Cheriton would perhaps become friendly in +time--dear Jim, with his queer manners. People mostly did become +friendly, in quite a short time, according to Peter's experience. + +That the time, as far as Cheriton was concerned, had not yet arrived, was +rather obvious, however. His manners to Peter on the sands were still +quite queer--so queer that Peter and Leslie only stayed a few minutes +more. Peter refused Urquhart's suggestion that they should have tea +together on the island, and they crossed over to the lagoon side and got +into their waiting gondola. + +The lagoon waters were smooth like glass, and pale, and unflushed as yet +with the coming sunset. Dark lines of stakes marked the blue ship-ways +that ran out to open sea, and down them plied the ships, spreading +painted wings to the evening breeze. + +Leslie said, "I see in the Gem that there is a good old well-head to be +had from a man on the Riva Ca' di Dio. I want well-heads, as you know. +We'll go and see, shall we?" + +The crystal peace of the lagoon was shattered for Peter. He had been +getting into a curious mood of late; he almost disliked well-heads, and +other purchasable forms of beauty. After all, when one had this limpid +loveliness of smooth water and men walking on its surface like St. Peter, +why want anything more? Because, Leslie would say, one wants to possess, +to call beauty one's own. Bother, said Peter, the vice of the age, which +was certainly acquisitiveness. He was coming to the conclusion that he +hated buying things. And it was so awkward to explain to Leslie about +Hilary and the Gem. He had spent the last few days in trying, without too +much giving Hilary away, to restrain Leslie from following his advice. He +said now, "All right; we'll go and see. But, to say the truth, I'm not +sure that Hilary is a very good authority on well-heads." He blushed a +little as he said it; it seemed to him that he had been saying that sort +of thing very often of late. Leslie was so persistent, so incorrigibly +intent on his purpose. + +Leslie looked at him now over his large cigar a little speculatively. + +"According to you," he remarked placidly after a moment, "your brother +is uncommonly little of an authority on anything he mentions. Fraternal +scepticism developed to its highest point." + +Peter nodded. "Our family way," he said; and added, "Besides, that Vyvian +man does as much of the Gem as Hilary. There's a young man, Leslie! My +word, what a dog! Talks about gurls. So I left him. I turned upon him and +said, 'Sir, this is no talk for a gentleman to listen to.' I said it +because I knew it was what he would expect. Then I turned on my heel +and left him without a word. He ground his teeth and hissed, 'A time will +come.' But Cheriton seems rather a rude man, all the same. He hurts my +feelings too, whenever I meet him. I too hiss, 'A time will come.' But +I don't believe it ever will. Do you suppose the water is shallow over +there, or that the men walking on it are doing miracles? It must be fun, +either way. Let's do it instead of buying well-heads, Leslie. The fact +is, buying so many things is rather demoralising, I think. Let's decide +to buy no more. I'm beginning to believe in the simple life, like Rodney. +Rodney hates men like you and Urquhart--rolling plutocrats. He wanted me +to leave you and the other plutocrats and be a travelling pedlar. I'm not +sure that I shan't, before long." + +"Can't spare you," Leslie grunted. + +Peter flattered himself that he had successfully turned the conversation +from well-heads. + +When, after having tea with Leslie at Florian's, he returned to the +Palazzo Amadeo, Teresina told him that someone had called to see the +Signore, and the Signore, being out, was waiting in the saloon. Peter +went to the saloon to see if he would do instead of the Signore, and +found a stout gentleman with a black moustache and up-brushed hair, +spitting on the saloon floor. A revolting habit, as Hilary was wont +wearily to remark; but Peter always accepted it with anyhow outward +equanimity. + +"My brother is unfortunately away from the house," he explained, with +his polite smile and atrocious Italian. "But perhaps I can give him a +message?" + +The visitor gave him a sharp look, bowed ceremoniously, and said, "Ah! +The Signore is the brother of Signor Margerison? Truly the brother?" + +Peter assured him, not even halving the relationship; and indeed, he +seldom did that, even in his thoughts. + +The visitor gave him a card, bearing the name of Signor Giacomo Stefani, +sat down, at Peter's request, spat between his feet, and said, "I have +had various affairs with your Signor brother before. I am come to solicit +his patronage in the matter of a pair of vases. If he would recommend +them for me in his paper, as before. They are good; they might easily be +antiques." + +"You wish my brother to mention them in his paper?" Peter gathered. He +was correct. + +"Exactly so," Signor Stefani told him. "Of course, on the same terms as +before, if the Signor would be satisfied with them." + +"Terms?" Peter repeated after him. + +Signor Stefani became more explicit. He named the terms. + +"That was what I paid Signor Margerison before, for an article on a +pseudo-Sienese chalice. But the vases are better; they are good; they +might deceive an expert. Truly, they might be antiques!" + +He continued to talk, while Peter listened. He was taking it in rather +slowly. But at last, not being stupid, he no longer thought Hilary so. He +understood. + +He stood up presently, looking a little dazed. + +"It appears," he said slowly, in his broken Italian, to Signor Stefani, +"that you are making a rather bad mistake, which is a pity. I think you +had better go home." + +Signor Stefani gave a startled upward twist to his moustache, and stood +up too. + +"Excuse me," he said rather angrily, "there is no mistake. Your brother +and I have very frequently had affairs together." + +Peter looked at him, frowning doubtfully as he collected his words. + +"I am right, I think," he said slowly, "that you are offering my brother +a bribe to publish a fraudulent article on fraudulent goods of yours? +That is so? Then, as I said, you are making a very serious mistake, +and ... and you had better go home. Will you come this way, please?" + +Signor Stefani continued to talk, but so rapidly and loudly now that +Peter couldn't follow him. He merely shook his head and opened the door, +saying, "This way, please. I can't understand you when you talk so fast." + +Signor Stefani, with a final angry shrug and expectoration, permitted +himself to be ushered out of the room. + +On the stairs outside they met Vyvian coming up, who nodded affably to +both of them. Signor Stefani, as he passed, shrugged his shoulders up to +his ears and spread his two hands wide, with a look of resigned despair +over his shoulder at Peter, and Vyvian's brows went up at the gesture. +Peter ushered his guest out at the street entrance. Signor Stefani's last +words were, "I shall return shortly and see your brother in person. I +have made a foolish mistake in thinking that you were in his confidence. +Good evening." + +So they parted, more in sorrow than in anger. + +Peter met Vyvian again on the stairs. He was passing on, but Vyvian +stopped and said, "What have you been doing to Stefani to put him out +so?" + +Peter stopped and looked at him for a moment. He felt rather dazed, as +if someone had hit him a blow on the head. He had to remember what was +this funny bounder's place in the newly-revealed scheme of things. Not +merely a funny bounder after all, it seemed, but just what Cheriton had +called him. But one couldn't let him know that one thought so; one was +ostensibly on Hilary's side, against honesty, against decency, against +all the world. + +So Peter, having located Vyvian and himself in this matter, said nothing +at all, but went on upstairs. + +Vyvian, staring after him in astonishment (none of Hilary's boarders had +seen Peter discourteous before), raised his eyebrows again, and whistled +beneath his breath. + +"So we're too fine for our brother's dirty jobs! I'm dashed if I don't +believe it's that!" + +Peter went upstairs rather too quickly for his heart. He returned to the +saloon and collapsed suddenly into a chair, feeling giddy. Mrs. Johnson +came in a moment later and found him leaning back with closed eyes. She +was disturbed about his complexion. + +"The colour of putty, poor Mr. Peter! You've bin excitin' yourself, +tearin' about sight-seein', _I_ know. Tell me now just how you feel. I'm +blest if I don't believe you've a-bin in the Cathedral, smellin' at that +there choky incense! It takes me like that, always; and Miss Gould says +she's just the same. Funny feelin's within, haven't you now?" + +"Yes," said Peter, "just exactly that"; and they so overcame him that he +began to laugh helplessly. + +"I'm sorry, Mrs. Johnson," he said presently. "I'm an ass. But I'm all +right now. I came upstairs in a hurry, that's all. And before that a man +talked so loud and so fast that it took my breath away. It may be silly, +but I _am_ like that, as Miss Barnett says. My brother and sister-in-law +are both out, aren't they?" + +Mrs. Johnson, sitting down opposite him and studying the returning tints +of his complexion, nodded. + +"That's it," she said, more cheerfully. "You're gettin' a wholesome white +again now. I didn't like that unhealthy greeny-grey. But you've none of +you any colour, you gentlemen--not you nor your brother nor that pasty +Vyvian. None of you but the little curate; he had a nice little pink +face. I'm sure I wish some gals cared more for looks, and then they +wouldn't go after some as are as well let alone." This cryptic remark was +illuminated by a sigh. Mrs. Johnson, now that she saw Peter improving in +complexion, reverted to her own troubles. + +Peter replied vaguely, "No, I suppose they wouldn't. People ought to +care for looks, of course. They matter so much more than anything else, +really." + +"Without goin' all that way with you, Mr. Peter," said Mrs. Johnson, "and +with all due respect to Great Minds (which I haven't got and never shall +have, and nor had my poor dear that's gone, so I'm sure I don't know +where Rhoder got her leanin's from), I will say I do like to see a young +man smart and well-kept. It means a respect for himself, not to mention +for those he takes out, that is a stand-by, at least for a mother. And +the young fellows affect the gals, too. Rhoder, now--she'd take some +pains with herself if she went out with a smart fellow, that was nicely +turned out himself and expected her to be the same. But as it is--hair +dragged and parted like a queer picture, and a string of green beads for +a collar, as if she was a Roman with prayers to say--and her waist, Mr. +Peter! But there, I oughtn't to talk like this to a gentleman, as Miss +Gould would say; (I do keep on shockin' Miss Gould, you know!) But I find +it hard to rec'lect that about you, Mr. Peter; you're so sympathetic, you +might be a young lady. An' I feel it's all safe with you, an' I do +believe you'd help me if you could." + +"I should be glad to," said Peter, wondering whether it was for the +improvement of Rhoda's hair, waist, or collar that his assistance might +be acceptable. + +Mrs. Johnson was looking at him very earnestly; it was obvious that +something was seriously amiss, and that she was wondering how much she +could venture to say to this sympathetic young man who might be a +young lady. She made a sudden gesture with her stout hands, as if +flinging reticence to the winds, and leant forward towards him. + +"Mr. Peter ... I don't hardly like to say it ... but could you take my +gal out sometimes? It does sound a funny thing to ask--but I can't abide +it that she should be for ever with that there Vyvian. I don't like him, +and there it is. And Rhoder does ... And he's just amusin' himself, and +I can't bear it for my little gal, that's where it is.... Mr. Peter, I +hate the fellow, though you may say I'm no Christian for it, and of +course one is bidden not to judge but to love all men. But he fair gives +me the creeps, like a toad.... Do you know that feelin'?" + +"Oh, yes," said Peter readily. "And of course, I should like immensely to +go out with Miss Rhoda sometimes, if she'll let me. But do you think she +will? I'm afraid she would be dreadfully bored with me. I haven't a Great +Mind, you know." + +"Rhoder likes you," said Mrs. Johnson, a smile of relief overspreading +her jolly face. "She was sayin' so only the other day. She has a great +respect for your knowledge of art, too. 'You wouldn't think it just to +talk with him,' she said, 'but he knows the most surprisin' things. Knows +them for himself'--that was how she put it--'without needin' to depend on +any books, or what anyone else says. I wish I was like that, mother,' she +says, and sighs. And of course, I knew why she wished that, and I said to +her, 'Rhoder, my dear, never you mind about knowin' things; gals don't +need to bother their heads about that. You look after the _outside_ of +your head,' I said, chaffing her about her hair, you know, 'and leave the +inside to look after itself.' I made her cross, of course; I'm for ever +makin' Rhoder cross without meanin' it. But that just shows what she +feels towards you, you see. And you'd talk healthy-like to her, which +is more than some does, if I know anythin'. One feels that of you, Mr. +Peter, if you'll excuse my sayin' it, that your talk is as innocent as +a baby's prattle, though it mayn't always mean much." + +"Thank you very much," said Peter. "I will certainly prattle to Miss +Rhoda whenever she will let me. I should enjoy it, of course." + +"Then that's settled." Mrs. Johnson rose, and shook out her skirts with +relief. "And a weight off my mind it will be.... You could make a third +with Rhoder and that Vyvian to-morrow afternoon, if you were so good and +not otherwise employed. They're off together somewhere, I know." + +"Making a third" was a little beyond even Peter's readiness to be +helpful, and he looked dubious. + +"I wonder if Mr. Vyvian would let me do that. You see, he doesn't much +like me. I expect I give him the creeps, like a toad...." Then, seeing +Mrs. Johnson's relieved face cloud, he added, "Oh, well, I'll ask them to +take me," and she smiled at him as at a good child. "I knew you would!" + +Hilary didn't come in to dinner. That was as well; it gave Peter more +time. Perhaps it would be easier late at night to speak of the hopeless, +weary, impossible things that had suddenly risen in the way; easier to +think of things to say about them that wouldn't too much hurt Hilary or +himself. + +At dinner Peter was very quiet and polite to everyone. Vyvian's demeanour +towards him was touched with irony; his smile was a continual reference +to the fellowship of secrecy that bound them. Rhoda was very silent; +Peter supposed that Vyvian had been snubbing her. + +Hilary came home late. Peter and Peggy and Vyvian were sitting in the +dimly-lighted saloon, and the ubiquitous Illuminato was curled up, a +sleepy ball, on the marble top of a book-case. Peggy had a habit of +leaving him lying about in convenient corners, as a little girl her doll. + +"You look tired to death, my dear," she commented, as Hilary came in. Her +kindly grey eyes turned from him to Peter, who had looked up from the +book he was reading with a nervous movement. Peter's sweet-tempered +companionableness had been oddly obscured this evening. Perhaps he too +was tired to death. And poor little Rhoda had been so unmercifully +snubbed all the evening that at last she had crept up to bed all but in +tears. Peggy felt very sorry for everyone to-night; they all seemed to +need it so much. + +Vyvian, as usual, had a headache. When Hilary came in, he rose and said +he was going upstairs to try and get some sleep--an endeavour seldom +successful in this noisy and jarring world, one gathered. Before he +embarked on it he said to Peter, squirting soda into a large tumbler +of whisky, "Stefani want anything particular to-day?" + +He had waited to say it till Hilary came in. Peter supposed that he said +it merely out of his general desire to be unpleasant, and perhaps to +revenge himself for that unanswered enquiry on the stairs. Or possibly he +merely wished to indicate to Peter how entirely he was privy to Stefani's +business with Hilary, and that it might just as well be discussed in his +presence. Or again, he might be desirous of finding out how far Peter +himself was in the know. + +Peter said, "Nothing very particular," and bent over Illuminato, that +he might not meet Hilary's eyes or Peggy's. He knew that Hilary was +violently startled, and he heard Peggy's softly let out breath, that +might have been a sigh or a gentle whistle, and that conveyed in either +case dismay touched with a laugh. + +Vyvian, who had been watching the three with a covert smile, drained his +glass and said, "Well, it's supposed to be partly my business, you know. +But since you don't think so, I'll say good-night." + +He included the three in a supercilious nod, and left the room. + +He left a queer silence behind him. When it had lasted for a moment, +Peter looked up from his inspection of Illuminato's screwed-up face, with +an effort, and met Hilary's eyes searching his own. Peggy was in the +background; later she would be a comforting, easing presence; but for the +moment the situation held only these two, and Peter's eyes pleaded to +Hilary's, "Forgive me; I am horribly sorry," and in Hilary's strained +face shame intolerably grew, so that Peter looked away from it, bending +over Illuminato in his arms. + +It was Peggy who broke the silence with a tearful laugh. + +"Oh, don't look like that, you poor darling boys! Peter, little dear +Peter ... you must try and understand! You're good at understanding, you +know. Oh, take it easy, my dear! Take it easy, and see how it's nothing +to matter, how it's all one great joke after all!" Her arm was round his +shoulders as he sat on the table's edge; she was comforting him like a +child. To her he was always about Illuminato's age, a most beloved +infant. + +Peter smiled a little at her. "Why, yes, of course it's a joke. +Everything is, isn't it. But ... but...." + +He was more than ever a child, stammering unwordable protest, blindly +reaching out for help. + +Hilary stood before him now, with his hands in his pockets, nervous, +irritable, weary, shame now masked by self-defence. That was better; but +still Peter kept his eyes for the curled-up child. + +"My dear boy," said Hilary, in his sweet, plaintive tones, edged with +irritation, "if people like to be taken in, is it my business?" + +And Peggy echoed, "Yes, Peter darling, _is_ it Hilary's business?" + +Then Peter laughed suddenly. After all, it was all too hopeless, and too +absurd, for anything else. + +"You can't go on, you know," he said then. "You've got to resign." And +Peggy looked at him in surprise, for he spoke now like a man instead of +a child, with a man's finality. He wasn't giving a command, but stating +an obvious fact. + +"Darling--we've got to live!" Peggy murmured. + +"You mayn't see the necessity," Hilary ironically put the approved answer +into Peter's mouth, "but we, unfortunately, do." + +"Oh, don't be silly," said Peter unusually. "You _are_ being silly, you +know; merely absurd. Because, of course, it's simply a question between +resigning and being chucked out before long. You can't go on with this +sort of thing indefinitely. You see," he explained, apologetic now, "it +isn't even as if you did it well. You really don't. And it's an awfully +easy thing to see through, if once anyone gets on the track. All that +rubbish you've saddled Lord Evelyn with--anyone who isn't as blind as +a bat can spot it in a minute. I did; Cheriton has (that's why he's so +queer-mannered, by the way, I suppose); probably Denis has. Well, with +everyone knowing about it like that, someone is bound before long to +ferret out the real facts. Cheriton won't be long, I fancy, before he +gets hold of it all. And then--and then it will be so frightfully +awkward. Oh, you can't go on, Hilary; you've got to drop it." + +"You're talking very lightly," said Hilary, "of throwing up one's entire +income." + +Peter sighed. "Not lightly; I'm really not. I know what a bore it will +be--but not such a bore as the other thing.... Well, then, don't throw it +up: simply chuck Stefani and the rest, and run the thing on different +lines. I'd help, if you'd let me. I'd chuck Leslie and stay on here and +write for you. I would love to. I made a start to-day, you see; I told +Stefani he was out of his reckonings, so he'll be prepared. We'll tell +all the rest the same.... I suppose Vyvian's in it, too? Can't you get +rid of the man? I do so dislike him, you know. Well, never mind; anyhow, +we'll tell him he's got to run on new lines now. Oh, we'll make a decent +thing of the Gem after all; Hilary, do let's. Peggy, don't you think that +would be jolly?" + +He looked up into his sister-in-law's face, and met smiling eyes suddenly +tear-dimmed. She smiled down at him. + +"Very jolly, you beloved child.... So you'll chuck your Mr. Leslie and +your own profession and help to run the Gem? I don't think we can let him +do that, Hilary, can we?" + +Hilary's strained face had softened and relaxed. + +"I confess," he said, "that it would be in many ways a great relief to me +to drop that side of the business, if I could see my way to it. But it +won't be easy now, Peter. It will mean a certain amount of going back on +former statements, for one thing." + +"Oh, that'll be all right. Papers are always doing that. We'll manage all +right and put a good face on it. And we'll make the thing sell--make it +funny and interesting and nice. Of course, if Leslie is willing for me to +give part of my time to it, there's no reason why I should leave him, as +long as he stays in Venice. It will be all in his interests really, +because he can get tips from the Gem. I've warned him off it lately +because I thought you were such an awful muddler, Hilary. By the way, +it's rather a relief that you aren't quite so wanting as I was beginning +to fear; seriously, I was wondering how on earth you were going to get +through this difficult world. There's no remedy for a muddler; he can't +mend." + +But a swindler can; a swindler certainly must, that was conveyed by the +appeal in Peter's tired face. So tired it was that Peggy gently took +Illuminato from his uncle's arms and said, "And now we'll all go to bed. +My beloved little brother--you're an angel in the house, and we'll all do +just as you say, if it's only to make you smile again. Won't we, Hilary?" + +She leant a soft cheek against Hilary's shoulder, smiling at Peter; but +Peter waited for Hilary's reply before he smiled back. + +Hilary's reply came after a moment. + +"Of course, if Peter can contrive a way of keeping our heads above water +without having recourse to these detestable methods, I shall be only too +relieved. I loathe having to traffic with these dirty swindlers; it's +too insufferably wearying and degrading.... By the way, Peter, what did +Stefani want to-day?" + +Peter said, "Oh, bother Stefani. I'm tired of him. Really, I can't +remember--oh, yes, it was antique vases, that might deceive an expert. +But let's stop thinking about Stefani and go to bed. I'm so awfully +sleepy; do let's go upstairs and try to get a little rest, as Vyvian +puts it." + +Peggy patted him softly on the cheek as he passed her, and her smile for +him was curiously pitiful. + +"We'll do our best to mend, my dear; we'll do our best," was what she +soothingly murmured; and then, to Illuminato, "There, my froglet; cuddle +up and sleep," and to Hilary, "You poor old dear, will we let the little +brother have his way, because he's a darling entirely, and quite +altogether in the right?" + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +THE FAT IN THE FIRE + + +Peter, self-appointed sub-editor to the Gem, was revising a dissertation +of Vyvian's on lace. It was a difficult business, this. Vyvian, in +Peter's opinion, needed so much expurgation; and yet one couldn't be +unkind. Peter wished very much that Hilary would get rid of Vyvian. +Vyvian often wrote such tosh; though he was clever, too. Came of being a +bounder, perhaps. Peter had often noticed that bounders were apt to write +tosh, even clever bounders. Such a sensitive bounder, too; that made it +extraordinarily difficult to edit him satisfactorily. Decidedly Hilary +ought to get rid of him, gently but finally. That would have the added +advantage of freeing Peter from the obligation of "making a third" with +him and Rhoda Johnson. Also, one would feel safer; one didn't really +trust Vyvian not to be doing little private deals of his own; so little, +in fact, did one trust him that the names of dealers were rigorously +taboo now on the Gem. + +Peter sighed over this rather tiresome article on lace. He wanted to be +finishing one of his own on well-heads; and then he wanted to go out with +Leslie and look for stone lions for Leslie's gate-posts; and then he and +Leslie were going to dine with Lord Evelyn Urquhart. There were a lot of +jolly things to be done, when he had finished with Vyvian's lace. + +Peter was quite enjoying life just now; it was interesting trying to set +the Gem on its legs; there were immense potentialities in the Gem now +that toshery with dealers had been put an end to. And to be allowed to +write _ad infinitum_ about well-heads or anything else was simply +splendid. + +Peter heard, with a small, abstracted part of his mind, someone talking +to Hilary in the hall. The low-toned conversation vaguely worried his +subconscious self; he wished people would converse more audibly. But +probably it was private.... Peter suddenly frowned irritably and sat +upright, biting at his pen. He was annoyed with himself. It was so +impertinent, so much the sort of thing he most disliked, to be +speculating, as he had suddenly found himself doing, on the nature of +another person's private business. Had he come to that? It must be some +emanation from that silly, syrupy article of Vyvian's; Vyvian, Peter felt +sure, would have towards a private conversation just such an attitude +that he had detected in himself. He settled himself to his job again, +and made a rather savage excision of two long sentences. + +The outer door shut. Peter heard Hilary's steps crossing the hall alone, +rather slowly, till they stopped at the door of the saloon. Hilary came +in; his head was thoughtfully bent, and he didn't at first see Peter at +the table in a corner. When he did see him, he started violently. Hilary +had such weak nerves; he was always starting for no reason. + +Peter said, "Things going on all right?" and Hilary said, "Yes, quite," +and stood silent for a moment, his mobile face flickering nervously, as +it did when he was tired or embarrassed. + +"I was looking for Peggy," he added, and went out. He had forgotten, +apparently, that Peggy had told them an hour ago that she was going +shopping and would be out all the afternoon. + +Peter sat quite still in his chair and bit his pen. From his expression, +Mrs. Johnson might have inferred that he had been in the Cathedral again, +smelling at the choky incense, and had got "funny feelin's" within. They +were like the nauseating reminiscence of an old sickness. He tried to +ignore them. He said to himself, "I'm an ass. I'm a suspicious, +low-minded ass." + +But he was somehow revolted by the thought of going on with the work for +"The Gem" just then. He was glad when Leslie called to fetch him out. + +Leslie said, "What's the matter, my son?" + +Leslie had, with all his inapprehensiveness of things, an extraordinary +amount of discernment of people; he could discern feelings that had no +existence. Or, if they had any existence in this case, they must have +been called into it by Vyvian's sugary periods. Peter conceded that to +that extent he ailed. + +"A surfeit of Vyvian. Let's come out and take the air and look for little +stone lions." + +Leslie was restful and refreshing, with his direct purposes and solid +immobility. You could be of use to Leslie, because he had a single eye; +he knew what he wanted, and requested you to obtain it for him. That +was simple; he didn't make your task impossible by suddenly deciding that +after all he didn't really want what you were getting for him. He was a +stable man, and perhaps it is only the stable who are really susceptible +of help, thought Peter vaguely. + +At seven o'clock Peter and Leslie went to the Ca' delle Gemme. They +found Cheriton there. Cheriton was talking when they arrived, in his +efficient, decisive, composed business tones. Lord Evelyn was pacing up +and down the room, his fine, ringed hands clasped behind his back. He +looked extraordinarily agitated; his delicate face was flushed crimson. +Denis was lying back in a low chair, characteristically at ease. + +When Leslie and Peter came in, Cheriton stopped speaking, and Lord Evelyn +stopped pacing, and absolute silence momentarily fell. + +Then Denis gave his pleasant, casual "Hullo." + +Cheriton's silence continued. But Lord Evelyn's did not. Lord Evelyn, +very tall and thin, and swaying to and fro on his heels, looked at Peter, +turning redder than before; and Peter turned red too, and gave a little +apprehensive, unhappy sigh, because he knew that the fat was at last in +the fire. + +There ensued an uncomfortable scene, such as may readily be imagined. + +Lord Evelyn said, and his sweet voice quavered distressingly up and down, +"I suppose it's been a good joke. But I wouldn't have thought it of you, +Peter Margerison; I wouldn't have thought it of you. Of your brother I +say nothing; it's a dishonest world, and he's like the rest, and I can't +say he ever gave me any reason to trust him, so I've myself to blame. But +you--I did trust you. I thought you were a nice boy, and cared too much +for nice things to lie about them." He broke off, and looked round the +room--at the Diana and Actæon, at the Siena chalice, at all the monstrous +collection. They weren't nearly all monstrous, either--not even most--but +he didn't know that; they might be for all he could tell. He looked at +them all with the same bewildered, hurt, inimical eyes, and it was that +which gave Peter his deepest stab of pitiful pain. + +"You've made a fool of me between you," said Lord Evelyn, and suddenly +sat down, as if very tired. Leslie sat down too, ponderous and silent +in the shadowed background. But Peter remained standing before them all, +his head a little bent, his eyes on Denis Urquhart's profile. He was +wondering vaguely if Denis would say anything, and if so what it would +be. + +Still looking at Denis, he made foolish apologies because he was always +polite. + +"I'm frightfully sorry.... I've been frightfully sorry all along...." + +Lord Evelyn lifted a white hand, waving his absurdities contemptuously +aside. + +"All along! Oh, I see. At least you're honest now; you don't attempt to +deny that you've known all about it, then." There was perhaps a fresh +ring of bitterness in his voice, as if some last faint hope had been +killed by Peter's words. + +Cheriton, whose eyes were studying the floor, lifted them sharply for +a moment, and glanced at Denis, who was lighting a cigarette and didn't +look at him. + +"You knew that first evening, when you looked at the things," said Lord +Evelyn, half a question still in his querulous voice. "You saw through +them at once, of course. Anyone but a blind fool would have, I've no +manner of doubt. Cheriton here says he saw you see through them." + +Peter stammered over it. "I--I--knew they weren't much." + +Lord Evelyn turned to Cheriton whose face was still bent down as if he +didn't much like the scene now he had brought it about. + +"You were right, as usual, Jim. And Denis was wrong. Denis, you know," he +added to Peter, "was inclined to put your morals above your intelligence. +He said you couldn't have known. Cheriton told him he was sure you had. +It seems Cheriton was right." + +It seemed that he was. Peter imagined that Cheriton would always be +right. + +After a moment's silence Peter gathered that they were all waiting to +hear if he had anything to say about it. He hadn't much, but he might +as well say it, such as it was. + +"It won't make much difference, of course," he began, and his voice +sounded odd and small and tired in the great room, "but I think I +should like you to know that all this stopped three weeks ago. +Hilary--we--decided then to--to give it up, and run 'The Gem' on +different lines in future. We couldn't easily undo the past--but--but +there's been nothing of the sort since then, and we didn't mean there to +be again. Oh, I know that doesn't make much difference, of course...." + +The only difference that mattered was that Denis frowned. +Incidentally--only that didn't matter--Cheriton laughed curtly, and Lord +Evelyn wearily said, "Oh, stop lying, stop lying. I'm so unutterably +tired of your lies.... You think we don't know that your brother accepted +a bribe this very afternoon.... Tell him, Jim." + +So Jim told him. He told him shortly, and in plain words, and not as if +he was pleased with his triumph in skilful detection, which he no doubt +was. + +"I rather wanted to sift this business, Margerison, as I had suspected +for a good while more than I could prove. So to-day I sent a man to your +brother, commissioning him to pretend to be an art-dealer and offer a sum +of money for the insertion in 'The Gem' of an appreciative notice of some +spurious objects. As perhaps you are aware, the offer was accepted.... It +may seem to you an underhand way of getting evidence--but the case was +peculiar." + +He didn't look at Peter; his manner, though distant, was not now +unfriendly; perhaps, having gained his object and sifted the business, +there was room for compassion. It was a pity that Peter had made things +worse by that last lie, though. + +"I see," said Peter. "It's all very complete." + +And then he laughed, as he always did when disasters were so very +complete as to leave no crevice of escape to creep through. + +"You laugh," said Lord Evelyn, and rose from his chair, trembling a +little. "You laugh. It's been an admirable joke, hasn't it? And you +always had plenty of sense of humour." + +Peter didn't hear him. He wasn't laughing any more; he was looking at +Denis, who had never looked at him once, but sat smoking with averted +face. + +"Shall I go now?" said Peter. "There isn't much more to say, is there? +And what there is, perhaps you will tell us to-morrow.... It seems so +silly to say one is sorry about a thing like this--but I am, you know, +horribly. I have been all along, ever since I found out. You think +that must be a lie, because I didn't tell. But things are so mixed and +difficult--and it's not a lie." He was looking at Lord Evelyn now, at +the delicate, working face that stabbed at his pity and shame. After all, +it was Lord Evelyn, not Denis, whom they had injured and swindled and +fooled; one must remember that. To Lord Evelyn he made his further +feeble self-exculpation. "And, you know, I did really think Hilary had +dropped it weeks ago; he said he would. And that's not a lie, either." +But he believed they all thought it was, and a silly one at that. + +It was Lord Evelyn who laughed now, with his high, scornful titter. + +"You and your sorrow! I've no doubt your brother will be sorry too, when +he hears the news. I may tell you that he'll have very good reason to +be.... Yes, by all means go now--unless you'd like to stay and dine, +which I fancy would be carrying the joke too far even for you.... Will +you stay one moment, though? There's a little ceremony to be performed." + +He crossed the room, and took the Sienese chalice between his hands, +holding it gingerly for a moment as if it had been some unclean thing; +then he dashed it on to the marble floor and it lay in splinters about +his feet. He took up the pair of vases next it, one in each hand (they +happened to be of great value), and threw them too among the splinters; +he had cleared the shelf of all its brittle objects before Leslie, who +had sat motionless in the background until now, rose and laid a heavy +hand on his arm. + +"My dear sir," said Leslie tranquilly, "don't be melodramatic. And don't +give the servants so much trouble and possible injury when they do the +room to-morrow. If you want to part with your goods, may I ask to be +allowed to inspect them with a view to purchase? Some of them, as you +are no doubt aware, are of considerable intrinsic value, and I should be +happy to be allowed to buy." + +Lord Evelyn looked at the man of commerce with distant contempt. + +"As you please, sir. I've no doubt that Mr. Peter Margerison will be +equally happy to give you his valuable advice in the business. He is your +counsellor in these matters, isn't he. An excellent adviser, of sound +judgment and most disinterested honesty!" + +He bowed to Peter, who took it as a dismissal, and said "Good night." + +Denis, at the opposite side of the room, nodded in his casual way, +neither hostile nor friendly, but gentle and indifferent. You couldn't +make Denis seem angry, or hurt, or agitated in any way whatever. He had +always the air of reserving his opinion; and he extremely disliked +scenes. To be present at this one must have been painful to him. Peter, +who knew him so well, knew that. He liked things to go easily and +smoothly always. He had winced at the crash of glass on marble; it seemed +to him in such bad taste. This, no doubt, was his attitude towards the +whole business; towards the Magerisons' behaviour, Cheriton's exposure +of it, and this final naked, shameful scene of accusation and confession. + +Peter was realising this as he put on his coat in the hall, when the door +he had shut behind him was opened, and steps followed him. He started and +faced round, a hope leaping in his face. The swift dying of it left him +rather pale. + +Leslie said, "I'm coming too." + +It was good of Leslie, thought Peter dully, and not caring in the least. +He said, "No, stay and dine. Really, I'd like you to.... We'll talk +to-morrow." + +Leslie put on his overcoat and said to the footman, "Call a gondola," +and the footman stood on the steps and cried "_Poppe_" till a _poppe_ +came; then they swung away down a rose-flushed water-street with the +after-glow in their eyes. + +Leslie was restful; he didn't bother one. He merely said, "We'll dine +to-night at Luigi's." + +It was not until they had done so, and were having coffee outside, that +Peter said, "We'll have to leave Venice, of course, directly we can." + +"You too?" said Leslie. "You go with them?" + +"I go with them," said Peter. "Well, I can't well stay here, can I. And +we may as well stick together--a family party..... You see, I haven't a +notion what Hilary will do to live now. I can go into business of sorts. +Hilary can't; he'd hate it so. Hilary's not business-like, you know. Nor +is Peggy. I couldn't trust them by themselves; they'd tumble into +something and get broken. They need my common sense to sustain them." + +Leslie said, "What's the matter with your own line of life, that you want +to chuck it?" + +Peter looked at him in surprise. + +"It's chucked me," he said. "Violently--with a smash. You don't suppose +anyone will hire me again to buy their things for them? There'll be +something of a crab on the Margerison family in future. It's going to +be made very public, you know, this business; I gathered that. We shall +be--rather notorious, in a very few days." + +Leslie said, after a moment, "I've hired you to buy my things for me. Are +you going to chuck me?" + +And Peter, leaning his forehead on his hand as if tired, returned +beneath his breath, "Don't be good to me, please, just now. And you +must see I've got to chuck it all--all that side of things. We must do +something quite new, Hilary and I. We--we've spoiled this." + +After a pause, Leslie said gently, afraid of blundering, "You stick +together, you and your brother? You go through it together--all the way?" + +Peter answered hopelessly, "All the way. We're in it together, and we +must get out together, as best we can," and Leslie accepted that, and +asked no further question. + + + + +CHAPTER X + +THE LOSS OF A PROFESSION + + +Peter went back to the Palazzo Amadeo and said to Hilary, who was writing +an article for "The Gem" in the saloon, "I wouldn't go on with that, +Hilary. It's no use." + +The flatness of his voice, the pallor of his face, startled Hilary and +Peggy. + +Peggy said, "You're tired to death, child. Take the big chair." + +Hilary said, "How do you mean, no use?" + +And Peter told him. While he did so, he stood at the window, looking down +at the canal between the green shutters that swung ajar, and did not look +at Hilary's face. + +It was an impossible position for Hilary, so utterly impossible that it +was no use trying to make the best of it; one could only look away, and +get through it quickly. + +Peter didn't say much. He only said, "We've been found out. That man who +came to you this afternoon was a spy sent by Cheriton. He reported the +result of his interview with you, and Lord Evelyn knows all about +everything. Cheriton suspected from the first, you see.... From what Lord +Evelyn said, I gather he means to prosecute.... He is ... very angry +indeed.... They all are...." + +On the last statement Peter's voice sank a little in pitch, so that they +hardly heard it. But the last statement mattered to no one but Peter. + +Hilary had got up sharply at the first words, and stood very still to +listen, letting out one long breath of weary despair. Peggy came and +stood close to him, and took one slim white hand in her large kind ones, +and gently held it. The fat was indeed in the fire. Poor old Hilary! How +he would feel it! Peggy divined that what stung Hilary most deeply at the +moment was Peter's discovery of his faithlessness. + +It was of that that his first shamed, incoherent words were. + +"What was I to do? How could I break abruptly with the old methods, as +you suggested? It had to come gradually. You know nothing of business, +Peter--nothing." His voice ran up the scale of protesting self-defence. + +"Nothing," Peter admitted drearily. Hilary's shame before him could +hardly now add to the badness of the situation, as it had once done; the +badness of situations has a limit, and this one had reached its limit +some three hours since, just before he had laughed in Lord Evelyn's +drawing-room. + +"Oh," said Peter, very tired suddenly, "never mind me; what does that +matter? The point is ... well, you see the point, naturally." + +Yes, Hilary saw the point. With a faint groan he ran his fingers through +his hair and began to pace up and down the room in agitation. + +He said, "That brute Cheriton.... An execrable bounder; I always knew it. +What _right_ had he?... It's too horrible, too abominable.... Just when +we were doing our best to get the thing onto straight lines...." He +wheeled about and paced back again, with quick, uneven steps. Between him +and the motionless Peter, Peggy stood, looking from one to the other. Her +merry eyes were quite grave now. The situation was certainly appalling. + +"We must leave Venice," said Peggy, on a sigh. That seemed, certainly, +the only thing to be done. + +Hilary groaned again. + +"Oh, Lord, what are we let in for? What will be the result, if he +prosecutes? It may be utter ruin.... I know nothing of these things. +Of course, in justice nothing could be done to us--for, after all, what +harm have we done? Anyone may insert advertisements for pay, and it only +amounted to that.... But justice isn't taken into much account in the +law-courts.... It is a horrible, cast-iron system--the relic of a +barbarous age.... I don't know what we mayn't be in for, or how we +shall come out of it. You don't know either, Peter; you know nothing +of law--nothing. It mustn't come into court; that is unthinkable. We will +make full apologies--any restitution within our power that Lord Evelyn +demands.... I shall go there; I shall see him about it, and appeal to his +better feelings. He has been a friend of mine. He has always been good to +you, Peter. The memory of your mother.... Appeal to that. You must go to +him and see what can be done. Yes, it had better be you; he has a kinder +feeling for you, I believe, than for me." + +"He has no kind feeling for me," said Peter dully. "He is more annoyed +with me than with you." + +Hilary jerked his head impatiently. + +"Nonsense. You want to shirk; you want to leave me to get out of the mess +for myself. Oh, of course, you're not legally involved; I am aware of +that; you can leave the sinking ship if you choose, and save yourself." + +Peggy said, "Don't be ridiculous, darling. Peter's doing his best for us, +as he always has," and came and stood at her brother-in-law's side, kind +and big and comforting, with a hand on his arm. + +Hilary went on querulously, "I'm asking Peter to do a simple thing--to +use his friendship with the Urquharts to help me out of this mess. If you +don't want to see Lord Evelyn, Peter, you can go to Denis. He's a friend +of yours; he's--he's your kind of step-brother. You can easily persuade +him to get the thing hushed up. You've always pretended that he was a +friend of yours. Go and see him, then, for heaven's sake, and help us all +out of this miserable predicament." + +Peter was still silent, staring down at the dark ribbon of shining water +that lapped against two old brick walls, a shut lane full of stars. + +Peggy, her hand on his arm, said gently, "Oh, Peter'll do his best for +us, of course he will, won't you, Peter." + +Peter sighed very faintly into the dark night. + +"I will do anything I can, naturally. It won't be much, you know." + +"You will go to the Urquharts to-morrow morning, and appeal to them?" +said Hilary. + +"Yes," said Peter. "I will do that." + +Hilary breathed a sigh of relief, and flung himself into a chair. + +"Thanks, Peter. I believe that is the best we can do. You will +persuade them at least to be just, not to push the matter to unfair +extremes.... _Oh, my God, what a life!_" His beautiful, unhappy face +was hidden in his hands; he shuddered from head to foot, feeling horribly +sick. The Margerison organism was sensitive. + +Peggy, bending over him, drew caressing fingers through his dark hair and +said, "Go to bed, you poor old dear, and don't worry any more to-night. +Worry won't help now, will it?" + +"Bed?" said Hilary. "Bed? What's the use of that? I shouldn't sleep a +wink. I have a frightful head, and I must go and find Vyvian and tell +him." + +Peggy sniffed. "Much Vyvian'll care! He's been in bad odour all his life, +I should fancy. One more row won't bother _him_ much. I wish it would; it +would be almost worth while to be upset if Guy Vyvian was going to be +upset too--the waster. Well, I wonder anyhow will this show that silly +little Rhoda what sort of a creature she's been making a golden calf +of.... Well, go and wake Vyvian, then, darling, and then come and tell me +what he said to it. Peter, you're dropping to sleep as you stand." + +Peter went to bed. There didn't seem to be anything to stay up for, and +bed is a comforting friend on these occasions. Hilary had a perverse +tendency to sit up all night when the worst had happened and he had a +frightful head; Peter's way with life was more amenable; he always took +what comfort was offered him. Bed is a good place; it folds protecting, +consoling arms about you, and gives at best oblivion, at worst a blessed +immunity from action. + +In the morning, about eleven o'clock, Peter went to the Ca' delle Gemme. +That had to be done, so it was no use delaying. He asked for Lord Evelyn +Urquhart, and supposed that the servant who showed him in was astonished +at his impudence. However, he was permitted to wait in the reception-room +while the servant went to acquaint Lord Evelyn with his presence. He +waited some time, standing in the middle of the big room, looking at some +splinters of glass and china which had been left on the marble floor, +forming on his tongue what he was going to say. He could form nothing +that was easy to say; honestly he didn't know whether, when the door +should open and that tall, elegant, fastidious figure should walk in, he +would find himself able to say anything at all. He feared he might only +grow hot, and stammer, and slink out. But he pulled himself together; he +must do his best; it was quite necessary. He would try to say, "Lord +Evelyn, I know it is abominably impertinent of me to come into your house +like this. Will you forgive me this once? I have come to ask you, is +there any consideration whatever, any sort of reparation my brother and +I can make, which will be of any use as amends for what we did? If so, of +course we should be grateful for the chance...." + +That was what he would try to say. And what he would mean was: "Will you +let Hilary off? Will you let him just go away into obscurity, without +further disgrace? Isn't he disgraced enough already? Because you are +kind, and because you have been fond of me, and because I ask you, will +you do this much?" + +And what the answer would be, Peter had not the faintest idea. To him +personally the answer was indifferent. From his point of view, the worst +had already happened, and no further disgrace could affect him much. But +Hilary desperately cared, so he must do his best; he must walk into the +fire and wrest out of it what he could. + +And at last the door opened, and Denis Urquhart came in. + +He was just as usual, leisurely and fair and tranquil, only usually he +smiled at Peter, and to-day he did not smile. One might have fancied +under his tranquillity a restrained nervousness. He did not shake +hands; but then Peter and he never did shake hands when they met. + +He said, "Sit down, won't you. My uncle isn't available just now, so +I have come instead.... You have something to say to him, haven't you?" + +He sat down himself, and waited, looking at the splinters of glass on the +floor. + +Peter stood, and his breath came shortly. Yes, he had something to say to +Lord Evelyn, but nothing to Lord Evelyn's nephew. He grew hot and cold, +and stammered something, he did not know what. + +"Yes?" said Denis, in his soft, casual voice, politely expectant. + +Peter, who did not, after all, lack a certain desperate courage, walked +into the fire, with braced will. It was bad that Denis should be brought +into the business; but it had to be gone through, all the same. + +"I only wanted to know ... to know ... what Lord Evelyn is going to do +about this matter." He jerked out the words like stones from a catapult. + +Denis was silent for a moment. He disliked being dragged into this +revolting affair; but he had had to come and see Peter, since his uncle +refused and he could not let Peter go unseen away. He didn't want to see +him ever again, since he had behaved as he had behaved, but neither did +he want to violate the laws of courtesy and hospitality. + +"I don't quite know," he said, after a moment. + +"Is he ... does he intend to prosecute?" Peter asked, blushing. + +Denis answered to that at once: "I shall certainly do my best to prevent +anything of the sort. I don't think he will. At present he is still very +angry; but I think when he cools down he will see reason. To prosecute +would be to make himself absurd; he will see that, no doubt. He values +his reputation as an art connoisseur, you see." At the faint, cool irony +in the words, Peter winced. + +"Of course," went on Denis, lighting a cigarette, "your brother will +leave Venice at once, I suppose?" He passed Peter his cigarette box; +Peter refused it. + +"Naturally. We mean to leave as soon as we can.... Thank you, that is all +I had to say.... Good-bye." + +Denis got up, and Peter saw relief through the mask of politeness. + +"Good-bye.... I needn't say how sorry I am about all this. It was hard +lines on you being brought into it." + +He was making a transparent effort after friendliness; Peter almost +smiled at it. Poor Denis; what a relief it would be to him when the +disreputable Margerisons were off the scenes. + +Peter paused at the door and said, in a low, embarrassed voice, "Would +you mind telling Lord Evelyn what I told him myself last night--that +I'm horribly sorry about it--sorrier than I have ever been for +anything.... It won't make any difference to him, I know--but if you will +just tell him.... And I'm sorry it happened while you were here, too. +You've been dragged in.... Good-bye." + +"Good-bye, Margerison." Denis was grave, embarrassed, restrained, and not +unkind. It was obvious that he had nothing to say about it all. + +Peter left the Ca' delle Gemme. + +That afternoon Hilary received a note from Lord Evelyn. It was to the +effect that Lord Evelyn had decided not to bring an action, on the +understanding that Hilary and his brother and Vyvian left Venice at once +and discontinued for ever the profession of artistic advisers. If any of +the three was discovered engaging again in that business, those who +employed them should promptly be advised of their antecedents. They were, +in fact, to consider themselves warned off the turf. There was also to be +a paragraph about them in the English art papers. + +"Well," was Peggy's comment, "it hasn't been such a grand trade that we +need mind much. We'll all come back to England and keep a boarding-house +there instead, and you shall paint the great pictures, darling, and have +ever so much more fun. And we'll never need to see that Vyvian again; +there's fine news for the babies, anyhow. And I will be relieved to get +them away from the canals; one of them would have been surely drowned +before long. In London they'll have only gutters." + +Hilary, who was looking tired and limp after a distressing night and day, +said, "What shall you do, Peter?" + +"I don't know," said Peter. "I must find something, I suppose. Some sort +of work, you know." He pronounced the word gingerly, distastefully, as +if it were a curious, unwonted one. "Perhaps I shall be able to get a +post as door-keeper somewhere; in some museum, you know, or perhaps a +theatre, or the White City. I've always thought that might be amusing." + +"You wouldn't earn much that way," Hilary said hopelessly. + +"Need one earn much?" Peter wondered; then remembered how exceedingly +little Hilary would be earning, and that perhaps one need, because of the +babies. + +"Or perhaps I can get taken on as a clerk in some business," he amended. +"Or in a bank; only I don't believe my sums or manners are good enough +for a bank, really.... Oh, well, I must see what I can squeeze into. +Perhaps Leslie can think of something. And perhaps the Robinsons will +interest themselves in me, though they'll be even more disgusted at our +downfall than they were when I took up my profession, and they thought +that perfectly idiotic. They always do think we're perfectly idiotic, and +now they'll know we're something worse. But they may help me to a job, if +I bother them enough.... Anyhow, I'll be one of your boarders, if I may." + +"You darling," said Peggy, beaming at him. "It'll give the house quite a +different feeling if you're in it. And how delighted the babies will be. +I believe we're going to have the fine time, after all, in spite of +this bothersome business. Hurrah for London and no mosquitoes! And we'll +be quite near a Catholic church, the way the children'll be able to run +in and out as they do here, and not pick up heathen customs. Why, Hilary, +I'm really pleased!" + +Peggy was splendid. She was nearly always really pleased. + +They started for England a week later. In the course of that week two +things happened. One was that Leslie gave Peter the Berovieri goblet for +his own. + +"You've got to take it," he said. "If you don't, I shall give it back to +the prince. I've no right to it; I can't appreciate it properly. Since I +first saw you look at the thing I knew it was really yours. Take it and +keep it. You won't let me do anything else for you, but you shall let me +do that." + +Peter looked at it with wistful love. His fingers lingered about its +exquisiteness. + +"It will break," he said. "My things do break. Break and get lost, and go +with the dust. Or thieves will break in and steal it. I shan't be able to +keep it, I know; I'm such a bad hand at keeping things." + +"Well, well, have a try," said Leslie. So Peter took it and was glad. It +was his one link with the world of exquisiteness and new-burnished joys +out of which he was being thrust; he would keep it if he could. + +Leslie also said that he could get him a place in a business, if he +really wanted one. + +"I shall be extremely little use," said Peter. + +"Extremely little," Leslie agreed. "You'd much better not try. But if you +must you must." + +"I'm afraid I must," said Peter. + +So Leslie wrote letters about him, and secured him a humble post in a +warehouse. Leslie was not going to return to England at present. He was +going a tour round the world. Since Peter refused to accompany him, he +went alone. + +"There's no one else I can fancy hanging round me day and night," he +said. "I wanted you, Margery"--the nickname fell from him with a clumsy +pathos--"but if you won't you won't. I shall acquire an abominable +collection of objects without you to guide me; but that can't be helped." + +The other thing that happened was that Mrs. Johnson fell suddenly ill and +died. Before she died, she talked to Peter about Rhoda. + +"It's leaving of her as I can't bear," she whispered. "All alone and +unprotected like. I can't leave her by herself in this heathen country. +I want to get her back to England. But she's got no relatives there as'll +do for her; none, you know, as I should care to trust her to, or as 'ud +be really good to her. And I'm afraid of what'll come to the child +without me; I'm _afraid_, Mr. Peter. That man--it gives me the creeps +of nights to think of him comin' after Rhoder when I'm gone. I'm just +frightened as he'll get her; you know what Rhoder is, like a soft wax +candle that gets droopy and gives before his bold look; he can do +anythin' with her. And if he gets her, he won't be good to her, I know +that. He'll just break her and toss her away, my little gal. Oh, what +can I do, Mr. Peter, to save that?" + +She was in great pain; drops of sweat kept gathering on her forehead and +rolling on to the pillow. Peter took her hand that picked at the blanket. + +"May we try to take care of her?" he gently asked. "If she will come +and stay with us, in London, it would be better than being alone among +strangers, wouldn't it? She could get work near, and live with us. Peggy +is fond of her, you know; we all are. We would try to make her as happy +as we could." + +She smiled at him, between laboured breaths. + +"God bless you, dear Mr. Peter. I somehow thought as how you'd be good +to my little gal.... You are so sympathetic to everyone always.... Yes, +Rhoder shall do that; I'll have her promise. And that man--you'll keep +him off of her?" + +"I will try," said Peter. "I will do my very best." + +"Oh, Lord, oh, dear Lord," said Mrs. Johnson, "the pain!" + +But it didn't last long, for she died that night. + +And four days later the boarding-house was broken up, and the Margerison +family and Rhoda Johnson left Italy together. + +Rhoda was very quiet and still and white. She was terribly alone, for her +mother was gone, and the man she loved was gone, hurriedly, without a +word to her. There remained the Margerisons; Peter, with his friendly +smile and gentle companionableness; Hilary, worried and weary and hardly +noticing her unobtrusive presence; Silvio, Caterina, and Illuminato +sucking gingerbread and tumbling off the rack, and Peggy, on whose broad +shoulder Rhoda suddenly laid her head and wept, all through the Mont +Cenis tunnel. + + + + +CHAPTER XI + +THE LOSS OF AN IDEA + + +Peter's room was the smallest and highest in the boarding-house. It was +extremely small and high, and just above the bed was a ceiling that got +hot through and through like a warming-pan, so that the room in summer +was like a little oven below. What air there was came in came through a +small skylight above the wash-stand; through this also came the rain when +it rained; the dirtiest rain Peter had ever seen. + +It was not raining this morning, when Peter, after passing a very warm +night, heard the bells beginning. A great many bells begin on Sunday +mornings in this part of London, no doubt in any part of London, but +here they seem particularly loud. The boarding-house was in a small +street close to a large English church and a small Roman church; and the +English church had its first Mass at seven, and the Roman church at six, +and each had another an hour later, and bells rang for all. So Peter lay +and listened. + +Sometimes he went with Hilary and Peggy to the Roman Mass. That pleased +Peggy, who had hopes of some day converting him. And occasionally he went +alone to the English Mass, and he liked that better, on the whole, +because the little Roman church was rather ugly. Peter didn't think he +would ever join the Roman church, even to please Peggy. It certainly +seemed to him in some ways the most finely expressive of the churches; +but equally certainly it often expressed the wrong things, and (like +all other churches) left whole worlds unexpressed. And so much of its +expression had a crudity.... It kept saying too little and too much, +and jarring. + +Anyhow, this morning Peter, who had a headache after his warm night, +lay and heard the bells and thought what a nice day Sunday was, with +no office to go to. Instead, he would take Rhoda on the river in the +morning, and go and see Lucy in the afternoon, and probably have tea +there. When Peter went to see Lucy he always had a faint hope that +Urquhart would perhaps walk in, and that they would all be friendly +and happy together in the old way, for one afternoon. It hadn't happened +yet. Peter hadn't seen Urquhart since they had left Venice, two months +ago. Sunday was his day for going to see Lucy, and it wasn't Urquhart's +day, perhaps because Urquhart was so often away for week-ends; though +last Sunday, indeed, he had just left the Hopes' house when Peter +arrived. + +Lucy, when Peter had told her his tale of dishonour two months ago, had +said, half laughing at him, "How _stupid_ of all of you!" She hadn't +realised quite how much it mattered. Lucy judged everything by a queer, +withdrawn standard of her own. + +Peter had agreed that it had been exceedingly stupid of all of them. +Once, since then, when he heard that Urquhart had returned and had seen +Lucy, he had asked her, "Does he dislike us all very much? Is he quite +too disgusted to want to see me again?" + +Lucy had wrinkled her forehead over it. + +"He's not angry," she had said. "You can fancy, can't you? +Merely--merely ..." + +"Detached," said Peter, who had more words, and always expressed what +Lucy meant; and she nodded. "Just that, you know." She had looked at him +wistfully, hoping he wasn't minding too horribly much. + +"It's _stupid_ of him," she had said, using her favourite adjective, and +had added, dubiously, "Come and meet him sometime. You can't go on like +this; it's too silly." + +Peter had shaken his head. "I won't till he wants to. I don't want to +bother him, you see." + +"He does want to," Lucy had told him. "Of course he does. Only he thinks +_you_ don't. That's what's so silly." + +They had left it there for the present. Some day Peter meant to walk into +Denis's rooms and say, "Don't be stupid. This can't go on." But the day +hadn't come yet. If it had been Denis who had done the shady thing and +was in penury and dishonour thereby, it would have been so simple. But +that was inconceivable; such things didn't happen to Denis; and as it was +it was not simple. + +Peter got out of his hot bed on to his hot floor, and made for the +bathroom. There was only one bathroom in the boarding-house, but there +was no great competition for it, so Peter had his bath in peace, and +sang a tune in it as was his custom, and came back to his hot room and +put on his hot clothes (his less tidy clothes, because it was the day of +joy), and came down to breakfast at 9:25. + +Most of the other boarders had got there before him. It was a mixed +boarding-house, and contained at the moment two gentlemen besides Hilary +and Peter, and five ladies besides Peggy and Rhoda. They were on +the whole a happy and even gay society, and particularly on Sundays. + +Peggy, looking up from the tea-cups, gave Peter a broad smile, and Rhoda +gave him a little subdued one, and Peter looked pleased to see everyone; +he always did, even on Mondays. + +"I'm sure your brother hasn't a care in the world," an envious lady +boarder had once said to Peggy; "he's always so happy-looking." + +This was the lady who was saying, as Peter entered, "And my mother's last +words were, 'Find Elizabeth Dean's grave.' Elizabeth Dean was an author, +you know--oh, very well known, I believe. She treated my mother and me +none too well; didn't stand by us when she should have--but we won't say +anything about that now. Anyhow, it was a costly funeral--forty pounds +and eight horses--and my mother hadn't an idea where she was laid. So she +said, 'Find Elizabeth Dean's grave,' just like that. And the strange +thing was that in the first churchyard I walked into, in a little village +down in Sussex, there was a tombstone, 'Elizabeth Dean, 65. The Lord gave +and the Lord hath taken away.' Wasn't that queer, now? So I went straight +and...." + +"The woman's a fool," muttered the gentleman next Peter, a cynical-faced +commercial traveller. Peter had heard the remark from him frequently +before, and did not feel called upon to reply to it. + +But the tale of Elizabeth Dean was interrupted by a lady of a speculative +habit of mind. + +"Now I want to ask you all, _should_ one put up a tombstone to the +departed? I've been having quite a kick-up with my sisters about it +lately. Hadn't one better spend the money on the living? What do _you_ +think, Miss Matthews?" + +Miss Matthews said she liked to see a handsome headstone. + +"After all, one honours them that way. It's all one can do for them, +isn't it." + +"Oh, Miss Matthews, _all_?" Several ladies were shocked. "What about +one's prayers for the dead?" + +"I don't pray for the dead," said Miss Matthews, who was a protestant, +and did not attend the large church in the next street. "I do not belong +to the Romish religion. I'm not saying anything against those who do, but +I consider that those who do _not_ should confine their prayers to those +who may require them in this troubled world, and not waste them upon +those whose fate we have every reason to believe is settled once and for +all." + +The lady who always quarrelled with her on this subject rose to +the occasion. Peggy, soothing them down, said mechanically, "There +now.... Three lumps, Peter?... Micky, one doesn't suck napkin rings; +naughty." + +Peter was appealed to by his neighbour, who knew that he occasionally +attended St. Austin's church. People were always drawing him into +theological discussions, which he knew nothing at all about. + +"Mr. Peter, isn't that against all reason, to stop praying for our +friends merely because they've passed through the veil?" + +"Yes," Peter agreed. "I should have thought so." But all he really +thought was that beyond the veil was such darkness that he never looked +into it, and that it was a pity people should argue on a holiday. + +"Now," said someone else, wishing to be a peace-maker, "I'm afraid you'll +all say I'm very naughty, but _I_ attend the early Mass at St. Austin's, +high Mass at the Roman church"--she nodded at Peggy--"and the City Temple +in the evening"--she smiled at the commercial traveller, who was believed +to be a New Theologian. "Aren't I naughty, now?" + +Mademoiselle, the French governess, came down at this point, saying she +had had a dream about a hat with pink roses. The peace-making lady said, +"Bad little thing, she's quite frisky this morning." Hilary, to whom +Mademoiselle was the last straw, left the room. + +Rhoda followed his example. She had sat very silent, as usual, over +breakfast, eating little. Peter came out with her, and followed her into +the sitting-room, where she stood listlessly playing with the tassel of +the blind. Rhoda was thinner than ever, and floppier, and took even less +pains to be neat. She had left off her beads, but had not replaced them +by a collar. + +Peter said, "Are you coming out with me this morning?" + +She replied, listless and uncaring, "If you like." + +"We might go," said Peter, "and see if the New English Art Club is open +on Sunday mornings. And then we'll go on the river. Shall we?" + +She assented again. "Very well." + +A moment later she sighed, and said wearily, "How it does go on, day +after day, doesn't it!" + +Peter said it did. + +"On and on," said Rhoda. "Same stupid people saying the same stupid old +things. I do wonder they don't get tired. They don't _know_ anything, do +they?" + +Rhoda's hankering was still after Great Minds. + +"They're funny sometimes," suggested Peter tentatively; but she was blind +to that. + +"They don't know a thing. And they talk and talk, so stupidly. About +religion--as if one religion was different from another. And about dead +people, as if they knew all about them and what they were doing. They +seem to make sure souls go on--Miss Matthews and Miss Baker were both +sure of that. But how can they tell? Some people that know lots more +than them don't think so, but say ... say it's nothingness." + +Peter recognised Guy Vyvian's word. Rhoda would have said "nothing to +follow." + +"People say," he agreed, "quite different things, and none of them know +anything about it, of course. One needn't worry, though." + +"_You_ never worry," she accused him, half fretfully. "But," she added, +"you don't preach, either. You don't say things are so when you can't +know.... Do you _think_ anything about that, Peter--about going on? I +don't believe you do." + +Peter reflected. "No," he said. "I don't believe I do. I can't look +beyond what I can see and touch; I don't try. I expect I'm a materialist. +The colours and shapes of things matter so awfully much; I can't imagine +anything of them going on when those are dead. I rather wish I could. +Some people that know lots more than me do, and I think it's splendid +of them and for them. They're very likely right, too, you know." + +Rhoda shook her head. "_I_ believe it's nothingness." + +Peter felt it a dreary subject, and changed it. + +"Well, let's come and look at pictures. And I can't imagine nothingness, +can you? We might have lunch out somewhere, if you don't mind." + +So they went out and looked at pictures, and went up the river in a +steamer, and had lunch out somewhere, and Rhoda grew very gentle and more +cheerful, and said, "I didn't mean to be cross to _you_, Peter. You're +ever so good to me," and winked away tears, and the gentle Peter, who +hated no one, wished that some catastrophe would wipe Guy Vyvian off the +face of the earth and choke his memory with dust. Whenever one thought +Rhoda was getting rather better, the image of Vyvian, who knew such a lot +more than most people, came up between her and the world she ought to +have been enjoying, and she had a relapse. + +Peter and Rhoda came home together, and Rhoda said, "Thank you ever so +much for taking me. I've liked it ever so," and went up to her room to +read poetry. Rhoda read a good deal of the work of our lesser +contemporary poets; Vyvian had instilled that taste into her. + +Peter, about tea-time, went to see Lucy. He went by the Piccadilly tube, +from Holborn to South Kensington--(he was being recklessly extravagant +to-day, but it was a holiday after all, and very hot). + +Peter climbed the stairs to the Hopes' drawing-room and opened the door, +and what he had often dreamed of had come about, for Denis was there, +only in a strange, undreamed-of way that made him giddy, so he stood +quite still for a moment and looked. + +He would have turned away and gone before they saw him; but they had seen +him, and Lucy said, "Oh, Peter--come in," and Denis said, "Oh ... hullo," +and held out his hand. + +Peter, who was dizzily readjusting certain rather deeply-rooted ideas, +said, "How do you do? I've come ... I've come to tea, you know." + +"'Course you have," said Lucy. Then she looked up into Peter's face and +smiled, and slipped her hand into his. "How nice; we're three again." + +"Yes," said Peter. + +"But I must go," said Urquhart. "I'm awfully sorry, but I've got to meet +a man.... I shall see you some time, shan't I, Margery? Why don't you +ever come and see me, you slacker? Well, good-bye. Good-bye, Lucy. Lunch +to-morrow; don't forget." + +He was gone. + +Peter sat on the coal-scuttle, and Lucy gave him tea, with three lumps in +it. + +"Thank you," said Peter. + +Lucy looked at him. "You _did_ know, didn't you? All this time, I mean? +I didn't tell you, because I never tell you things, of course. You always +know them. And this particularly. You _did_ know it, Peter? But when you +came in you looked ... you looked as if you didn't." + +"I was stupid," said Peter. "I ought to have known." + +Looking back, he saw that he certainly ought. He certainly must have, +only that his vision had been blocked by a certain deeply-rooted idea, +that was as old as his growth. He had assumed, without words. He had +thought that she too had assumed; neither had ever required words to +elucidate their ideas one to the other; they had kept words for the other +things, the jolly, delightful things of the foreground. + +"How long?" asked Peter, drinking his tea to warm him, for, though it was +so hot outside, he felt very cold in here. + +She told him. "Oh, since the beginning, I think. I thought you knew, +Peter.... We didn't say anything about it till quite lately. Only we both +knew." + +She came and sat on the rug by his side, and slipped her hand into his. +"Are you glad, Peter? Please, Peter, be glad." + +"I will presently," said Peter, with one of his fainter smiles. "Let me +just get used to it, and I will." + +She whispered, stroking his hand, "We've always had such fun, Peter, we +three. Haven't we? Let's go on having it." + +"Yes," said Peter. "Let's." + +He was vague still, and a little dizzy, but he could smile at her now. +After all, wasn't it splendid? Denis and Lucy--the two people he loved +best in the world; so immeasurably best that beside them everyone else +was no class at all. + +He sat very still on the coal-scuttle, making a fresh discovery about +himself. He had known before that he had a selfish disposition, though he +had never thought about it particularly; but he hadn't known that it was +in him to grudge Denis anything--Denis, who was consciously more to him +than anyone else in the world. Lucy was different; she was rooted in the +very fibre of his being; it wasn't so much that he consciously loved her +as that she was his other self. Well, hadn't he long since given to +Denis, to use as he would, all the self he had? + +But the wrench made him wince, and left him chilly and grown old. + +"It's perfectly splendid for both of you," said Peter, himself again +at last. "And it was extraordinarily stupid of me not to see it +before.... Do you think Denis really meant I could go and see him? +I think I will." + +"'Course he did. 'Course you will. Go to-morrow. But now it's going to +be just you and me and tea. And honey sandwiches--oh, Peter!" Her eyes +danced at him, because it was such a nice world. He came off the +coal-scuttle and made himself comfortable in a low chair near the +honey sandwiches. + +"Will you and Denis try always to have them when I come to tea with you? +I do love them so. Have you arranged when it is to be, by the way?" + +"No. Father won't want it to be for ages--he won't like it to be at all, +of course, because Denis isn't poor or miserable or revolutionary. But +Felicity has done so nicely for him in that way (Lawrence is getting into +horrid rows in Poland, you know) that I think I've a _right_ to someone +happy and clean, don't you?... And Denis wants it to be soon. So I +suppose it will be soon." + +"Sure to be," Peter agreed. + +The room was full of roses; their sweetness was exuberant, intoxicating; +not like Lucy, who usually had small, pale, faint flowers. + +"Isn't it funny," she said, "how one thinks one can't be any happier, and +then suddenly something happens inside one, and one sees everything new. +I used to think things couldn't be brighter and shine more--but now they +glitter like the sun, all new." + +"I expect so," said Peter. + +Then she had a little stab of remorse; for Peter had been turned out of +the place of glittering things, and moved in a grey and dusty world among +things no one could like. + +"'Tis so _stupid_ that your work is like that," she said, with puckered +forehead. "I wish you could find something nice to do, Peter dear." + +"Oh, I'm all right," said Peter. "And there are all the nice things which +aren't work, just the same. Rhoda and I went a ride in a steamer this +morning. And the sun was shining on the water--rather nice, it was. Even +Rhoda grew a little brighter to see it. Poor Rhoda; the boarders do worry +her so. I'm sorry about it; they don't worry me; I rather like them. +Some day soon I want you to come and see Rhoda; it would cheer her up. +I wish she liked things more. She's left off her bead necklace, you know. +And she gets worried because people discuss the condition of 'the +departed' (that's what we call them in the boarding-house). Rhoda is sure +they are in nothingness. I told her it was impossible for me to speculate +on such things. How can one, you know? People have so much imagination. +Mine always sticks at a certain point and won't move on. Could you do it +if someone asked you to imagine Denis, say, without his body?" + +She wrinkled her forehead, trying to. + +"Denis's body matters a lot," was her conclusion. "I suppose it's because +it's such a nice one." + +"Exactly," said Peter. "People's bodies are nice. And when they're not I +don't believe their minds are very nice either, so I'd rather not think +about them. Now I must go home." + +It was very hot going home. London was a baked place, full of used +air--Peter's bedroom on a large scale. Peter tried walking back, but +found he was rather giddy, so got into a bus that took him the wrong +way, a thing he often did. Riding across London on the top of a bus is, +of course, the greatest fun, even if it is the wrong bus. It makes up for +almost any misfortune. + +A few days later, after office hours, Peter took Urquhart at his word +and went to his rooms. Urquhart wasn't there, but would be in some time, +he was told, so he sat and waited for him. It was a pleasant change after +the boarding-house rooms. Urquhart's things were nice to look at, without +being particularly artistic. There was nothing dingy, or messy, or +second-rate, or cheap. A graceful, careless expensiveness was the +dominant note. An aroma of good tobacco hung about. Peter liked to smell +good tobacco, though he smoked none, good or bad. + +Urquhart came in at seven o'clock. He was going to dine somewhere at +eight, so he hadn't much time. + +"Glad to see you, Margery. Quite time you came." + +Peter thought it nice of him to speak so pleasantly, seeming to ignore +the last time Peter had come to see him. He had been restrained and +embarrassed then; now he was friendly, in the old casual, unemphasised +way. + +"How splendid about you and Lucy," said Peter. "A very suitable alliance, +I call it." + +"So do I," said Denis, lighting a cigarette. "She's so much the nicest +person I know. I perceived that the day you introduced us." + +"Of course," said Peter. "You would." + +"Do you mind," said Denis, "if I dress? We can talk meanwhile. Rotten +luck that I'm booked for dinner, or we could have had it together. You +must come another day." + +While he dressed he told Peter that he was going to stand at the next +elections. Peter had known before that Denis was ultimately destined to +assist in the government of his country, and now it appeared that the +moment had arrived. + +"Do you _really_ take a side?" Peter enquired. "Or is it just a funny +game?" + +"Oh, of course it's a game too; most things are. But, of course, one's +a Conservative and all that, if one's a person of sense. It's the only +thing to be, you know." + +"I rather like both sides," said Peter. "They're both so keen, and so +sure they're right. But I expect Conservatives are the rightest, because +they want to keep things. I hate people who want to make a mess and break +things up and throw them away. Besides, I suppose one couldn't really be +on the same side as what's his name--that man everyone dislikes so--could +one? or any of those violent people." + +Urquhart said one certainly couldn't. Besides, there were Free Trade +and Home Rule, and dozens of other things to be considered. Obviously +Conservatives were right. + +"I ought to get in," he said, "unless anything upsets it. The Unionist +majority last time was two hundred and fifty." + +Peter laughed. It was rather nice to hear Denis talking like a real +candidate. + +When Denis was ready, he said, "I'm dining in Norfolk Street. Can you +walk with me part of the way?" + +Peter said it was on the way to Brook Street, where he lived. Denis +displayed no interest in Brook Street. As far as he intended to cultivate +Peter's acquaintance, it was to be as a unit, detached from his +disgraceful relatives. Peter understood that. As he hadn't much expected +to be cultivated again at all, he was in good spirits as he walked with +Denis to Norfolk Street. No word passed between them as to Peter's past +disgrace or present employment; Denis had an easy way of sliding lightly +over embarrassing subjects. + +They parted, and Denis dined in Norfolk Street with a parliamentary +secretary, and Peter supped in Brook Street with the other boarders. + + + + +CHAPTER XII + +THE LOSS OF A GOBLET AND OTHER THINGS + + +Denis and Lucy were married at the end of September. They went motoring +in Italy for a month, and by the beginning of November were settled at +Astleys. Astleys was in Berkshire, and was Urquhart's home. It was rather +beautiful, as homes go, with a careless, prosperous grace about it at +which Lucy laughed because it was so Urquhartesque. + +Almost at once they asked some people to stay there to help with the +elections and the pheasant shooting. The elections were hoped for in +December. Urquhart did not propose to bother much about them; he was a +good deal more interested in the pheasants; but he had, of course, every +intention of doing the usual and suitable things, and carrying the +business through well. Lucy only laughed; to want to get into Parliament +was so funny, looked at from the point of view she had always been used +to. Denis, being used by inheritance and upbringing to another point of +view, did not see that it was so funny; to him it was a very natural +profession for a man to go into; his family had always provided a supply +of members for both houses. Lucy and Peter, socially more obscure, +laughed childishly together over it. "Fancy being a Liberal or a +Conservative out of all the things there are in the world to be!" as +Peter had once commented. + +But it was delightfully Urquhart-like, this lordly assumption of a share +in the government of a country. No doubt it was worth having, because all +the things Urquhart wanted and obtained were that; he had an eye for good +things, like Peter, only he gained possession of them, and Peter could +only admire from afar. + +They were talking about the election prospects at dinner on the evening +of the fifteenth of November. They were a young and merry party. At one +end of the table was Denis, looking rather pale after a hard day's +hunting, and very much amused with life; at the other Lucy, in a white +frock, small and open-eyed like a flower, and very much amused too; and +between them were the people, young mostly, and gay, who were staying +with them. Lucy, who had been brought up in a secluded Bohemianism, found +it very funny and nice having a house-party, and so many servants to see +after them all that one needn't bother to run round and make sure +everyone had soap, and so on. + +One person, not young, who was staying there, was Lord Evelyn Urquhart. +Lucy loved him. He loved her, and told funny stories. Sometimes, between +the stories, she would catch his near-sighted, screwed up eyes scanning +her face with a queer expression that might have been wistfulness; he +seemed at times to be looking for something in her face, and finding it. +Particularly when she laughed, in her chuckling, gurgling way, he looked +like this, and would grow grave suddenly. They had talked together about +all manner of things, being excellent friends, but only once so far about +Lucy's cousin Peter. Once had been too much, Lucy had found. The +Margerisons were a tabooed subject with Lord Evelyn Urquhart. + +Denis shrugged his shoulders over it. "They did him brown, you see," he +explained, in his light, casual way. "Uncle Evelyn can't forgive that. +And it's because he was so awfully fond of Peter that he's so bitter +against him now. I never mention him; it's best not.... You know, you +keep giving the poor dear shocks by looking like Peter, and laughing like +him, and using his words. You _are_ rather like, you know." + +"I know," said Lucy. "It's not only looking and laughing and words; we +think alike too. So perhaps if he gets fond of me he'll forgive Peter +sometime." + +"He's an implacable old beggar," Denis said. "It's stupid of him. It +never seems to me worth while to get huffy; it's so uncomfortable. He +expects too much of people, and when they disappoint him he--" + +"Takes umbradge," Lucy filled in for him. That was another of Peter's +expressions; they shared together a number of such stilted, high-sounding +phrases, mostly culled either out of Adelphi melodrama or the fiction of +a by-gone age. + +To-night, when the cloth had been removed that they might eat fruit, +Denis was informed that there was a gentleman waiting to see him. The +gentleman had not vouchsafed either his name or business, so he could +obviously wait a little longer, till Denis had finished his own business. +In twenty minutes Denis went to the library, and there found Hilary +Margerison, sitting by the fire in a great coat and muffler and looking +cold. When he rose and faced him, Denis saw that he also looked paler +than of old, and thinner, and less perfectly shaved, and his hair was +longer. He might have been called seedy-looking; he might have been +Sidney Carton in "The Only Way"; he had always that touch of the dramatic +about him that suggested a stage character. He had a bad cough. + +"Oh," said Urquhart, polite and feeling embarrassed; "how do you do? I'm +sorry to have kept you waiting; they didn't tell me who it was. Sit down, +won't you?" + +Hilary said thanks, he thought not. He had a keen sense of the fit. So +he refused the cigarette Urquhart offered him, and stood by the fire, +looking at the floor. Urquhart stood opposite him, and thought how ill +and how little reputable he looked. + +Hilary said, in his high, sweet, husky voice, "It is no use beating about +the bush. I want help. We are in need; we are horribly hard up, to put it +baldly. That has passed between your family and mine which makes you the +last person I should wish to appeal to as a beggar. I propose a business +transaction." He paused to cough. + +Urquhart, feeling impatient at the prospect of a provoking interview when +he wanted to be playing bridge, said "Yes?" politely. + +"You," said Hilary, "are intending to stand as a candidate for this +constituency. You require for that, I fancy, a reputation wholly +untarnished; the least breath dimming it would be for you a disastrous +calamity. I have some information which, if sent to the local Liberal +paper, would seriously tell against you in the public mind. It is here." + +He took it out of his breast pocket and handed it to Urquhart--a +type-written sheet of paper. He must certainly have been to a provincial +theatre lately; he had hit its manners and methods to a nicety, the silly +ass. + +Urquhart took the paper gingerly and did not look at it. + +"Thanks; but ... I don't know that I am interested, do you know. Isn't +this all rather silly, Mr. Margerison?" + +"If you will oblige me by reading it," said Mr. Margerison. + +So Urquhart obliged him. It was all about him, as was to be expected; +enough to make a column of the Berkshire Press. + +"Well?" said Hilary, when he had done. + +"Well," said Urquhart, folding up the paper and returning it, "thank +you for showing it me. But again I must say that I am not particularly +interested. Of course you will send anything you like to any paper you +like; it is no business of mine. There's the libel law, as of course +you know; newspapers are as a rule rather careful about that. No +respectable paper, I needn't say, would care to use such copy as this +of yours.... Well, good night.... Oh, by the way, I suppose your brother +told you all that?" + +Hilary said, "I had it from various reliable sources." He stood +uncertain, with wavering eyes, despair killing hope. "You will do +nothing at all to save your reputation, then?" + +Urquhart laughed, unamused, with hard eyes. He was intensely irritated. + +"Do you think it likely? I don't care what you get printed in any dirty +rag about me, man. Why on earth should I?" + +The gulf between them yawned; it was unbridgeable. From Hilary's world +insults might be shrieked and howled, dirt thrown with all the strength +of hate, and neither shrieks nor dirt would reach across the gulf to +Urquhart's. They simply didn't matter. Hilary, realising this, grew +slowly, dully red, with the bitterness of mortified expectation. +Urquhart's look at him, supercilious, contemptuous, aloof, slightly +disgusted, hurt his vanity. He caught at the only weapon he had which +could hurt back. + +"I must go and tell Peter, then, that his information has been of no +use." + +Urquhart said merely, "Peter won't be surprised. It's no good your trying +to make me think that Peter is joining in this absurdity. He has too much +sense of the ridiculous. He seems to have talked to you pretty freely of +my concerns, which I certainly fancied he would keep to himself; I +suppose he did that by way of providing entertaining conversation; Peter +was always a chatterbox"--it was as well that Peter was not there to hear +the edge in the soft, indifferent voice--"but he isn't quite such a fool +as to have countenanced this rather stagey proceeding of yours. He knows +me--used to know me--pretty well, you see.... Good night. You have plenty +of time to catch your train, I think." + +Hilary stopped to say, "Is that all you have to say? You won't let your +connexion with our family--with Peter--induce you to help us in our +need?... I've done an unpleasant thing to-night, you know; I've put +my pride in my pocket and stooped to the methods of the cad, for the sake +of my wife and little children. I admit I have made a mistake, both of +taste and judgment; I have behaved unworthily; you may say like a fool. +But are you prepared to see us go under--to drive by and leave us lying +in the road, as you did to that old Tuscan peasant? Does it in no way +affect your feelings towards us that you are now Peter's cousin by +marriage--besides being practically, his half-brother?" + +"I am not practically, or in any other way, Peter's half-brother," said +Urquhart casually. "But that is neither here nor there. Peter and I +are--have been--friends, as you know. I should naturally give him help if +he asked me for it. He has not done so; all that has happened is that you +have tried to blackmail me.... I really see no use in prolonging this +interview, Mr. Margerison. Good night." Urquhart was bored and impatient +with the absurd scene. + +Into the middle of it walked Peter, pale and breathless. He stood by the +door and looked at them, dazed and blinking at the light; looked at +Urquhart, who stood leaning his shoulder against the chimney-piece, +his hands in his pockets, the light full on his fair, tranquil, bored +face, and at Hilary, pale and tragic, with wavering, unhappy eyes. So +they stood for a type and a symbol and a sign that never, as long as the +world endures, shall Margerisons get the better of Urquharts. + +They both looked at Peter, and Urquhart's brows rose a little, as if to +say, "More Margerisons yet?" + +Hilary said, "What's the matter, Peter? Why have _you_ come?" + +Peter said, rather faintly, "I meant to stop you before you saw Denis. I +suppose I'm too late.... I made Peggy tell me. I found a paper, you see; +and I asked Peggy, and she said you'd come down here to use it. _Have_ +you?" + +"He has already done his worst," Denis's ironic voice answered for him. +"Sprung the awful threat upon me." + +Peter leant back against the door, feeling rather sick. He had run all +the way from the station; and, as always, he was too late. + +Then he laughed a little. The contrast of Hilary's tragedian air and +Urquhart's tranquil boredom was upsetting to him. + +Urquhart didn't laugh, but looked at him enquiringly. + +"It's certainly funny rather," he said quietly. "You must have got a good +deal of quiet fun out of compiling that column." + +"Oh," said Peter. "But I didn't, you know." + +"I gather you helped--supplied much of the information. That story of +the old man I brutally slew and then callously left uncared for on the +road--you seem to have coloured that rather highly in passing it +on.... I suppose it was stupid of me to fancy that you weren't intending +to make that public property. Not that I particularly mind: there was +nothing to be ashamed of in that business; but it somehow never happened +to occur to me that you were relating it." + +"I didn't," said Peter. "I have never told anyone." + +Urquhart said nothing; his silence was expressive. + +Peter stammered into speech incoherently. + +"At least--at least--yes, I believe I did tell Peggy the story, months +ago, in Venice--but I didn't say it was you. I merely said, if someone +had done that ... what would she think? I wanted to know if she thought +we ought to have found the old man's people and told them." + +"I see," said Urquhart. "And did she?" + +"No. She thought it was all right." Peter had known beforehand that Peggy +would think it was all right; that was why he had asked her, to be +reassured, to have the vague trouble in his mind quieted. + +And she, apparently, had seen through his futile pretence, had known it +was Urquhart he spoke of, needed reassuring about (Peter didn't realise +that even less shrewd observers than Peggy might easily know when it was +Urquhart he spoke of) and had gone and told Hilary. And Hilary, in his +need, had twisted it into this disgusting story, and had typed it and +brought it down to Astleys to-night, with other twisted stories. + +"I suppose the rest too," said Urquhart, "you related to your +sister-in-law to see what she would think." + +Peter stammered, "I don't think so. No, I don't believe anything else +came from me. Did it, Hilary?" + +Hilary shrugged his shoulders, and made no other answer. + +"It really doesn't particularly matter," said Urquhart, "whether the +informant was you or some other of my acquaintances. I daresay my gyp is +responsible for the story of the actresses I brought down to the St. +Gabriel's dance; he knew about it at the time, I believe. I am not in the +least ashamed of that either; the 'Berkshire Press' is extremely welcome +to it, if it can find space for it.... Well, now, will you both stay the +night with me, or must you get back? The last good train goes at 10.5, I +think." + +Peter said, "Come along, Hilary." + +Urquhart stood and watched them go. + +As they turned away, he said, in his gentle, inexpressive voice, that +hadn't been raised in anger once, "Can I lend you any money, Peter?" + +Peter shook his head, though he felt Hilary start. + +"No, thank you. It is very good of you.... Good night." + +"Good night." + +Going out of the room, they came face to face with Lord Evelyn Urquhart +coming in. He saw them; he stiffened a little, repressing a start; he +stood elaborately aside to let them pass, bowing slightly. + +Neither Margerison said anything. Hilary's bow was the stage copy of his +own; Peter didn't look at him at all, but hurried by. + +The servant let them out, and shut the hall door behind them. + +Lord Evelyn said to his nephew in the library, swinging his eye-glass +restlessly to and fro, "Why do you let those people into your house, +Denis? I thought we had done with them." + +"They came to call," said Denis, who did not seem disposed to be +communicative. "I can't say why they chose this particular hour." + +Lord Evelyn paced up the room, restless, nervous, petulant. + +"It's monstrous," he said querulously. "Perfectly monstrous. Shameless. +How dare they show their faces in this house?... I suppose they wanted +something out of you, did they?" + +Denis merely said, "After all, Peter is my cousin by marriage, you must +remember. And I have never broken with him." + +Lord Evelyn returned, "The more shame to you. He's as great a swindler as +his precious brother; they're a pair, you can't deny that." + +Denis didn't attempt to deny it; probably he was feeling a little tired +of the Margerisons to-night. + +"I'm not defending Peter, or his brother either. I only said that he's +Lucy's cousin, and she's very fond of him, and I'm not keen on actually +breaking with him. As to the brother, he's so much more of an ass than +anything else that to call him a swindler is more than he deserves. He +simply came here to-night to play the fool; he's no more sense than a +silly ass out of a play." + +That was what Peter was telling Hilary on the way to the station. Hilary +defended himself rather feebly. + +"My good Peter, we must have money. We are in positive want. Of course, I +never meant to proceed to extremities; I thought the mere mention of such +a threat would be enough to make him see that we really were desperately +hard up, and that he might as well help us. But he doesn't care. Like all +rich people, he is utterly callous and selfish.... Do you think Lucy +would possibly give us any help, if you asked her?" + +"I shan't ask her," said Peter. "Don't, please, Hilary," he added +miserably. "Can't you _see_...." + +"See what? I see that we get a little more destitute every day: that +the boarders are melting away; that I am reduced to unthinkably sordid +hackwork, and you to the grind of uncongenial toil; that Peggy can't +afford to keep a cook who can boil a potato respectably (they were like +walnuts to-day) that she and the children go about with their clothes +dropping off them. I see that; and I see these Urquharts, closely +connected with our family, rolling in unearned riches, spending and +squandering and wasting and never giving away. I see the Robinsons, our +own relations, fattening on the money that ought to have come to us, and +now and then throwing us a loan as you throw a dog a bone. I see your +friend Leslie taking himself off to the antipodes to spend his millions, +that he may be out of the reach of disturbing appeals. I see a world +constituted so that you would think the devils in hell must cry shame on +it." His cough, made worse by the fog, choked his relation of his vision. + +Peter had nothing to say to it: he could only sigh over it. The Haves and +the Have-Nots--there they are, and there is no getting round the ugly +fact. + +"Denis," said Peter, "would lend me money if I asked him. You heard him +offer. But I am not going to ask him. We are none of us going to ask him. +If I find that you have, and that he has given it you, I shall pay it +straight back.... You know, Hilary, we're really not so badly off as all +that; we get along pretty well, I think; better than most other people." +The other Have-Nots; they made no difference, in Hilary's eyes, to the +fact that of course the Margerisons should have been among the Haves. + +Hilary said, "You are absolutely impervious, Peter, to other people's +troubles," and turned up his coat-collar and sank down on a seat in the +waiting-room. (Of course, they had missed the 10.5, the last good train, +and were now waiting for the 11.2, the slow one.) + +Peter walked up and down the platform, feeling very cold. He had come +away, in his excitement, without his overcoat. The chill of the foggy +night seemed to sink deep into his innermost being. + +Hilary's words rang in his ears. "I see that we get a little more +destitute every day." It was true. Every day the Margerisons seemed to +lose something more. To-night Peter had lost something he could ill +afford to part with--another degree of Denis Urquhart's regard. That +seemed to be falling from him bit by bit; perhaps that was why he felt so +cold. However desperately he clung to the remnants, as he had clung since +that last interview in Venice, he could not think to keep them much +longer at this rate. + +As he walked up and down the platform, his cold hands thrust deep into +his pockets, he was contemplating another loss--one that would hurt +absurdly much. + +If Hilary felt that he needed more money so badly, he must have it. There +were certain things Peter declined to do. He wouldn't borrow from the +Urquharts; but he would sell his last treasured possession to soothe +Hilary for a little while. The Berovieri goblet had been bought for a +lot of money, and could at any moment be sold for a lot of money. The +Berovieri goblet must go. + +That evening, in the tiny attic room, Peter took the adorable thing out +of the box where it lay hid, and set it on the chest of drawers, in front +of the candle, so that the flame shone through the blue transparency like +the setting sun through a stained-glass window. + +It was very, very beautiful. Peter sat on the bed and looked at it, as +a devotee before a shrine. In itself it was very beautiful, a magic thing +of blue colour and deep light and pure shadow and clear, lovely form. +Peter loved it for itself, and for its symbolic character. For it was a +symbol of the world of great loveliness that did, he knew, exist. When he +had been turned out of that world into a grey and dusty place, he had +kept that one thing, to link him with loveliness and light. Peter was +a materialist: he loved things, their shapes and colours, with a passion +that blinded him to the beauty of the colourless, the formless, the +super-sensuous. + +He slipped his fingers up the chalice's slim stem and round its cool +bowl, and smiled for pleasure that such a thing existed--had existed for +four hundred years--to gladden the world. + +"Well, anyone would have thought I should have smashed you before now," +he remarked, apostrophising it proudly. "But I haven't. I shall take you +to Christie's myself to-morrow, as whole as you were the day Leslie gave +you me." + +It was fortunate that Leslie was out of reach, and would not hear of the +transaction. If he had been in England, Peter would have felt bound to +offer him the goblet, and he would have paid for it too enormous a price +to be endured. Leslie's generosity was sometimes rather overwhelming. + +When Peter took Hilary and Peggy the cheque he had received, and told +them what he had received it for, Hilary said, "I suppose these things +must be. It was fortunate you did not ask my advice, Peter; I should have +hesitated what to say. It is uncommonly like bartering one's soul for +guineas. To what we are reduced!" + +He was an artist, and cared for beautiful goblets. He would much rather +have borrowed the money, or had it given him. + +Peggy, who was not an artist, said, "Oh, Peter darling, how sweet of you! +Now I really _can_ pay the butcher; I've had to hide from him the last +few mornings, in the coal-hole. You dear child, I hope you won't miss +that nice cup too much. When our ship comes in you shall have another." + +"_When_," sighed Hilary, who was feeling over-worked that evening. (He +did advertisement pictures for a weekly paper; a sordid and degrading +pursuit.) + +"Well," said Peggy hopefully, "the boarders we have now really do pay +their rent the way they never did in Venice. That's such a comfort. If +only Larry's cough gets off his chest without turning to bronchitis, +I will be quite happy. But these loathsome fogs! And that odious man +coming round wanting to know why aren't the children attending school! +'I'm sure,' I said to him, 'I wish they were; the house would be the +quieter missing them; but their father insists on educating them himself, +because he won't let them mix up with the common children in the school; +they're by way of being little gentry, do you see,' I said, 'though +indeed you mightn't think it to look at them.' Oh dear me, he was so +impolite; he wouldn't believe that Hilary was doing his duty by them, +though I assured him that he read them all the 'Ancient Mariner' +yesterday morning while they watched him dress, and that I was teaching +them the alphabet whenever I had a spare minute. But nothing would +satisfy him; and off the two eldest must go to the Catholic school next +week to be destroyed by the fog and to pick up with all the ragamuffins +in the district." + +"An abominable, cast-iron system," Hilary murmured mechanically. "Of a +piece with all the other institutions of an iniquitous state." + +"And what do you think," added Peggy, who was busy putting a patch in +Silvio's knickerbockers, "Guy Vyvian turned up out of nowhere and called +this afternoon, bad manners to him for a waster. When he found you were +out, Hilary, he asked where was Rhoda; he'd no notion of sitting down to +listen to _me_ talking. Rhoda was out at work too, of course; I told him +it wasn't most of us could afford to play round in the afternoons the way +he did. I suppose he'll come again, bothering and upsetting the child +just when she's settling down a bit. I've thought her seeming brighter +lately; she likes going about with you, Peter. But there'll be pretty +doings again when that man comes exciting her." + +"Vyvian is a cad and a low fellow," Hilary said, "and I always regretted +being forced into partnership with him; but I suppose one can't kick +one's past acquaintances from the door. I, at least, cannot. Some people +can and do; they may reconcile it with their standards of decency if they +choose; but I cannot. Vyvian must come if he likes, and we must be +hospitable to him. We must ask him to dinner if he comes again." + +"Yes," sniffed Peggy, "I can see him! Sticking his fork into the potatoes +and pretending he can't get it through! Oh, have him to dinner if you +like; he must just make the best of what he gets if he comes. He'll be +awfully rude to the rest, too, but I'll apologise for him beforehand." + +"Though a cad," Hilary observed, "Vyvian is less of a vacuous fool than +most of the members of our present delightful house-party. He at least +knows _something_ of art and literature, and can converse without jarring +one's taste violently by his every word. He is not, after all, a Miss +Matthews or a Mr. Bridger. Apologies, therefore, are scarcely called for, +perhaps." + +Peggy said, "What a solemn face, Peter. Is it the Vyvian man, or the +beautiful cup, that we've never half thanked you for getting rid of yet?" + +Peter said, "It's the Vyvian man. He makes me feel solemn. You see, I +promised Mrs. Johnson faithfully to keep Rhoda out of his clutches, if +I could." + +"Darling, what a silly promise. Oh, of course, we'll all do our best; but +if he wants to clutch her, the silly little bird, he'll surely do it. Not +that I'm saying he does want to; I daresay he only wants to upset her and +make her his slave and then run away again to his own place, the Judas." + +"But I don't want him to do that. Rhoda will be unhappier than ever +again." + +"Oh, well, I wouldn't wonder if, when Rhoda sees him again now, she sees +what a poor creature it is, after all. It may be a turning-point with +her, and who knows will she perhaps settle down afterwards and be a +reasonable girl and darn her stockings and wear a collar?" + +"If one _is_ to talk of stockings," began Hilary, "I noticed Caterina's +to-day, and really, you know...." + +Peggy bit off her cotton and murmured, "Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear, what's +to become of us all?" + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + +THE LOSS OF THE SINGLE STATE + + +The man Vyvian came. He came again and again, but not to dinner. Perhaps +he suspected about the potatoes, and thought that they would not even be +compensated for by the pleasure of sneering at the boarders. He came in +the evenings and sat in the sitting-room and drank coffee (the only thing +that was well cooked in Peggy's household), and talked to Hilary, and +looked at Rhoda. Rhoda, embroidering apple-boughs on a green dress-front, +shivered and trembled under his eyes. + +"Now I know," thought Peter, seeing Vyvian look, "what villains in books +are really like. Vyvian is just like one; specially about the eyes." He +was sitting near Rhoda, playing that sort of patience called calcul, +distinguished from other patiences by the fact that it comes out; that +was why Peter liked it. He had refused to-night to join in the game the +others were playing, which was animal grab, though usually he enjoyed +it very much. Peter liked games, though he seldom won them. But this +evening he played patience by himself and sat by Rhoda and consulted her +at crucial moments, and babbled of many things and knew whenever Vyvian +looked and Rhoda shook. At half-past nine Vyvian stopped talking to +Hilary and crossed the room and took the arm-chair on Rhoda's other side. + +"Enthralling evenings you spend here," he remarked, including in his +glance Rhoda's embroidery, Peter's patience, and the animal grab table, +from which cheerfully matter-of-fact farmyard and jungle cries proceeded +with spirit. + +Rhoda said nothing. Her head was bent over her work. The next moment she +pricked her finger violently, and started. Before she could get her +handkerchief out, Vyvian had his, and was enveloping her small hand in +it. + +"Too bad," he said, in a voice so low that the farmyard cries drowned it +as far as Peter was concerned. "Poor little finger." He held it and the +handkerchief closely in his two hands. + +Rhoda, her colour flooding and ebbing over her thin face and thin neck +down to the insertion yoke of her evening blouse, trembled like a +captured bird. Her eyes fell from his look; a bold, bad look Peter +thought, finding literary terminology appropriate. + +The next moment the little table on which Peter was playing toppled over +onto the floor with a small crash, and all his cards were scattered on +the carpet. + +Rhoda started and looked round, pulling her hand away as if a spell was +broken. + +"Dear me," said Peter regretfully, "it was just on coming out, too. I +shan't try again to-night; it's not my night, obviously." He was picking +up the cards. Rhoda watched him silently. + +"Do you know calcul, Mr. Vyvian?" Peter enquired, collecting scattered +portions of the pack from under the arm-chair. + +Mr. Vyvian stared at Peter's back, which was the part of him most visible +at the moment. + +"I really can't say I have the pleasure; no." (That, Peter felt certain, +was an insolent drawl.) + +"Would you like to learn it?" said Peter politely. "Are you fond of +patience?" + +"I can't say I am," said Mr. Vyvian. + +"Oh! Then you _would_ like calcul. People who are really fond of other +patiences don't; they despise it because it comes out. I don't like any +other sort of patience; I'm not clever enough; so I like this. Let me +teach you, may I?" + +Vyvian got up. + +"Thanks; you're quite too kind. On the whole, I think I can conduct my +life without any form of patience, even one which comes out." + +"You have a turn, then, Miss Johnson," said Peter, arranging the cards. +"Perhaps it'll come out for you, though it won't for me to-night." + +"Since you are all so profitably occupied," said Vyvian, "I think I will +say good night." + +Peter said, "Oh, must you?... Good night, then. We play calcul most +nights, so you can learn it some other time if you'd like to." + +"A delightful prospect," Vyvian murmured, his glance again +comprehensively wandering round the room. "A happy family party you seem +here.... Good night." He bent over Rhoda with his ironic politeness. + +"I was going to ask you if you would come out with me to-morrow evening +to a theatre.... But since your evenings seem to be so pleasantly filled +otherwise...." + +She looked up at him a moment, wavered, met his dark eyes, was caught by +the old domination, and swept off her feet as of old. + +"Oh, ... I should like to come...." She was a little breathless. + +"Good! I will call for you then, at seven, and we will dine together. Au +revoir." + +"He swept her a mocking bow and was gone," Peter murmured to himself. + +Then he looked at Rhoda, and found her eyes upon his face, wide, +frightened, bewildered, and knew in a flash that she had never meant +to consent to go out with Vyvian, that she had been caught by the old +power he had over her and swept off her feet. That knowledge gave him +confidence, and he could say, "You don't want to go, do you? Let me go +after him and tell him." + +"Oh," she pressed her hands together in front of her. "But I must go--I +said I would." + +Peter was on his feet and out of the door in a second. He saw Vyvian in +the passage downstairs, putting on his coat. He spoke from half-way down +the stairs: + +"Oh, Miss Johnson asks me to say she is sorry she can't go with you +to-morrow night after all; she finds she has another engagement." + +Vyvian turned and looked up at him, a slight smile lifting his lip. + +"Really?" was all he said. "All the same, I think I will call at seven +and try to persuade her to change her mind again. Good night." + +As plainly as possible he had said to Peter, "I believe you to be lying." +Peter had no particular objection to his believing that; he was not +proud; but he did object to his calling at seven and trying to persuade +Rhoda to change her mind again, for he believed that that would be a task +easy of achievement. + +He went back into the sitting-room. Rhoda was sitting still, her hands +twisted together on the green serge on her lap. Peter sat down by her and +said, "Will you come out with me instead to-morrow evening?" and she +looked at him, her teeth clenched over her lower lip as if to steady it, +and said after a moment, forlornly, "If you like." + +It was so much less exciting than going with Vyvian would have been, that +Peter felt compunction. + +"You shall choose the play," he said. "'Peter Pan,' do you think? Or +something funny--'The Sins of Society,' or something?" + +Rhoda whispered "Anything," nearly on the edge of tears. A vividness had +flashed again into her grey life, and she was trying to quench it. She +had heroically, though as an afterthought, flung an extinguishing douche +of water at it; but now that she had done so she was melting into +unheroic self-pity. + +"I want to go to bed," she said shakily, and did so, feeling for her +pocket-handkerchief as she crossed the room. + +At a quarter to seven the next evening Peter looked for Rhoda, thinking +it well that they should be out of the house by seven o'clock, but +couldn't find her, till Miss Clegson said she had met her "going into +church" as she herself came out. Peter went to the church to find her. +Rhoda didn't as a rule frequent churches, not believing in the creeds +they taught; but even to the unbelieving a church is often a refuge. + +Peter, coming into the great dim place out of the wet fog, found it +again, as he had long since known it to be, a refuge from fogs and other +ills of living. Far up, the seven lamps that never go out burned dimly +through the blurred air. It was a gaudy place, no doubt; over-decorated; +a church for the poor, who love gaudiness. Perhaps Peter too loved +gaudiness. Anyhow, he loved this place and its seven lamps and its +shrines and statued saints. + +Surely, whatever one believed of the mysterious world and of all the +other mysterious worlds that might be floating behind the veils, surely +here was a very present help in trouble, a luminous brightness shining in +a fog-choked world. + +Peter, sitting by the door, sank into a great peace. Half-way up the +church he saw Rhoda sitting very still. She too was looking up the church +towards the lamps and the altar beyond them. + +Presently a cassocked sacristan came and lit the vesper lights, for +evensong was to be at seven, and the altar blazed out, an unearthly +brilliance in the dim place. The low murmur of voices (a patient priest +had been hearing confessions for an hour) ceased, and people began coming +in one by one for service. Rhoda shivered a little, and got up and came +down the church. Peter joined her at the door, and they passed shivering +into the fog together. + +"I was looking for you," said Peter, when they were out in the alley that +led to the church door. + +"It's time we went, isn't it," she said apathetically. + +Then she added, inconsequently, "The church seems the only place where +one can find a bit of peace. I can't think why, when probably it's all +a fairy-tale." + +"I suppose that's why," said Peter. "Fairyland is the most peaceful +country there is." + +"You can't get peace out of what's not true," Rhoda insisted querulously. + +"Oh, I don't know.... Besides, fairy-tales aren't necessarily untrue, +do you think? I don't mean that, when I call what churches teach a +fairy-tale. I mean it's beautiful and romantic and full of light and +colour and wonderful things happening. And it's probably the truer for +that." + +"D'you _believe_ it all?" queried Rhoda; but he couldn't answer her as to +that. + +"I don't know. I never do know exactly what I believe. I can't think how +anyone does. But yes, I think I like to believe in those things; they're +too beautiful not to be true." + +"It's the ugly things that are true," she said, coughing in the fog. + +"Why, yes, the ugly things and the beautiful; God and the devil, if one +puts it like that. Oh, yes, I believe very much in the devil; I can't +believe that any street of houses could look quite like this without the +help of someone utterly given over to evil thinking. _We_ aren't, you +see; none of us are ugly enough in our minds to have thought out some +of the things one sees; so there must be a devil." + +Rhoda was silent. He thought she was crying. He said gently, "I say, +would you like to come out to-night, or would you rather be quiet at +home?" It would be safe to return home by half-past seven, he thought. + +She said, in a small muffled voice, that she didn't care. + +A tall figure passed by them in the narrow alley, looming through the +fog. Rhoda started, and shrank back against the brick wall, clutching +Peter's arm. The next moment the figure passed into the circle of light +thrown down by a high lamp that glimmered over a Robbia-esque plaque +shrine let into the wall, and they saw that it was a cassocked priest +from the clergy-house going into church. Rhoda let out her breath faintly +in a sigh, and her fingers fell from Peter's coat-sleeve. + +"Oh," she whispered, "I'm frightened.... Let's stay close to the church; +just outside the door, where we can see the light and hear the music. I +don't want to go out into the streets to-night, Peter, I want to stay +here. I'm ... so frightened." + +"Come inside," suggested Peter, as they turned back to the church. "It +would be warmer." + +But she shook her head. "No. I'd rather be outside. I don't belong in +there." + +Peter said, "Why not?" and she told him, "Because for me it's the ugly +things that are true." + +So together they stood in the porch, outside the great oak door, and +heard the sound of singing stealing out, fog-softened, and smelt the +smell of incense (it was the festal service of some saint) that pierced +the thick air with its pungent sweetness. + +They sat down on the seat in the porch, and Rhoda shivered, not with +cold, and Peter waited by her very patiently, knowing that she needed him +as she had never needed him before. + +She told him so. "You don't _mind_ staying, Peter? I feel safer with you +than with anyone else.... You see, I'm afraid.... Oh, I can't tell you +how it is I feel. When he looks at me it's as if he was drawing me and +dragging me, and I feel I must get up and follow him wherever he goes. +It's always been like that, since first I met him, more than a year ago. +He made me care; he made me worship the ground he walked on; if he'd +thrown me down and kicked me, I'd have let him. But he never cared +himself; I know that now. I've known it a long time. And I've vowed to +myself, and I vowed to mother when she lay dying, that I wouldn't let him +have anything more to do with me. He frightens me, because he can twist +me round his finger and make me care so ... and it hurts.... And he's +just playing; he'll never really care. But for all I know that, I know +he can get me whenever he wants me. And he's come back again to amuse +himself seeing me worship him ... and he'll make me follow him about, +and all the time he'll be thinking me a little fool, and I shall know +it ... but I can't help it, Peter, I can't help it.... I've nothing to +hold on to, to save me. If I could be religious, if I could pray, like +the people in there ... but he says there's nothing in that; he's made me +believe like him, and I sometimes think he only believes in himself, and +that's why I can only believe in him too. So I've got nothing in the +world to hold on to, and I shall be carried away and drowned...." + +She was crying with strangled sobbings, her face in her thin hands. + +Peter's arm was put gently about her shoulders, comforting her. + +"No, you won't, Rhoda. Rhoda dear, you won't be carried away, because +I shall be here, holding you. Is that any help at all?" + +He felt her relax beneath his arm and lean back against him; he heard +her whisper, "Yes; oh, yes. If I can hold onto you, Peter, I shall feel +safe." + +"Hold on, then," said Peter, "as tight as you like." + +She looked up at him with wet eyes and he felt the claim and the appeal +of her piercing straight into his heart. + +"I could care ..." she whispered. "Are you sure, Peter?" + +His arm tightened about her. He hadn't meant precisely what she had +understood him to mean; at least, he hadn't translated his purpose to +help her to the uttermost into a specified relation, as she was doing; +but if the purpose, to be fulfilled, had to be so translated, he was +ready for that too. So he said, "Quite sure, Rhoda. I want to be the most +to you that you'll let me be," and her face was hidden against his coat, +and her tension relaxed utterly, and she murmured, "Oh, I can be safe +like that." + +So they sat in silence together, between the lit sanctuary and the +desolate night, and heard, as from a long way off, the sound of +chanting:-- + + "Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace: according to thy + word; + + "For mine eyes have seen ..." + +Later on, Rhoda said, quiet and happy now, "I've thought you cared, +Peter, for some time. And last night, when I saw you hated Guy to be near +me, I felt sure. But I feel I've so little to give you. So much of me is +burnt away and spoilt. But it'll come back, Peter, I think, if you love +me. I do love you, very much; you've been such a dear to me always, from +the very first night at the Palazzo, when you spoke to me and smiled. +Only I couldn't think of anyone but Guy then. But lately I've been +thinking, 'Peter's worth a hundred Guys, and if only I could care for +him, I should feel safe.' And I do care, ever so much; and if it's a +different sort of caring from what I've felt for Guy, it's a better sort. +That's a bad, black sort, that hurts; I never want any more of that. +Caring for you will keep me from that, Peter." + +"It's dear of you to care for me at all," said Peter. "And we won't let +Guy come near us, now or ever." + +"You hate him, don't you?" said Rhoda. "I know you do." + +"Oh, well, I don't know that it's as bad as all that. He's more funny +than anything else, it seems to me. He might have walked straight out of +a novel; he does all the things they do in books, you know, and that one +never thinks people really do outside them. He sneers insolently. I watch +him sometimes, to see how it's done. He curls his upper lip, too, when +he's feeling contemptuous; that's another nice trick that I should like +to acquire. Oh, he's quite an interesting study really. You've taken him +wrong, you know. You've taken him seriously. He's not meant for that." + +"Oh," said Rhoda, vaguely uncomprehending. "You _are_ a funny boy, Peter. +You do talk so.... I never know if you mean half you say." + +"About two-thirds, I think," said Peter. "The rest is lies. We all lie +in my family, and not well either, because we're rather weak in the +intellect.... Now do you feel like supper, because I do? Let's come home +and have it, shall we?" + +They went home through the fog, Rhoda clinging to Peter's arm as to an +anchor in a sweeping sea. A great peace and security possessed her; she +no longer started at the tall figures that loomed by. + +They let themselves into 51 Brook Street, and blinked at one another +in the lamp-lit, linoleumed little hall. Rhoda looked at herself in +the glass, and said, "What a fright I am!" seeing her tear-stained +countenance and straggling fog-wet locks. The dinner-bell rang, and she +ran upstairs to tidy herself. Peter and she came into the dining-room +together, during the soup. + +"Let's tell them at once, Peter," whispered Rhoda; so Peter obediently +said, as he sat down by Peggy, "Rhoda and I have just settled to marry." + +"_Marry_?" Hilary queried, from the end of the table. "Marry whom?" And +Rhoda, blushing, laughed for the first time for some days. + +Peggy said, "Don't be silly, Hilary. Each other, of course, the darlings +mean. Well, well, and to think I never guessed that all this time!" + +"Oh," said Miss Clegson, "I did, Mrs. Margerison; I had a very shrewd +suspicion, I assure you. And this evening, when Mr. Peter asked me where +Miss Johnson was gone, and I told him into church, and he followed her +straight away, I said to myself, 'Well, _that_ looks like something we +all know about very well!' I didn't say it to anyone else; I wouldn't +breathe a word till all was settled; I knew you asked me in confidence, +Mr. Peter; but I thought the more. I was always one to see things; they +used to tell me I could see through a stone wall. Well, I'm sure I offer +my congratulations to both of you." + +"And I too, with all my heart," said Miss Matthews, the lady who did not +attend ritualistic churches. "Do I understand that the happy arrangement +was made _in church_, Miss Johnson? I gather from Miss Clegson that Mr. +Peter followed you there." + +"Oh, not inside, Miss Matthews," said Rhoda, blushing again, and looking +rather pretty. "In the porch, we were." + +Miss Matthews sniffed faintly. Such goings-on might, she conveyed, be +expected in the porch of St. Austin's, with all that incense coming +through the door, and all that confessing going on inside. + +"Well," said Mr. Bridger, "we ought to have some champagne to drink +success to the happy event. Short of that, let us fill the festive +bumpers with the flowing lemonade. Pass the jug down. Here's _to_ you, +Miss Rhoda; here's _to_ you, Mr. Peter Margerison. May you both be as +happy as you deserve. No one will want me to wish you anything better +than that, I'm sure." + +"Here's luck, you dears," said Peggy, drinking. Engagements in general +delighted her, and Peter's in particular. And poor little Rhoda was +looking so bright and happy at last. Peggy wouldn't have taken it upon +herself to call it a remarkably suitable alliance had she been asked; but +then she hadn't been asked, and Peter was such a sweet-natured, loving, +lovable dear that he would get on with anyone, and Rhoda, though +sometimes a silly and sometimes fractious, was a dear little girl too. +The two facts that would have occurred to some sisters-in-law, that they +had extremely few pennies between them, and that Rhoda wasn't precisely +of Peter's gentle extraction, didn't bother Peggy at all. + +They occurred, however, to Hilary. It occurred to him that Peter would +now require all his slender earnings for himself and wife, which was +awkward; also that Peter really needn't have looked down to the lower +middle classes for a wife. Hilary believed in gentle birth; through all +his vicissitudes a pathetic pride of breeding clung to him. One might be +down at heels; one might be reduced to sordid means of livelihood, even +to shady schemes for enlarging one's income; but once a gentleman always +so, and one was not to be ranked with the bounders, the Vyvians, the +wealthy Leslies even. + +Hilary looked resigned and weary. Why should Peter want to marry a +commonplace and penniless little nobody, and not so very pretty either, +though she looked nice and bright when she was animated, as now. + +"Well," he said, "when is it to be?" + +Peter looked across at Rhoda. + +"I should hope very soon," he said. It was obviously safer, and safety +was the object, to have it very soon. + +"How soon can one get married? There have to be banns and so on, don't +there? The third time of asking--that brings it to the eighteenth of +December. What about the nineteenth, Rhoda? That's a Monday." + +"Really, Peter ..." Rhoda blushed more than ever. "That seems awfully +soon." + +"Well," said Peter, blind to the unusualness of such a discussion at the +dinner-table, "the sooner the better, don't you think? There's nothing to +wait for. I don't suppose we shall ever have more money to do it on than +we have now. I know of a man who waited years and years because he +thought he hadn't got quite enough, and he got a little more each year, +and at the end of six years he thought to double his fortune by putting +it all on a winner, because he was getting so impatient. And the horse +came in last. So the girl broke it off and married someone else, and the +man's heart broke and he took to drink." + +"Well?" enquired Miss Matthews, who thought Peter habitually irrelevant +in his remarks. + +"Well--so let's be married on December the nineteenth." + +"I'm sure," said Rhoda, "we're quite embarrassing everybody, being so +public. Let's settle it afterwards, Peter, when we're alone." + +But she too meant to have it as soon as might be after the third time of +asking; it was safer, much safer, so. + +"Well," said Miss Clegson, as the ladies rose from the table, "now we're +going to carry Miss Johnson away to tell us all about it; and we'll leave +Mr. Peter to tell you gentlemen _his_ secrets. And after that we'll have +a good round game; but two of the present company can be left out if they +like better to sit in the window-seat!" + +But when the other gentlemen repaired to the drawing-room for the good +round game, Peter stayed behind, with Hilary. He didn't want to talk or +be talked to, only to stay where he was and not to have to sit in the +window-seat. + +"The insufferable vulgarity of this class of person on this subject is +really the limit," Hilary remarked plaintively, as if it had jarred him +beyond endurance. + +"They're awfully kind, aren't they," said Peter, who looked tired. Then +he laughed to himself. Hilary looked at him enquiringly. + +"I suppose you know your own business, Peter. But I must confess I am +surprised. I had literally no idea you had such a step in mind." + +"I hadn't any idea either," Peter admitted frankly. "I thought of it +quite suddenly. But I think it is a good plan, you know. Of course," he +added, wording what he read in Hilary's face, "I know my life will cost +me more. But I think it is worth while." + +"It's quite entirely your own business," Hilary said again, throwing +responsibility from him with a gesture of the hands. Then he leant back +and shut his eyes. + +Peter looked at him as he lay in the arm-chair and smoked; his eyes +rested on the jaded, still beautiful face, the dark lock of hair falling +a little over the tired forehead, the brown velvet smoking coat and large +red silk tie. He knew that he had hurt and puzzled Hilary. And he knew +that Hilary wouldn't understand if he were to explain what he couldn't +ever explain. At the most he would say, "It is Peter all over," and +shrug his shoulders at Peter and Peter's vagaries. + +A great desire to smooth Hilary's difficult road, as far as might be, +caught and held Peter. Poor old Hilary! He was so frightfully tired of +life and its struggles; tired of being a Have-Not. + +To help the other Have-Nots, to put pleasant things into their hands as +far as might be, seemed to Peter at this moment the thing for which one +existed. It is obviously the business of the Have-Nots to do that for one +another; for the Haves do not know or understand. It is the Have-Nots who +must give and give and give, with emptying hands; for from him that hath +not shall be taken away even that which he hath. + +Peter went upstairs to the drawing-room to play animal grab. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + +PETER, RHODA, AND LUCY + + +When Mr. Vyvian called at 51 Brook Street one evening and was informed +by the assembled company that Miss Johnson had got engaged to Mr. Peter +Margerison, he sneered a little and wished them both joy, and said +good-night rather markedly early. + +"He won't come back," said Rhoda in Peter's ear when he had gone. "He's +gone for good." She sat very still, realising it, and shivered a little. +Then, casting off that old chain of the past, she turned on Peter eyes +full of tears and affection. + +"Now I'm going to forget all about him and be happy," she whispered. +"He's not going to be part of my life any more at all. How queer that +seems!" + +If in her heart she wished a little that Peter had had Guy Vyvian's +handsome face and person (Peter had no presence: one might overlook him; +the only vivid note about him, except when he smiled, was the blue of his +eyes), she stifled the wish with firm pressure. What were looks, after +all? And that bold, handsome stare of Guy's had burnt and hurt; in the +blue of Peter's she found healing and coolness, as one finds it in a +summer sea. + +So, after the third time of asking, they were married, in St. Austin's +Church, and Rhoda, coming out of it, whispered to Peter, "Some of the +beautiful things are true after all, I do believe;" and he smiled at her +and said, "Of course they are." + +They left the boarding-house, because Rhoda was tired of the boarders +and wanted a little place to themselves. Peter, who didn't really care, +but who would have rather liked to stay and be with Peggy and Hilary, +pretended that he too wanted a little place to themselves. So they took +lodgings in Greville Street, which runs out of Brook Street. Rhoda gave +up her work and settled down to keep house and do needlework. They kept +a canary in the sitting-room, and a kitten with a blue bow, and Rhoda +took to wearing blue bows in her own hair, and sewed all the buttons on +her frocks and darned her gloves and stockings and Peter's socks, and +devoted herself to household economy, a subject in which her mother had +always tried to interest her without success. Rhoda thought it a great +relief to have escaped from the tiresome boarders who chattered so about +things they knew nothing about, and from her own daily drudgery, that had +tired her back. (She had been a typist.) It was nice to be able to sit at +peace with one's needlework and one's own reflections, and have Peter, +who was always kind and friendly and cheerful, to brighten breakfast and +leave her in peace during the day and come in again to brighten the +evening. Peter's chatter didn't worry her, though she often thought it +childish and singularly inconsequent; Peter, of course, was only a boy, +though such a dear, kind, affectionate boy. He would spend his evenings +teasing the kitten and retying the blue bow, or lying on the rug before +the fire, talking nonsense which made Rhoda laugh even when she was +feeling low. Sometimes they would go to Brook Street and spend the +evening there; and often Hilary would drop in and smoke with Peter; +only Rhoda didn't much care for these evenings, for she never felt at +ease with Hilary, who wasn't at ease with her either. The uncultured +young creatures of either sex never quite knew where they were with the +æsthetic Hilary; at any moment they might tread heavily on his sensitive +susceptibilities and make him wince visibly, and no one likes being +winced at. Rhoda in particular was very sensitive; she thought Hilary +ill-mannered and conceited, and vaguely resented his attitude towards her +without understanding it, for (now that she was removed from the crushing +influence of a person who had always ruthlessly shown her her limitations +and follies) she didn't think of herself as uncultured, she with her +poetical and artistic tastes, sharpened and refined by contact with the +culture of Guy Vyvian and broadened by acquaintance with the art of +foreign cities. On the contrary, she felt in herself yearnings for a +fuller and freer life of beauty and grace. She wasn't sure that Peter +ever felt such yearnings; he seemed quite contented with the ugly rooms +in the ugly street, and the dingy lace curtains and impossible pictures; +he could make a joke of it all; and things one could make a joke of +couldn't really hurt, thought Rhoda. + +But anyhow, cramped and squalid and dingy though 9 Greville Street might +be, it held security and peace. + +"The Snuggery, that's what we call it at fifty-one," said Miss Clegson, +who sometimes looked in to rally them. + +Fifty-one was getting less of a snuggery than ever. Fifty-one, Peter +feared, was going down the hill. The Berovieri goblet had made a little +piece of level road for it, but that was soon over, and the descent began +again. Peggy, try as she would, could not make both ends meet. Hilary, +despise his job as he might, found it slipping from him more and more. +Week by week he seemed to earn a little less; week by week they seemed to +spend a little more. Peggy, as Hilary had frequently remarked, was _not_ +a good manager. One or two of the boarders left, to seek more commodious +quarters elsewhere. More frequently, as the winter advanced, Peggy +wailed, "Whatever is to become of us, dear only knows! What with Larry +drinking pints of cough-syrup, and Micky rolling in the gutter in his +best suit, and Norah, the creature, letting the crockery fly about as if +it was alive, and Hilary insisting on the table cloth being cleaner than +it ever is, and the boarders having to have food they can eat, and now +Lent's coming on and half of them don't take any notice of it but eat +their joints just the same, bad manners to them for heretics. Oh, _dear_, +oh dear, oh dear!" + +Whenever Peter could spare any money he gave it to Peggy. But his own +fortunes were not exactly on the make. He was not proving good at his +job. Recommended to his employers by Leslie, he had begun, of course, on +a very small salary, to learn his trade; he hadn't so far learnt enough +of it to justify his promotion. Every day he went through the same +drudgery, with the same lack of intelligence,--(it is odd how discernment +and talent in one trade serve so little for another)--and every week came +home with the same meagre sum. + +As far as he hated anything, he hated this work of his; long ago, had he +been alone concerned, he would have dropped it, and taken to tramping the +roads with boot-laces to sell, or some other equally unstrenuous and +unlucrative avocation. But he had not, from the first, been alone +concerned; first he had had to help Hilary and Peggy, and now he had +to keep a wife too. Eventually there would probably be also children to +keep; Peter didn't know how much these cost, but vaguely believed them to +be expensive luxuries. So there seemed no prospect of his being able to +renounce his trade, though there was a considerable prospect of its +renouncing him, as he was from time to time informed. + +The winter dragged quietly through, and the spring came; the queer +London ghost of spring, with its bitter winds and black buds and evasive +hints of what is going on in the real world, where things change. Peter +dreamt of green things coming up and hawthorn hedges growing edible. +Rhoda's cough grew softer and her eyes more restless, as if she too +had her dreams. She developed a new petulance with Peter and with the +maid-of-all-work, and left off tying the kitten's neck-ribbon. It was +really a cat now, and cats are tiresome. She said she was dull all day +with so little to do. Peter, full of compunction, suggested asking people +to the house more, and she assented, rather listlessly. So Peter hinted +to Peggy, who had a cheering presence, that Rhoda would be glad to see +her more often, and Peggy made what time she could to come round. Their +circle of friends was limited; they chiefly consisted of the inhabitants +of fifty-one, and a few relatives of Rhoda's, who amused and pleased +Peter but vexed Rhoda by being common. + +"But I like them," said Peter. + +"You like to see me put to shame, I suppose," said Rhoda, with tears in +her eyes. "As if it was _my_ fault that my parents came of common people. +I've cried myself sick over it sometimes, when I was younger, and now I +just want to forget it." + +Peter said no more. It was one of the sides of Rhoda with which he felt +he had no connexion; it was best let alone, as Peter always let alone the +things he could not like. But he was sorry she felt like that, for her +nice, common, friendly relations might have been company for her. + +Peter sometimes brought friends home from his office; Peter could not +have been in an office without collecting friends, having the social +instinct strongly developed. But Rhoda didn't much care about seeing +his fellow-clerks; they hadn't, she was sure, great minds, and they made +silly jokes. + +Another person who came to see Peter sometimes was Rodney. Ever since the +Margerisons' abrupt fall into ignominy, Rodney had cultivated Peter's +acquaintance. Peter perceived that he had at last slipped into the ranks +of those unfortunates who were qualified for Rodney's regard; it was +enough for that, Urquhart had long since told him, to be cut by society +or to produce a yesterday's handkerchief. Peter, driven from the faces of +the rich, found Rodney waiting to receive him cheerfully among the ranks +of the poor. Rodney was a much occupied person; but when he found time +from his other pursuits he walked up from his Westminster slum to Holborn +and visited 9 Greville Street. He hadn't known quite what to make of +Peter's marriage; though when he got to know Rhoda a little he began to +understand rather more. She, being very manifestly among the Have-Nots, +and a small, weak, and pitiable thing, also entered in a manner into the +circle of his tolerance. He was gentle with her always, though not +expansive. She was a little in awe of the gaunt young man, with his +strange eyes that seemed to see so much further than anyone else's. She +pronounced him "queer." + +"I suppose he's very clever," she said to Peter. + +"Yes," Peter agreed. + +But even that didn't further him in Rhoda's regard. She thought him rude, +as indeed he was, though he tried to conceal it. He seldom spoke to her, +and when he did it was with an unadorned brevity that offended her. +Mostly he let her alone, and saw Peter when he could outside his home. +Rodney, himself a celibate, thought matrimony a mistake, though certainly +a necessary mistake if the human race was to continue to adorn the +earth--a doubtful ornament to it, in Rodney's opinion. + +Rhoda said one evening to Peter, "You don't see anything of your friends +the Urquharts now, do you?" + +"No," said Peter, who was stroking the kitten's fur the wrong way, to +bring sparks out of it before the gas was lit. "They've been in the +country all the winter." + +"Mr. Urquhart got elected a member, didn't he?" said Rhoda, without much +interest. + +"Yes," said Peter. + +"I suppose they'll be coming up to town soon, then, for him to attend +Parliament." + +Peter supposed they would. + +"When last Lucy wrote, she said they were coming up this month." + +"Have you heard from her again, since Monday week?" enquired Rhoda. + +"No. We write alternate Sundays, you know. We always have. Last Sunday it +was my turn." + +"Fancy going on all these years so regular," said Rhoda. "I couldn't, not +to any of my cousins. I should use up all there was to say." + +"Oh, but there are quite new things every fortnight," Peter explained. + +Certainly it wasn't easy to picture Rhoda corresponding with any of the +Johnson relatives once a fortnight. + +"I expect you and she have heaps to tell each other always when you +meet," said Rhoda, a little plaintive note in her weak voice. + +Peter considered. + +"Not so much to tell exactly as to talk about. Yes, there's lots to +say.... She's coming to see you, Rhoda, directly they come up to town. +It's so funny to think you and she have never met." + +"Is it? Well, I don't know. I've not met any of your cousins really, +have I?" + +Rhoda was in one of her slightly pettish moods this evening. Peter didn't +better matters by saying, "Oh, well, none of the others count. Lucy and I +have always been different from most cousins, I suppose; more like +brother and sister, I daresay." + +Rhoda looked at him sharply. She was in a fault-finding mood. + +"You think more of her than you do of anyone else. Of course, I know +that." + +Peter was startled. He stopped stroking the kitten and looked at her +through the dim firelight. The suspicion of a vulgar scene was in the +air, and frightened him. Then he remembered that Rhoda was in frail +health, and said very gently, "Oh, Rhoda darling, don't say silly things, +like a young gurl in a novelette," and slithered along the floor and laid +his arm across her lap and laughed up into her face. + +She sniffed a little, and dabbed her handkerchief at her eyes. + +"It's all very well, Peter, but you do care for her a lot, you know you +do." + +"But of course I do," said Peter, laying his cheek against her knee. "You +don't _mind_, Rhoda, do you?" + +"You care for her," said Rhoda, but softening under his caresses, "and +you care for her husband. You care for him awfully, Peter; more than for +her really, I believe; more than for anyone in the world, don't you?" + +"Don't," said Peter, his voice muffled against her dress. "I can't +compare one thing with another like that, and I don't want to. Isn't +one's caring for each of the people one knows quite different from every +other? Isn't yours? Can you say which you love best, the sun rising over +the river, or St. Mark's, or a Bellini Madonna? Of course you can't, and +it's immoral to try. So I'm not going to place Lucy and Denis and you and +Rodney and Peggy and the kitten in a horrid class-list. I won't. Do you +hear?" + +He drew one of her small thin hands down to his lips, then moved it up +and placed it on his head, and drew it gently to and fro, ruffling his +hair. + +"You're a silly, Peter," said Rhoda, and there was peace. + +Very soon after that Lucy came. She came in the afternoon before Peter +got home, and Rhoda looked with listless interest at the small, wide-eyed +person in a grey frock and big grey hat that made her small, pale face +look like a white flower. Pretty? Rhoda wasn't sure. Very like Peter; so +perhaps not pretty; only one liked to look at her. Clever? It didn't +transpire that she was. Witty? Well, much more amused than amusing; and +when she was amused she came out with Peter's laugh, which Rhoda wasn't +sure was in good taste on her part. Absurdly like Peter she was, to +look at and to listen to, and in some inner essence which was beyond +definition. The thought flashed through Rhoda's mind that it was no +wonder these two found things to tell each other every other Sunday; +they would be interested in all the same things, so it must be easy. + +Remotely, dully, Rhoda thought these things, as things which didn't +concern her particularly. Less and less each day she had grown to care +whether Peter found his cousin Lucy a kindred spirit or not. She could +work herself up into a fit of petulant jealousy about it at times; but +it didn't touch her inmost being; it was a very surface grievance. + +So she looked at Lucy dispassionately, and let herself, without a +struggle, be caught and held by that ingenuous charm, a charm as of a +small woodland flower set dancing by the winds of spring. She noticed +that when the kitten that was now nearly a cat sprang on to Lucy's lap, +she stroked its fur backwards with her flat hand and spread fingers +precisely as Peter always did. + +Then Peter came in, and he and Lucy laughed the same laugh at one +another, and then they had tea. After all, Rhoda didn't see now that they +were so like. Peter talked much more; he said twenty words to Lucy's +one; Lucy wasn't a great talker at all. Peter was a chatterbox; there was +no denying that. And their features and eyes and all weren't so like, +either. But when one had said all this, there was something... something +inner, essential, indefinable, of the spirit, that was not of like +substance but the same. So it is sometimes with twins. Rhoda, her +intuitive faculties oddly sharpened, took in this. Peter might care +most for Denis Urquhart; he might love Rhoda as a wife; but Lucy, less +consciously loved than either, was intimately one with himself. + +Peter asked "How is Denis?" and Lucy answered "Very well, of course. And +very busy playing at being a real member. Isn't it fun? Oh, he sent you +his love. And you're to come and see us soon." + +That last wasn't a message from Denis; Peter knew that. He knew that +there would be no more such messages from Denis; the Margerisons had gone +a little too far in their latest enterprise; they had strained the cord +to breaking-point, and it had broken. In future Denis might be kind and +friendly to Peter when they met, but he wouldn't bring about meetings; +they would embarrass him. But Lucy knew nothing of that. Denis hadn't +mentioned to her what had happened at Astleys last November; he never +dwelt on unpleasant subjects or made a talk about them. So Lucy said to +Peter and Rhoda, "You must come and see us soon," and Peter said, "You're +so far away, you know," evading her, and she gave him a sudden wide clear +look, taking in all he didn't say, which was the way they had with one +another, so that no deceits could ever stand between them. + +"Don't be _silly_, Peter," she told him; then, "'_Course_ you must come"; +but he only smiled at her and said, "Some day, perhaps." + +"Honey sandwiches, if you come at tea-time," she reminded him. "D'_you_ +like them, Rhoda?" She used the name prettily, half shyly, with one of +her luminous, friendly looks. "They're Peter's favourite food, you know." + +But Rhoda didn't know; Peter had never told her; perhaps because it would +be extravagant to have them, perhaps because he never put even foods into +class-lists. Only Lucy knew without being told, probably because it was +her favourite food too. + +When Lucy went, it was as if a ray of early spring sunshine had stolen +into the room and gone. A luminous person: that was the thing Rhoda felt +her to be; a study in clear pale lights; one would not have been +surprised if she had crept in on a wind from a strange fairy world with +her arms full of cold wet primroses, and danced out, taking with her the +souls of those who dwelt within. Rhoda wasn't jealous now, if she had +ever had a touch of that. + +Neither Peter nor Rhoda went to the Urquharts' house, which was a long +way off. But Lucy came again, many times, to Greville Street, through +that spring and summer, stroking the cat's fur backwards, laughing at +Peter, shyly friendly to Rhoda. + +And then for a time her laughter was sad and her eyes wistful, because +her father died. She said once, "I feel so stranded now, Peter; cut off +from what was my life; from what really is my life, you know. Father and +Felicity and I were so disreputable always, and as long as I had father +I could be disreputable too, whenever I felt I couldn't bear being +prosperous. I had only to go inside the house and there I was--you know, +Peter?--it was all round me, and I was part of it.... Now I'm cut off +from all that sort of thing. Denis and I _are_ so well off, d'you know. +Everything goes right. Denis's friends are all so happy and successful +and beautifully dressed. I _like_ them to be, of course; they are joys, +like the sun shining; only..." + +"The poor are always with you," suggested Peter. "You can always come to +Greville Street, if you can't find them nearer at hand. And when you come +we'll take Algernon's blue neck-ribbon off, that none of us may appear +beautifully dressed." + +"But I _like_ Algernon's blue bow," Lucy protested. "I love people to be +bright and beautiful.... That's why I like Denis so much, you know. Only +I'm not sure I properly belong, that's all." + +Obviously the remedy was to come to Greville Street. Lucy came more and +more as the months went by. + +Rhoda said once, "Doesn't it bother you to come all this way, into these +ugly streets?" and she shook her head. + +"Oh, I _like_ it. I like these streets better than the ones round us. And +I like your house better than ours too; it's smaller." + +Rhoda could have thought she looked wistful, this fortunate person who +was in love with her splendid husband and lived in the dwellings of the +prosperous. + +"Don't you like large houses?" she asked, without much caring; for she +was absorbed in her own thoughts in these days. + +Lucy puckered her wide forehead. + +"Why, no. No, I don't believe I do," she said, as if she was finding it +out with a little surprise. + +Rhoda saw her one day in July. In a few weeks, she told Rhoda (Peter was +out that afternoon), she and Denis were going up to Scotland, to stay +with people. + +"We shall miss you," said Rhoda dully. + +"And me you," said Lucy, with a more acute sense of it. + +"Peter'll miss you dreadfully," said Rhoda. She was lying on the sofa, +pale and tired in the heat. + +"Only," said Lucy, "next month you'll both be feeling too interested to +miss anyone." + +"Peter," said Rhoda, "cares more about the baby coming than I do." + +Lucy said, "Peter loves little weak funny things like that." She was a +little sad that Rhoda didn't seem to care more about the baby; babies are +such entrancing toys to those who like toys, people like her and Peter. + +Suddenly Lucy saw that two large tears were rolling down Rhoda's pale +cheeks as she lay. Lucy knelt by the sofa side and took Rhoda's hand in +both of hers and laid her cheek upon it. + +"Please, little Rhoda, not to cry. Please, little Rhoda, tell me." + +Rhoda, with her other hand, brushed the tears away. + +"I'm a silly. I suppose I'm crying because I can't feel to care about +anything in the world, and I wish I could. What's the use of a baby if +you can't love it? What's the use of a husb--" + +Lucy's hand was over her lips, and Lucy whispered, "Oh, hush, little +Rhoda, hush!" + +But Rhoda pushed the hand away and cried, "Oh, why do we pretend and +pretend and pretend? It's Guy I care for--Guy, Guy, Guy, who's gone for +good and all." + +She fell to crying drearily, with Lucy's arms about her. + +"But you _mustn't_ cry," said Lucy, her own eyes brimming over; "you +mustn't, you mustn't. And you do care for Peter, you know you do, only +it's so hot, and you're tired and ill. If that horrible Guy was here--oh, +I know he's horrible--you'd know you cared for Peter most. You mustn't +_say_ things, Rhoda; it makes them alive." Her eyes were wide and +frightened as she looked over Rhoda's head out of the window. + +Slowly Rhoda quieted down, and lay numb and still. + +"You won't tell Peter," she said; and Lucy said, "Oh, Rhoda!" + +"Well, of course I know you wouldn't. Only that you and Peter tell one +another things without saying anything.... Peter belongs to you really, +you know, not to me at all. All he thinks and says and is--it's all +yours. He's never really been near _me_ like that, not from the +beginning. I was a silly to let him sacrifice himself for me the way he's +done. We don't belong really, Peter and I; however friendly we are, we +don't belong; we don't understand each other like you two do.... You +don't mind my saying that, do you?" for Lucy had dropped her hands and +fallen away. + +"I mind your saying anything," said Lucy, "just now. Don't say things: it +makes them alive. It's hot, and you're tired, and I'm not going to stay +any more." + +She got up from the floor and stood for a moment looking down at Rhoda. +Rhoda saw her eyes, how they were wet and strange and far-away, and full +of what seemed an immense weight of pity; pity for all the sadnesses of +mankind. + +The next moment Lucy's cool finger-tips touched her forehead in a light +caress, and Lucy was gone. + + + + +CHAPTER XV + +THE LOSS OF A WIFE + + +In September Peter and Rhoda had a son, whom they called Thomas, because, +Peter said, he had a sceptical look about the eyes and nose. Peter was +pleased with him, and he with Peter. Rhoda wasn't much interested; she +looked at him and said he was rather like Peter, and might be taken away +now, please. + +"Like me?" Peter wondered dubiously. "Well, I know I'm not handsome, +but..." + +Peggy, a born mother, took Thomas into her large heart at once, with her +out-at-elbows infants, and was angry with Rhoda for not showing more +interest. + +"You'd think, from the way of her, that it was her thirteenth instead of +her first," she complained to Hilary. "I've no patience with the silly, +mooning child. She's nothing like good enough for Peter, and that's a +fact, and she'd have a right to realise it and try to improve for very +shame, instead of moping the way she does. It's my belief, Hilary, that +her silly little heart's away after the Vyvian man, whatever haunt of +wickedness he's adorning now. I don't want to believe it of her; but +there's no end to the folly of the human heart, is there, now? I wish she +was a Catholic and had a priest to make her take shame to herself; but +there's no hold one has over her as it is, for she won't say a word to me +beyond 'Yes' and 'No,' and 'Take him away, please, he tires me.' I nearly +told her she'd a right not to be so easily tired by her own son now she's +getting her health. But there, she's a poor frail thing and one can't +speak roughly to her for fear she breaks in two." + +Hilary said, "After all, there's no great cause for rejoicing in a man's +being born into the world to trouble; I suppose she feels that. It will +make it more difficult than ever for them and for us to make both ends +meet." + +"Oh, meet," groaned Peggy, "that's not what there's any thought of their +doing in these days, my dear. If one can bring them within a mile of one +another, one's thankful for small mercies." + +Hilary rested his head on his hand and sighed. + +"Have you spoken to Peter yet about appealing to the Urquharts?" he +asked. + +"Darling, I have not, and I'm not going to. Why should I annoy the poor +child to no purpose? He'll not appeal to the Urquharts, we know that +well, and I'm not going to waste my breath. I'd far rather--" + +"What?" asked Hilary, as she paused. + +"Oh well, I don't know. Don't you worry about ways and means; something +will surely turn up before long." Peggy was an optimist. + +"And anyhow," went on Peggy, to change the subject from ways and means, +which was a depressing one, "isn't our little Peter a darling with his +baby? I love to see them together. He washes it himself as often as +not, you know; only he can't always catch it again when it slips through +his hands, and that worries him. He's dreadfully afraid of its getting +drowned or spoilt or lost or something." + +"It probably will," said Hilary, who was a pessimist. "Peter is no hand +at keeping things. We are not a fortunate family." + +"Never mind, darling; we've kept three; and more by token Kitty _must_ +have a new pair of boots this winter; she's positively indecent the way +she goes about now. I can't help it, Hilary; you must pawn your ring +again or something." + +Peggy didn't want to say anything else depressing, so she didn't mention +that Miss Matthews had that morning given notice of her departure. But in +Peggy's own mind there was a growing realisation that something drastic +must really be done soon. + +October went by. When Peter knew that the Urquharts had come back to +London, he wondered why Lucy didn't come to see Thomas. So he wrote and +asked her to, and on that she came. + +She came at tea-time, one day when Rhoda happened to have gone out. So +Peter and Lucy had tea alone together, and Thomas lay in his crib and +looked at them, and Algernon snored on Lucy's knee, and the November fog +shut out the outer world like a blanket, and blurred the gas-light in the +dingy room. + +Peter thought Lucy was rather quiet and pale, and her chuckle was a +little subdued. Her dominant aspect, of clear luminousness, was somehow +dimmed and mystified, with all other lights, in this blurred afternoon. +Her wide clear eyes, strange always with the world's gay wonder and +mystery, had become eyes less gay, eyes that did not understand, that +even shrank a little from what they could not understand. Lucy looked a +touch puzzled, not so utterly the glad welcomer of all arriving things +that she had always been. + +But for Thomas, the latest arrived thing, she had a glad welcome. +Like Peter, she loved all little funny weak things; and Thomas seemed +certainly that, as he lay and blinked at the blurred gas and curled his +fingers round one of Peter's. A happy, silent person, with doubts, one +fancied, as to the object of the universe, but no doubts that there were +to be found in it many desirable things. + +When Lucy came in, Peter was reading aloud to him some of Traherne's +"Divine Reflections on the Native Objects of an Infant-Eye," which he +seemed rather to like. + + "I that so long [Peter told him he was thinking, + Was _Nothing_ from Eternity, + Did little think such Joys as Ear and Tongue + To celebrate or see: + Such Sounds to hear, such Hands to feel, such Feet, + Such Eyes and Objects on the Ground to Meet. + + "New burnisht Joys! + Which finest Gold and Pearl excell!" + +"Oo," said Thomas expectantly. + + "A Stranger here, [Peter told him further, + Strange things doth meet, strange Glory see; + Strange Treasures lodg'd in this fair World appear, + Strange all and New to me: + But that they _mine_ should be who Nothing was, + _That_ strangest is of all; yet brought to pass." + +"Ow," said Thomas, agreeing. + +Peter turned over the pages. "Do you like it? Do you think so too? Here's +another about you." + + "But little did the Infant dream + That all the Treasures of the World were by, + And that himself was so the Cream + And Crown of all which round about did ly. + Yet thus it was!..." + +"I don't think you'd understand the rest of that verse, Thomas; it's +rather more difficult. 'Yet thus it was!' We'll end there, and have our +tea." + +Turning his head he saw that Lucy had come in and was standing behind +him, looking over his shoulder at Thomas in his crib. + +"Oh, Lucy," he said, "I'm reading to Thomas. Thomas is that. Do you like +him? He is surprised at life, but quite pleased. He that was _Nothing_ +from Eternity did little think such Joys to celebrate or see. Yet thus it +is. He is extraordinarily happy about it all, but he can't do anything +yet, you know--not speak or sit up or anything. He can only make noises, +and cry, and drink, and slither about in his bath like a piece of wet +soap. Wasn't there a clergyman once who thought his baby ought to be +baptised by immersion unless it was proved not well able to endure it, +as it says in the rubric or somewhere, so he put it in a tub to try if +it could endure it or not, and he let it loose by accident and couldn't +catch it again, it was so slippery, just like a horrid little fish, and +its mother only came in and got hold of it just in time to prevent its +being drowned? So after that he felt he could honestly certify that the +child couldn't well endure immersion. I'm getting better at catching +Thomas, though. He isn't supposed to slip off my hand at all, but he +kicks and slithers so I can't hold him, and swims away and gets lost. +After tea will you come and help me wash him? Rhoda's out to tea; I'm so +sorry. But there's tea, and Thomas and Algernon and me, and--and rather +thick bread and butter only, apparently; but I shall have jam now you've +come. First I must adjust Thomas's drinking-bottle; he always likes a +drink while we have our tea. He's two months old. Is he good for that, +do you think, or should he be a size larger? But I rather like them +small, don't you? They're lighter so, for one thing. Is he nice? Do you +like him?" + +Lucy, kneeling by the crib, nodded. + +"He's very old and wise, Peter; very old and gay. Look at his eyes. He's +much--oh very much--older than you or me. That's as it should be." + +"He'll rejuvenate with years, won't he?" said Peter. "At present he's +too old to laugh when I make jokes; he thinks them silly; but he'll be +sillier than anyone himself in about six months, I expect. Now we'll have +tea." + +Lucy left Thomas and came to the tea-table and poured out tea for both of +them. + +"I'm trying to learn to do without three lumps," said Peter, as Lucy put +them in. "I expect it's extravagant to have three, really. But then Rhoda +and Thomas don't take any, so it's only the same as if we each had one, +isn't it. Thomas shan't be allowed more than one in each cup when he +grows young enough to want any; Rhoda and I mean him to be a refined +person." + +"I don't think he will be," said Lucy, looking thoughtfully into the +future. "I expect he'll be as vulgar as you and me. He's awfully like you +to look at, Peter." + +"So I am informed. Well, I'm not vain, and I don't claim to be an Adonis, +like Denis. Is Denis flourishing? The birds were splendid; they came so +thick and fast that I gathered it was being a remarkable season. But as +you only answered my numerous letters by one, and that àpropos merely of +Thomas's arrival, I could only surmise and speculate on your doings. I +suppose you thought the grouse were instead of letters." + +"They were Denis's letters. _I_ didn't shoot the grouse, dear darlings, +nor send them." + +"What were your letters, then?" + +"Well, I sent rowan berries, didn't I? Weren't they red?" + +"Yes. Even Thomas read them. We're being rather funny, aren't we? Is +Denis going on with Parliament again this autumn, or has he begun to get +tired of it?" + +"Not a bit tired of it. He doesn't bother about it particularly, you +know; not enough to tire himself; he sort of takes it for granted, like +going up to Scotland in August." + +Peter nodded. "I know. He would take it just like that if he was +Prime Minister, or Archbishop of Canterbury. I daresay he will be one +day; isn't it nice the way things drop into his hands without his +bothering to get them." + +He didn't see the queer, silent look Lucy turned on him as he spread his +thick bread and butter with blackberry jam. + +"Thomas," she said after a moment, "has dropped into your hands, Peter." +It was as if she was protesting against something, beating herself +against some invisible, eternal barrier that divided the world into +two unequal parts. + +Peter said, "Rather, he has. I do hope he'll never drop out. I'm getting +very handy about holding him, though. Oh, let's take him upstairs and tub +him now; do you mind?" + +So they took him upstairs and tubbed him, and Lucy managed to hold him so +firmly that he didn't once swim away and get lost. + +As they were drying him (Lucy dried him with a firmer and more effective +hand than Peter, who always wiped him very gingerly lest he should +squash) Rhoda came in. She was strange-eyed and pale in the blurred +light, and greeted Lucy in a dreamy, absent way. + +"I've had tea out.... Oh, have you bathed baby? How good of you. I meant +to be in earlier, but I was late.... The fog's awful; it's getting +thicker and thicker." + +She sat down by the fire and loosened her coat, and took off her hat and +rubbed the fog from her wet hair, and coughed. Rhoda had grown prettier +lately; she looked less tired and listless, and her eyes were brighter, +and the fire flushed her thin cheek to rose-colour as she bent over it. + +Peter took her wet things from her and took off her shoes and put +slippers on her feet, and she gave him an absent smile. Rhoda had had +a dreamy way with her since Thomas's birth; moony, as Peggy, who didn't +approve, called it. + +A little later, when Thomas was clean and warm and asleep in his bed, +they were told that Mrs. Urquhart's carriage had come. + +Lucy bent over Thomas and kissed him, then over Rhoda. Rhoda whispered in +her ear, without emotion, "Baby ought to have been yours, not mine," and +Lucy whispered back: + +"Oh hush, hush!" + +Rhoda still held her, still whispered, "Will you love him? Will you be +good to him, always?" + +And Lucy answered, opening wide eyes, "Why, of course. No one could help +it, could they?" and on that Rhoda let her go. + +Peter thought that Lucy must have infected Rhoda with some of her own +appreciation of Thomas, opened her eyes to his true worth; for during the +next week she was newly tender to him. She bathed him every evening +herself, only letting Peter help a little; she held him in her arms +without wearying of his weight, and wasn't really annoyed even when he +was sick upon her shoulder, an unfortunate habit of Thomas's. + +But a habit, Peter thought, that Thomas employed with some +discrimination; for the one and only one time that Guy Vyvian took him +in his arms--or rather submitted to his being put there by Rhoda--Thomas +was sicker than he had ever been before, with an immense completeness. + +"Just what I always feel myself," commented Peter in his own mind, as +Thomas was hastily removed. "I'm glad someone has shown him at last what +the best people feel about him." + +Vyvian had come to call. It was the first time Peter had met him since +his marriage; he hoped it would be the last. The object of the call +was to inspect Thomas, Rhoda said. Thomas was inspected, produced the +impression indicated above, and was relegated to the region of things for +which Vyvian had no use. He detested infants; children of any sort, in +fact; and particularly Thomas, who had Peter's physiognomy and expressed +Peter's sentiments in a violently ill-bred way. + +Peter, a little later, was very glad that Thomas had revealed himself +thus openly on this occasion. For it quite sealed Thomas's fate, if +anything more was needed to seal it than the fact that Thomas would be +an impossible burden, and also belonged by right to Peter. Anyhow, they +left Thomas behind them when they went. + +Rhoda wrote a scrawled note for Peter one foggy Monday morning, and +hugged Thomas close and cried a little, and slipped out into the misty +city with a handbag. Peter, coming in at tea-time, found the note on +the sitting-room chimney-piece. It said:-- + +"Don't try to follow me, Peter, for I can't come back. I _have_ tried to +care for you more than him and be a good wife, but I can't. You know I +told you when we got engaged that I cared for him, and I tried so hard +to stop, and I thought I would be able, with you to help me, but I +couldn't do it. For the first few months I thought I could, but all the +time it was there, like a fire in me, eating me up; and later on he began +writing to me, but for a long time I wouldn't answer, and then he came to +see me, and I said he mustn't, but he's been meeting me out and I +couldn't stop him, and at last it grew that I knew I loved him so that it +was no use pretending any more. I'd better go, Peter, for what's the use +of trying to be a good wife to you when all I care for is him. I know +he's not good, and you are, but I love him, and I must go when he wants +me. It was all a mistake; you and I ought never to have married. You +meant it kindly, I know; you meant to help me and make me happy, but it +was no use. You and I never properly belonged. When I saw you and Lucy +together, I knew we didn't belong, not like that; we didn't properly +understand each other's ways and thoughts, like you two did. I love Lucy, +too. You and she are so like. And she'll be good to Baby; she said she +would. I hate to leave Baby, but Guy won't let me bring him, and anyhow +I suppose I couldn't, because he's yours. I've written a list of his +feeds, and it's on the chimney-piece behind the clock; please make +whoever sees to him go by it or he gets a pain. Please be careful when +you bath him; I think Mrs. Adams had better do it usually. She'll take +care of him for you, or Peggy will, perhaps. You'll think I never cared +for him, but I do, I love him, only I must love Guy most of all. I don't +know if I shall be happy or miserable, but I expect miserable, only I +must go with Guy. Please, dear Peter, try and understand this, and +forgive me. I think you will, because you always do understand things, +and forgive them too; I think you are the kindest person I ever knew. If +I thought you loved me really, I don't think I'd go, even for Guy; but I +know you've only felt kindly to me all along, so I think it is best for +you too that I should go, and you will be thankful in the end. Good-bye. +You promised mother to see after me, I know, for she told me before she +died; well, you've done your best, and mother'd be grateful to you if she +could know. I suppose some would say she does know, perhaps; but I don't +believe those stories; I believe it's all darkness beyond, and silence. +And if it is, we must try and get all the light and warmth here that we +can. So I'm going. + +"Good-bye, Peter. + +"Rhoda." + +Peter read it through, sitting on the rug by the fire. When he had +finished it, he put it into the fire and watched it burn. Then he sighed, +and sat very still for a while, his hands clasped round one knee. + +Presently he got up and looked behind the clock, and saw that the next +feeding-time was due now. So he rang for Mrs. Adams, the landlady, and +asked her if she would mind bringing Thomas's bottle. + +When Thomas had it, Peter stood and looked down upon him as he drank with +ill-bred noises. + +"Gently, Thomas: you'll choke. You'll choke and die, I know you will. +Then you'll be gone too. Everything goes, Thomas. Everything I touch +breaks; everything I try to do fails. That's because I'm such an ass, +I suppose. I did think I could perhaps make one little unlucky girl +decently happy; but I couldn't, you see. So she's gone after light and +warmth, and she'll--she'll break her heart in a year, and it'll be my +fault. Follow her? No, I shan't do that. I shouldn't find her, and if I +did what would be the use? If she must go, she must; she was only eating +her heart out here; and perhaps it's better to break one's heart on +something than eat it out in emptiness. No, it isn't better in this case. +Anything in the world would have been better than this; that she should +have gone with that--that person. Yet thus it is. And they'll all set on +her and speak against her, and I shall have to bear it. You and I will +have to bear it together, Thomas.... I suppose I ought to be angry. I +ought to want to go after them, to the end of the world or wherever +they've gone and kill him and bring her back. But I can't. I should fail +in that too. I'm tired of trying to do things; simply horribly tired of +it, Thomas." He sat down on the rug with Thomas in his arms; and there, +an hour later, Peggy found them. She swung in breezily, crying, "Oh, +Peter, all alone in the dark? Where's Rhoda? Why, the silly children +haven't had their tea!" she added, looking at the unused cups on the +tea-table. + +Peter looked up vaguely. "Oh, tea. I forgot. I don't think I want any +tea to-day. And Thomas has had his. And Rhoda's gone. It's no good not +telling you--is it?--because you'll find out. She's gone away. It's been +my fault entirely; I didn't make her happy, you see. And she's written +out a list of the times Thomas has to feed at. I suppose Mrs. Adams will +do that if I ask her, and generally look after him when I'm out." + +Peggy stood aghast before him for a moment, staring, then collapsed, +breathless, on the sofa, crying, with even more r's than usual. + +"_Peter!_... Why, she's gone and rrun off with that toad, that rreptile +man! Oh, I know it, so it's not a bit of use your trying to keep it from +me." + +"Very well," said Peter; "I suppose it's not." + +"Oh, the little fool, the little, silly, wicked fool! But if ever a +little fool got her rich deserts without needing to wait for purgatory, +that one'll be Rhoda.... Oh, Peter, be more excited and angry! Why +aren't you stamping up and down and vowing vengeance, instead of sitting +on the hearth saying, 'Rhoda's gone,' as if it was the kitten?" + +"I'm sorry, Peggy." Peter sighed a little. "I'm nursing Thomas, you see." + +Peggy at that was on her knees on the floor, taking both of them into her +large embrace. + +"Oh, you two poor little darling boys, what's to become of you both? That +child has a heart of stone, to leave you to yourselves the way she's +done. Don't defend her, Peter; I won't hear a word said for her again +as long as I live; she deserves Guy Vyvian, and I couldn't say a worse +word for her than that. You poor little Tommy; come to me then, babykins. +You must come back to us now, Peter, and I'll look after you both." + +She cuddled Thomas to her breast with one arm, and put the other round +Peter's shoulders as he sat huddled up, his chin resting on his knees. +At the moment it was difficult to say which of the two looked the most +forsaken, the most left to himself. Only Thomas hadn't yet learnt to +laugh, and Peter had. He laughed now, softly and not happily. + +"It _has_ been rather a ghastly fiasco, hasn't it," he said. "Absurd, you +know, too, in a way. I thought it was all working out so nicely, Thomas +coming and everything. But no. It wasn't working out nicely at all. +Things don't as a rule, do they?" + +There was a new note of dreariness in his voice; a note that had perhaps +been kept out of it of set purpose for a long time. Now there seemed at +the moment no particular reason to keep it out any more, though fresh +reasons would arrive, no doubt, very soon; and Thomas when waking was a +reason in himself. But in this dim hour between two roads, this hour of +relaxation of tension in the shadowy firelight, when Thomas slept and +only Peggy listened, Peter, having fallen crashing through floor after +floor of his pleasant house of life, till he was nearly at the bottom, +looked up at all the broken floors and sighed. + +Peggy's arm was comfortingly about him. To her he was always a little, +brittle, unlucky boy, as she had first seen him long ago. + +"Never you mind, Peterkin. There's a good time coming, I do believe. +She'll come back, perhaps; who knows? Vyvian wouldn't do for long, not +even for Rhoda. Besides, you may be sure he'll throw her off soon, and +then she'll want to come back to you and Tommy. I wouldn't say that to +any other man, because, of course, no other man would have her back; but +I do believe, Peterkin, that you would, wouldn't you now? I expect you'd +smile and say, 'Oh, come in, you're just in time for tea and to see me +bath Thomas,' and not another word about it." + +"Probably," said Peter. "There wouldn't be much to say, would there? +But she won't come back; I know that. Even if she leaves him she won't. +Rhoda's horribly proud really, you know. She'd sooner sweep a crossing, +or trim hats or something, than come near us again. I don't know what to +hope about it. I suppose one must hope they'll go on together, as Rhoda +seems to like him as he is; but it's an awful thought.... She's right +that we never understood each other. I couldn't, you know, bear to think +of spending even one day alone with Vyvian. I should be sick, like +Thomas. The mere sight of his hair is enough, and his hand with that +awful ring on it. I--I simply draw the line at him. _Why_ does Rhoda +care for him? How can she?" Peter frowned over it in bewilderment. + +Peggy said, "Girls are silly things. And I suppose the way one's been +brought up counts, and what one's inherited, and all that." + +"Well, if Rhoda'd taken after Mrs. Johnson she wouldn't have liked +Vyvian. He used to give her the creeps, like a toad. She told me so. +She disliked him more than I did.... Well, I shall never understand. I +suppose if I could Rhoda would have found me more sympathetic, and might +have stayed." + +"Now, darling, you're not to sit up and brood any more; that won't help. +You're coming straight back with me to dinner, and Tommy's coming too, to +sleep. I shall ask Mrs. Adams to help me get his things together." + +"He hasn't many things," said Peter, looking vaguely round for them. "I +got him a rattle and a ball, but he doesn't seem to care about them much; +Lucy says he's not young enough yet. Here's his bottle. And his night +clothes are upstairs, and his other day clothes, and his bath. Thomas +leads the simple life, though; he really possesses very little; I think +he's probably going to be a Franciscan later on. But he can sleep with me +here all right; I should like to have him; only it would be awfully good +of you if you'd have him to-morrow, while I'm out at work. But in the +night he and I rather like each other's company." + +"Rubbish," said Peggy. "You're both coming along to fifty-one this +minute. You don't suppose I'm going to leave you two infants alone +together like that. We've heaps of room at fifty-one"--she sighed a +little--"people have been fading away like the flowers of the forest, +and we should be thankful to have you back." + +"Oh, we'll come then; thanks very much, Peggy." Peter's ready +sympathy was turned on again, having temporarily been available only +for himself and Rhoda and Thomas. He remembered now that Peggy and Hilary +needed it too. He and Thomas would go and be boarders in the emptying +boarding-house; it might amuse Thomas, perhaps, to see the other +boarders. + +"And we'll have him baptized," went on Peggy, thinking of further +diversions for Thomas and Peter. "You'll let him be a Catholic, Peter, +won't you?" + +"Thomas," said Peter, "can be anything he likes that's nice. As long as +he's not a bigot. I won't have him refusing to go into one sort of church +because he prefers another; he mustn't ever acquire the rejecting habit. +Short of that, he may enter any denomination or denominations he +prefers." + +They were collecting Thomas's belongings as they talked. Thomas lay and +looked at them with the very blue slits that were like his father's eyes +grown old. And suddenly Peggy, looking from son to father, saw that +Peter's eyes had grown as old as Thomas's, looking wearily out of a pale, +pinched face. + +Peggy's own eyes brimmed over as she bent over Thomas's night-shirt. + + + + +CHAPTER XVI + +A LONG WAY + + +Lord Evelyn Urquhart dined with his nephew on the last evening in +February. It was a characteristic Urquhart dinner-party; the guests were +mostly cheerful, well-bred young people of high spirits and of the +worldly station that is not much concerned with any aspect of money but +the spending of it. High living, plain thinking, agreeable manners and +personal appearance, plenty of humour, enough ability to make a success +of the business of living and not enough to agitate the brain, a light +tread along a familiar and well-laid road, and a serene blindness to +side-tracks and alleys not familiar nor well-laid and to those that +walked thereon--these were the characteristics of the pleasant people +who frequented Denis Urquhart's pleasant house in Park Lane. + +Lucy was among them, small and pale, and rather silent, and intensely +alive. She, of course, was a native not of Park Lane but of Chelsea; and +the people who had frequented her home there were of a different sort. +They had had, mostly, a different kind of brain, a kind more restless and +troublesome and untidy, and a different type of wit, more pungent and +ironic, less well-fed and hilarious, and they were less well-dressed and +agreeable to look at, and had (perhaps) higher thoughts (though how shall +one measure height?) and ate (certainly) plainer food, for lack of +richer. These were the people Lucy knew. Her father himself had been of +these. She now found her tent pitched among the prosperous; and the study +of them touched her wide gaze with a new, pondering look. Denis hadn't +any use for cranks. None of his set were socialists, vegetarians, +Quakers, geniuses, anarchists, drunkards, poets, anti-breakfasters, or +anti-hatters; none of them, in fine, the sort of person Lucy was used to. +They never pawned their watches or walked down Bond Street in Norfolk +coats. They had, no doubt, their hobbies; but they were suitable, +well-bred hobbies, that did not obtrude vulgarly on other people's +notice. Peter had once said that if he were a plutocrat he would begin +to dream dreams. Lucy supposed that the seemingly undreaming people +who were Denis's friends were not rich enough; they hadn't reached +plutocracy, where romance resides, but merely prosperity, which has fewer +possibilities. Lucy began in these days to ponder on the exceeding evil +of Socialism, which the devil has put it into certain men's hearts to +desire. For, thought Lucy, sweep away the romantic rich, sweep away +the dreaming destitute, and what have you left? The prosperous; the +comfortable; the serenely satisfied; the sanely reasonable. Dives, with +his purple and fine linen, his sublime outlook over a world he may +possess at a touch, goes to his own place; Lazarus, with his wallet for +crusts and his place among the dogs and his sharp wonder at the world's +black heart, is gathered to his fathers: there remain the sanitary +dwellings of the comfortable, the monotonous external adequacy that +touches no man's inner needs, the lifeless rigour of a superintended +well-being. Decidedly, thought Lucy, siding with the Holy Roman Church, +a scheme of the devil's. Denis and his friends also thought it was rot. +So no doubt it was. Denis belonged to the Conservative party. Lucy +thought parties funny things, and laughed. Though she had of late taken +to wandering far into seas of thought, so that her wide forehead was +often puckered as she sat silent, she still laughed at the world. Perhaps +the more one thinks about it the more one laughs; the height and depth of +its humour are certainly unfathomable. + +On this last night of February, Lord Evelyn, when the other guests had +gone, put his unsteady white hand under Lucy's chin and raised her small +pale face and looked at it out of his near-sighted, scrutinising eyes, +and said: + +"Humph. You're thinner." + +Lucy's eyes laughed up at him. + +"Am I? I suppose I'm growing old." + +"You're worrying. What's it about?" asked Lord Evelyn. + +They were in the library. Lord Evelyn and Denis sat by the fire in +leather chairs and smoked, and Lucy sat on a hassock between them, her +chin in her hands. + +She was silent for a moment. Then she looked up at Denis, who was reading +Punch, and said, "I've had a letter from Peggy Margerison this morning." + +Denis gave a sound between a grunt and a chuckle. The grunt element was +presumably for Peggy Margerison, the chuckle for Punch. + +Lord Evelyn, tapping his eye-glass on the arm of his chair, said, "Well? +Well?" impatiently, nervously. + +Lucy drew a note from her pocket (she was never pocketless) and spread it +on her knees. It was a long letter on crinkly paper, written in a large, +dashing, sprawling hand, full of curls, generosities, extravagances. + +"She says," said Lucy, "(Please listen, Denis,) that--that they want +money." + +"I somehow thought that would be what she said," Denis murmured, still +half preoccupied. "I'm sure she's right." + +"A woman who writes a hand like that," put in Lord Evelyn, "will always +spend more than she has. A hole in the purse; a hole in the purse." + +"She says," went on Lucy, looking through the letter with wrinkled +forehead, "that they're all very hard-up indeed. Of course, I knew that; +I can see it whenever I go there; only Peter will never take more than +silly little clothes and things for Thomas. And now Peggy says they're in +great straits; Thomas is going to teethe or something, and wants better +milk, all from one cow, and they're all awfully in debt." + +"I should fancy that was chronic," remarked Denis, turning to Essence of +Parliament. + +"A hole in the purse, a hole in the purse," muttered Lord Evelyn, tapping +with his eye-glass. + +"Peggy says that Peter won't ask for help himself, but he's let her, +it seems. And their boarders are nearly all gone, one of them quite +suddenly, without paying a sixpence for all the time he was there." + +"I suppose he didn't think he'd had sixpence worth," said Denis. "He was +probably right." + +"And Thomas is still very delicate after his bronchitis, and Peter's got +a bad cold on the chest and wants more cough-mixture than they can afford +to buy; and they owe money to the butcher and the fishmonger and the +baker and the doctor and the tailor, and Hilary's lost his latest job and +isn't earning anything at all. So I suppose Peter is keeping the family." + +"Scamps; scamps all," muttered Lord Evelyn. "Deserve all they get, and +more. People like the Margerisons an't worth helping. They'd best go +under at once; best go under. Swindlers and scamps, the lot of them. +I daresay the woman's stories are half lies; of course, they want money, +but it's probably only to spend on nonsense. Why can't they keep +themselves, like decent people?" + +"Oh," said Lucy, dismissing that as absurd, "they can't. Of course they +can't. They never could ... Denis." + +"Lucy." Denis absently put out a hand to meet hers. + +"How much shall we give them, Denis?" + +Denis dropped Punch onto the floor, and lay back with his hands clasped +behind his fair head. Lucy, looking at his up-turned, foreshortened, +cleanly-modelled face, thought with half of her mind what a perfect +thing it was. Sudden aspects of Denis's beauty sometimes struck her +breathless, as they struck Peter. + +"The Margerison family wants money, I understand," said Denis, who hadn't +been listening attentively. + +"Very badly, Denis." + +Denis nodded. "They always do, of course.... Well, is it our business to +fill the bottomless Margerison purse?" + +Lucy sat very still, looking up at him with wide eyes. + +"Our business? I don't know. But, of course, if Peter and Peter's people +want anything, we shall give it them." + +"But I gather it's not Peter that asks? Peter never asks, does he?" + +"No," said Lucy. "Peter never asks. Not even for Thomas." + +"Well, I should be inclined to trust Peter rather than his charming +family. Peter's name seems to be dragged into that letter a good deal, +but it doesn't follow that Peter sanctioned it. I'm not going to annoy +Peter by sending him what he's never asked for. I should think probably +Peter knows they can get on all right as they are, and that this letter +must be taken with a good deal of salt. I expect the egregious Hilary +only wants the money for some new enterprise of his own, that will fail, +as usual. Anyhow, I really don't fancy having any further dealings with +Hilary Margerison or his wife; I've had enough there. He's the most +impossible cad and swindler." + +"Swindlers all, swindlers all," said Lord Evelyn, getting up and pacing +up and down the room, his hands behind his back. + +Lucy, after a moment, said simply, "I shall give them something, Denis. +I must. Don't you see? Whoever it was, I would. Because anyhow, they're +poor and we're rich, and they want things we can give them. It's so +obvious that when people ask one for things they must have them if one +can give them. And when it's Peter who's in want, and Peter's baby, and +Peter's people ..." + +"You see," said Denis, "I doubt about Peter or the baby benefiting by +anything we give them. It will all go down the drain where Hilary +Margerison's money flows away. Give it to Peter or give it to his +relations, it'll come to the same thing. Peter gives them every +penny he gets, I don't doubt. You know what Peter is; he's as weak as +a baby in his step-brother's hands; he lets himself be dragged into the +most disgraceful transactions because he can't say no." + +Lucy looked up at him, open-eyed, pale, quiet. + +"You think of Peter like that?" she said, and her voice trembled a +little. + +Lord Evelyn stopped in his walk and listened. + +"I'm sorry, Lucy," said Denis, throwing away his cigar-end. "I don't want +to say anything against Peter to you. But ... one must judge by facts, +you know. I don't mean that Peter means any harm; but, as I say, he's +weak. I'm fond of Peter, you know; I wish to goodness he wouldn't play +the fool as he does, mixing himself up with his precious relations and +helping them in their idiotic schemes for swindling money out of +people--but there it is; he will do it; and as long as he does it I don't +feel moved to have much to do with him. I should send him money if he +asked me personally, of course, even if I knew it would only go into his +brother's pocket; but I'm not going to do it at his sister-in-law's +command. If you ask me whether I feel inclined to help Hilary Margerison +and his wife, my answer is simply no I don't. They're merely scum; and +why should one have anything to do with scum?" + +Lucy looked at him silently for a while. Then she said slowly, "I see. +Yes, I see you wouldn't want to, of course. They _are_ scum. And you're +not. But I am, I think. I belong to the same sort of people they do. I +could swindle and cheat too, I expect. It's the people at the bottom who +do that. They're my relations, you see, not yours." + +"My dear Lucy, only Peter is your relation." + +"Peter and Thomas. And I count the rest too, because they're Peter's. So +let me do all that is to be done, Denis. Don't you bother. I'll take them +money." + +"Let them alone, Lucy. You'd better, you know. What's the good?" + +"I don't know," said Lucy. "None, I expect. None at all; because Peter +wouldn't take it from me without you." + +She came a little nearer him, and put her hand on his knee like a wistful +puppy. + +"Denis," she said, "I wish _you_ would. They know already that I care. +But I wish _you_ would. Peter'd like you to. He'd be more pleased than if +I did; much more. Peter cares for you and me and Thomas extraordinarily +much; and you can't compare carings, but the way he cares for you is the +most wonderful of all, I believe. If you went to him ... if you showed +him you cared ... he'd take it from you. He wouldn't take it from me +without you, because he'd suspect you weren't wanting him to have it. +Denis, won't you go to Peter, as you used to do long ago, before he was +in disgrace and poor, before he was scum? Can't you, Denis?" + +Denis had coloured faintly. He always did when people were emotional. +Lucy seldom was; she had a delicious morning freshness that was like the +cool wind on the hills in spring. + +"Peter never comes here, Lucy, does he. If he wanted to see me, I suppose +he would." + +Lucy was looking strangely at the beautiful face with the faint flush +rising in it. She apparently thought no reply necessary to his words, but +said again, "_Can't_ you, Denis? Or is it too hard, too much bother, too +much stepping out of the way?" + +"Oh, it's not the bother, of course. But ... but I really don't see +anything to be gained by it, that's the fact.... Our meetings, on the +last few occasions when we have met, haven't been particularly +comfortable. I don't think Peter likes them any better than I do.... One +can't force intercourse, Lucy; if it doesn't run easily and smoothly, it +had better be left alone. There have been things between us, between +Peter's family and my family, that can't be forgotten or put aside by +either of us, I suppose; and I don't think Peter wants to be reminded of +them by seeing me any more than I do by seeing him. It's--it's so beastly +uncomfortable, you know," he added boyishly, ruffling up his hair with +his hand; and concluded didactically, "People _must_ drift apart if their +ways lie in quite different spheres; it's inevitable." + +Denis, who had a boyish reticence, had expanded and explained himself +more than usual. + +Lucy's hand dropped from his knee on to her own. + +"I suppose it _is_ inevitable," she said, beneath her breath. "I +suppose the distance is too great. 'Tis such a long, long way from +here to there ... such a long, long way.... Good-night, Denis; I'm +going to bed." + +She got up slowly, cramped and tired and pale. It was not till she was +on her feet that she saw Lord Evelyn sitting in the background, and +remembered his presence. She had forgotten him; she had been thinking +only of Denis and Peter and herself. She didn't know if he had been +listening much; he sat quietly, nursing his knee, saying nothing. + +But when Lucy had gone he said to Denis, "You're right, Denis; you're +utterly right, not to have anything to do with those swindlers," and, as +if in a sudden fresh anger against them, he began again his quick, uneven +pacing down the room. + +"False through and through," he muttered. "False through and through." + +Lucy's face, as she had risen to her feet and said "Good night, Uncle +Evelyn," had been so like Peter's as he had last seen it, when Peter had +passed him in the doorway at Astleys, that it had taken his breath away. + + + + +CHAPTER XVII + +QUARRELS IN THE RAIN + + +In Brook Street the rain fell. It fell straight and disconsolate, +unutterably wet, splashing drearily on the paved street between the rows +of wet houses. It fell all day, from the dim dawn, through the murky +noon, to the dark evening, desolately weeping over a tired city. + +Inside number fifty-one, Peggy mended clothes and sang a little song, +with Thomas in her lap, and Peter, sitting in the window-seat, knitted +Thomas a sweater of Cambridge blue. Peter was getting rather good at +knitting. Hilary was there too, but not mending, or knitting, or singing; +he was coughing, and complaining of the climate. + +"I fancy it is going to be influenza," he observed at intervals, +shivering. "I feel extraordinarily weak, and ache all up my back. I fancy +I have a high temperature, only Peter has broken the thermometer. You +were a hundred and four, I think, Peter, the day you went to bed. I +rather expect I am a hundred and five. But I suppose I shall never know, +as it is impossible to afford another thermometer. I feel certain it is +influenza; and in that case I must give up all hope of getting that job +from Pickering, as I cannot possibly go and see him to-morrow. Not but +that it would be a detestable job, anyhow; but anything to keep our heads +above water.... My headache is now like a hot metal band all round my +head, Peggy." + +"Poor old boy," said Peggy. "Take some more phenacetine. And do go to +bed, Hilary. If you _have_ got flu, you'll only make yourself as bad as +Peter did by staying up too long. You've neither of you any more sense +than Tommy here, nor so much, by a long way, have they, little man? No, +Kitty, let him be; you'd only drop him on the floor if I let you, and +then he'd break, you know." + +Silvio was kneeling up on the window-seat by Peter's side, taking an +interest in the doings of the street. + +Peggy said, "Well, Larry, what's the news of the great world?" + +"It's raining," said Silvio, who had something of the mournful timbre of +Hilary's voice in his. + +Peggy said, "Oh, darling, be more interesting! I'm horribly afraid you're +going to grow up obvious, Larry, and that will never do. What else is it +doing?" + +"There's a cat in the rain," said Silvio, flattening his nose against the +blurred glass, and manifestly inclined to select the sadder aspects of +the world's news for retail. That tendency too, perhaps, he inherited +from Hilary. + +Presently he added, "There's a taxi coming up the street," and Peggy +placed Thomas on Peter's knees and came to the window to look. When she +had looked she said to Peter, "It must be nearly six o'clock" (the clock +gained seventeen minutes a day, so that the time was always a matter for +nicer calculation than Peggy could usually afford to give it); "and if +Hilary's got flu, I should think Tommy'd be best out of the room.... I +haven't easily the time to put him to bed this evening, really." + +Peter accepted the suggestion and conveyed his son from the room. As he +did so, someone knocked at the front door, and Peggy ran downstairs to +open it. + +She let in the unhappy noise of the rain and a tall, slim person in a fur +coat. + +Peggy was surprised, and (most rarely) a little embarrassed. It wasn't +the person she had looked for. She even, in her unwonted confusion, let +the visitor speak first. + +He said, "Is Mr. Peter Margerison in?" frostily, giving her no sign of +recognition. + +"He is not, Lord Evelyn," said Peggy, hastily. "That is, he is busy with +the baby upstairs. Will I take him a message?" + +"I shall be glad if you will tell him I have called to see him." + +"I will, Lord Evelyn. Will you come up to the drawing-room while I get +him?" + +Peggy led the way, drawing meanwhile on the resources of a picturesque +imagination. + +"He may be a little while before he can leave the baby, Lord Evelyn. Poor +mite, it's starved with hunger, the way it cries and cries and won't +leave off, and Peter has to cheer it." + +Lord Evelyn grunted. The steep stairs made him a little short of breath, +and not sympathetic. + +"And even," went on Peggy, stopping outside the drawing-room door, +"even when it does get a feed of milk, it's to-day from one kind of cow, +to-morrow from another. Why, you'd think all the cows in England, turn +and turn about, supplied that poor child with milk; and you know they get +pains from changing. It's not right, poor baby; but what can we and his +father do? The same with his scraps of clothes--this weather he'd a right +to be having new warm ones--but there he lies crying for the cold in his +little thin out-grown things; it brings the tears to one's eyes to see +him. And he's not the only one, either. His father's just out of an +illness, and keeps a cough on the chest because he can't afford a warm +waistcoat or the only cough-mixture that cures him.... But Peter +wouldn't like me to be telling you all this. Will you go in there, +Lord Evelyn, and wait?" + +She paused another moment, her hand on the handle. + +"You'll not tell Peter I told you anything. He'd not be pleased. He'll +not breathe a word to you of it himself--indeed, he'll probably say it's +not so." + +Lord Evelyn made no comment; he merely tapped his cane on the floor; he +seemed impatient to have the door opened. + +"And," added Peggy, "if ever you chanced to be offering him anything--I +mean, you might be for giving him a birthday present, or a Xmas present +or something sometime--you'd do best to put it as a gift to the baby, or +he'll never take it." + +Having concluded her diplomacy, she opened the door and ushered him into +the room, where Hilary sat with his headache and the children played +noisily at horses. + +"Lord Evelyn Urquhart come to see Peter," called Peggy into the room. +"Come along out of that, children, and keep yourselves quiet somewhere." + +She bundled them out and shut the door on Lord Evelyn and Hilary. + +Hilary rose dizzily to his feet and bowed. Lord Evelyn returned the +courtesy distantly, and stood by the door, as far as possible from his +host. + +"This is good of you," said Hilary, "to come and see us in our fallen +estate. Do sit down." + +Lord Evelyn, putting his glass into his eye and turning it upon Hilary as +if in astonishment at his impertinence in addressing him, said curtly, "I +came to see your half-brother. I had not the least intention, nor the +least desire, to see anyone else whatever; nor have I now." + +"Quite so," said Hilary, his teeth chattering with fever. (His +temperature, though he would never know, as Peter had broken the +thermometer, must be anyhow a hundred and three, he was sure.) "Quite +so. But that doesn't affect my gratitude to you. Peter's friends are +mine. I must thank you for remembering Peter." + +Lord Evelyn, presumably not seeing the necessity, was silent. + +"We have not met," Hilary went on, passing his hot hand over his fevered +brow, where the headache ran all round like a hot metal band, "for a very +long time, Lord Evelyn; if we put aside that momentary encounter at +Astleys last year." Hilary did put that aside, rather hastily, and went +on, "Apart from that, we have not met since we were both in Venice, +nearly two years ago. Lord Evelyn, I have often wished to tell you +how very deeply I have regretted certain events that came between us +there. I think there is a great deal that I might explain to you...." + +Lord Evelyn, with averted face, said, "Be good enough to be silent, sir. +I have no desire to hear any of your remarks. I have come merely to see +your half-brother." + +"Of course," said Hilary, who was sensitive, "if you take that line, +there is nothing to be said between you and me." + +Lord Evelyn acknowledged this admission with a slight inclination of the +head. + +"Nothing whatever, sir." + +So there was silence, till Peter came in, pale and sickly and +influenzaish, but with a smile for Lord Evelyn. It was extraordinarily +nice of Lord Evelyn, he thought, to have come all the way to Brook Street +in the rain to see him. + +Lord Evelyn looked at him queerly, intently, out of his short-sighted +eyes as they shook hands. + +"I wish to talk to you," he remarked, with meaning. + +Hilary took the hint, looked proud, said, "I see that my room is +preferred to my company," and went away. + +When he had gone, Peter said, "Do sit down," but Lord Evelyn took no +notice of that. He had come to see Peter in his need, but he had not +forgiven him, and he would remain standing in his house. Peter had once +hurt him so badly that the mere sight of him quickened his breath and +flushed his cheek. He tapped his cane impatiently against his grey spats. + +"You're ill," he said, accusingly. + +"Oh, I've only had flu," said Peter; "I'm all right now." + +"You're ill," Lord Evelyn repeated. "Don't contradict me, sir. You're +ill; you're in want; and you're bringing up a baby on insufficient diet. +What?" + +"Not a bit," said Peter. "I am not in want, nor is Thomas. Thomas' diet +is so sufficient that I'm often afraid he'll burst with it." + +Lord Evelyn said, "You're probably lying. But if you're not, why d'ye +countenance your sister-in-law's begging letters? You're a hypocrite, +sir. But that's nothing I didn't know before, you may say. Well, you're +right there." + +Lord Evelyn's anger was working up. He hadn't known it would be so +difficult to talk to Peter and remain calm. + +"You want to make a fool of me again," he broke out, "so you join in a +lying letter and bring me here on false pretences. At least, I suppose it +was really Lucy you thought to bring. You play on Lucy's soft heart, +knowing you can squeeze money out of her--and so you can afford to say +you've no use for mine. Is that it?" + +Peter said, dully looking at his anger as at an ancient play re-staged, +"I don't know what you're talking about. I know nothing of any letter. +And you don't suppose I should take your money, or Lucy's either. Why +should I? I don't want money." + +Lord Evelyn was pacing petulantly up and down the shabby carpet, waving +his cane as he walked. + +"Oh, you know nothing of any letter, don't you. Well, ask your +sister-in-law, then; ask that precious brother of yours. Haven't you +always chosen to hang on to them and join in their dirty tricks? And +now you turn round and say you know nothing of their doings; a pretty +story.... Now look here, Mr. Peter Margerison, you've asked for money +and you shall take it, d'ye see?" + +Peter flung at him, in a queer and quite new hot bitterness and anger (it +was perhaps the result of influenza, which has strange after effects). +"You've no right to come here and say these things to me. I didn't want +you to come; I never asked you to; and now I never want to see you again. +Please go, Lord Evelyn." + +Lord Evelyn paused in his walk, and stood looking at him for a moment, +his lips parted to speak, his hands clasped behind him over the gold head +of his cane. + +Then, into the ensuing silence, came Lucy, small and pale and wet in her +grey furs, and stood like a startled kitten, her wide eyes turning from +one angry face to the other. + +Peter said to her, in a voice she had never heard from him before, "So +you've come too." + +Lord Evelyn tittered disagreeably. "Didn't expect her, of course, did +you. So unlikely she'd come, after getting a letter like that.... I +suppose you're wondering, Lucy, what I'm doing _dans cette galère_." + +"No," said Lucy, "I wasn't. I know. You've come to see Peter, like me." + +He laughed again. "Yes, that's it. Like you. And now he pretends he won't +take the money he asked for, Lucy. Won't be beholden to me at any price. +Perhaps he was waiting for you." + +Lucy was looking at Peter, who looked so ill and so strange and new. +Never before had he looked at her like that, with hard eyes. Peter was +angry; the skies had fallen. + +She said, and put out her hands to him, "What's the matter, Peter? +Don't ... don't look like that.... Oh, you're ill; do sit down; it's +so stupid to stand about." + +Peter said, his own hands hanging at his sides, "Do you mind going away, +both of you. I don't think I want to talk to either of you to-day.... I +suppose you've brought money to give me too, Lucy, have you?" + +Lucy coloured faintly over her small pale face. + +"I won't give you anything you don't like, Peter. But I may give a +present to Thomas, mayn't I?" + +"No," said Peter, without interest or emotion. + +So they stood in silence for a moment, facing each other, Lucy +full-handed and impotent before Peter whose empty hands hung closed and +unreceiving; Lucy and Peter, who had once been used to go shares and to +give and take like two children, and who could give and take no more; and +in the silence something oddly vibrated, so that Lord Evelyn, the +onlooker, abruptly moved and spoke. + +"Come home, Lucy. He's told us he'll have none of us." + +Lucy still stood pleading, like a child; then, at Lord Evelyn's touch +on her arm, she suddenly began to cry, again like a child, helpless and +conquered. + +At her tears Peter turned away sharply, and walked to the window. + +"Please go," he said. "Please go." + +They went, Lucy quietly crying, and Lord Evelyn, suddenly become oddly +gentle, comforting her. + +At the door he paused for a moment, looked round at Peter, hesitated, +took a step back towards him, began to say something. + +"Peter...." + +Then Peggy came in, followed by Hilary. Lord Evelyn shut his lips +lightly, bowed, and followed Lucy downstairs. Peggy went after them +to let them out. + +Hilary flung himself into a chair. + +"Well, Peter? Well?" + +Peter turned round from the window, and Hilary started at his face. + +"My dear boy, what on earth is the matter?" + +Then Peggy came in, her eyes full of dismayed vexation, but laughter +twitching at her lips. + +"Oh, my dears! What a mood they're in! Lord Evelyn looked at me to +destroy me--and Lucy crying as if she'd never stop; I tried to make her +take some sal volatile, but he wouldn't let her, but wisked her into her +carriage and shut the door in my face. Mercy, what temper!" + +The last words may not have had exclusive reference to Lord Evelyn, as +Peggy was now looking at Peter in some astonishment and alarm. When +Peter looked angry, everyone was so surprised that they wanted to take +his temperature and send him to bed. Peggy would have liked to do that +now, but really didn't dare. + +What had come to the child, she wondered? + +"What did they talk about, Peter? A funny thing their coming within half +an hour of each other like that, wasn't it. And I never thought to see +Lord Evelyn here, I must say. Now I wonder why was Lucy crying and he so +cross?" + +Peter left her to wonder that, and said merely, "Once for all, I won't +have it. You shall _not_ beg for money and bring my name into it. +It's--it's horrid." + +With a weak, childish word his anger seemed to explode and die away. +After all, no anger of Peter's could last long. And somehow, illogically, +his anger here was more with the Urquharts than with the Margerisons +and most with Lucy. One is, of course, most angry, with those who have +most power to hurt. + +Suddenly feeling rather ill, Peter collapsed into a chair. + +Peggy, coming and kneeling by him, half comforting, half reproaching, +said, "Oh, Peter darling, you haven't been refusing money, when you know +you and Tommy and all of us need it so much?" + +Hilary said, "Peter has no regard whatever for what we all need. He +simply doesn't care. I suppose now we shall never be able to afford even +a new thermometer to replace the one Peter broke. Again, why should +it matter to Peter? He took his own temperature all through his illness, +and I suppose that is all he cares about. I wonder how much fever I have +at this moment. Is my pulse very wild, Peggy?" + +"It is not," said Peggy, soothingly, without feeling it. "And I daresay +Peter's temperature is as high as yours now, if we knew; he looks like +it. Well, Peter, it was stupid of you, my dear, wasn't it, to say no to +a present and hurt their feelings that way when they'd been so good as +to come in the rain and all. If they offer it again--" + +Peter said, "They won't. They won't come here again, ever. They've done +with us, I'm glad to say, and we with them. So you needn't write to them +again; it will be no use." + +Peter was certainly cross, Peggy and Hilary looked at him in surprised +disapproval. How silly. Where was the use of having friends if one +treated them in this unkind, proud way? + +"Peter," said Hilary, "has obviously decided that we are not fit to have +anything to do with his grand friends. No doubt he is well-advised--" he +looked bitterly round the unkempt room--"and we will certainly take the +hint." + +Then Peter recovered himself and said, "Oh don't be an ass, Hilary," and +laughed dejectedly, and went up to finish putting Thomas to bed. + +In the carriage that rolled through the rain from Brook Street to Park +Lane, Lord Evelyn Urquhart was saying, "This is the last time; the very +last time. Never again do I try to help any Margerison. First I had to +listen for full five minutes to the lies of that woman; then to the +insufferable remarks of that cad, that swindler, Hilary Margerison, who +I firmly believe had an infectious disease which I have no doubt caught," +(he was right; he had caught it). "Then in comes Peter and insults me to +my face and tells me to clear out of the house. By all means; I have done +so, and it will be for good. What, Lucy? There, don't cry, child; they +an't worth a tear between the lot of 'em." + +But Lucy cried. She, like Peter, was oddly not herself to-day, and cried +and cried. + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII + +THE BREAKING-POINT + + +The boarding-house suddenly ceased to be. Its long illness ended in +natural death. There was a growing feeling among the boarders that no +self-respecting person could remain with people whose financial affairs +were in the precarious condition of the Margerisons'--people who couldn't +pay the butcher, and lived on ill-founded expectations of subsidies. As +two years ago the Margerisons had been thrown roughly out of the +profession of artistic experts, so now the doors of the boarding-house +world were shut upon them. Boarders are like that; intensely respectable. + +All the loosed dogs of ill-fortune seemed to be yelping at the +Margerisons' heels at once. Hilary, when he recovered from his influenza +and went out to look for jobs, couldn't find one. Again and again he was +curtly refused employment, by editors and others. Every night he came +home a little more bitter than the day before. Peter too, while he lay +mending of his breakages, received a letter from the place of business he +adorned informing him that it would not trouble him further. He had never +been much use to it; he had been taken on at Leslie's request and given a +trial; but it could not last for ever, as Peter fair-mindedly admitted. + +"Well," he commented, "I suppose one must do something else, eventually. +But I shall put off reflecting on that till I can move about more +easily." + +Hilary said, "We are being hounded out of London as we were hounded out +of Venice. It is unbearable. What remains?" + +"Nothing, that I can see at the moment," said Peter, laughing weakly. + +"Ireland," said Peggy suddenly. "Let's go there. Dublin's worth a dozen +of this hideous old black dirty place. You could get work on 'The +Nationalist,' Hilary, I do believe, for the sub-editorship's just been +given to my cousin Larry Callaghan. Come along to the poor old country, +and we'll try our luck again." + +"Dublin I believe to be an unspeakable place to live in," said Hilary, +but mainly from habit. "Still, I presume one must live somewhere, so ..." + +He turned to Peter. "Where shall you and Thomas live?" + +Peter flushed slightly. He had supposed that he and Thomas were also to +live in the unspeakable Dublin. + +"Oh, we haven't quite made up our minds. I must consult Thomas about it." + +"But," broke in Peggy, "of course you're coming with us, my dear. What do +you mean? You're not surely going to desert us now, Peter?" + +Peter glanced at Hilary. Hilary said, pushing his hair, with his restless +gesture, from his forehead, "Really, Peggy, we can't drag Peter about +after us all our lives; it's hardly fair on him to involve him in all +our disasters, when he has more than enough of his own." + +"Indeed and he has. Peter's mischancier than you are, Hilary, on the +whole, and I will not leave him and Tommy to get lost or broken by +themselves. Don't be so silly, Peter; of course you're coming with us." + +"I think," said Peter, "that Thomas and I will perhaps stay in London. +You see, _I_ can't, probably, get work on 'The Nationalist' and it's +doubtful what I could do in Dublin. I suppose I can get work of a sort +in London; enough to provide Thomas with milk, though possibly not all +from one cow." + +"I daresay. And who'd look after the mite, I'd like to know, while you're +earning his milk?" + +"Oh, the landlady, I should think. Everyone likes Thomas; he's remarkably +popular." + +Afterwards Hilary said to Peggy, "Really, Peggy, I see no reason why +Peter should be dragged about with us in the future. The joint _ménage_ +has not, in the past, been such a success that we need want to perpetuate +it. In fact, though, of course, it is pleasant to have Peter in the +house...." + +"Indeed it is, the darling," put in Peggy. + +"One can't deny that disasters have come upon us extraordinarily fast +since he came to live with us in Venice two years ago. First he +discovered things that annoyed him in my private affairs, which was +extremely disagreeable for all of us, and really he was rather +unnecessarily officious about that; in fact, I consider that it was owing +largely to the line he took that things reached their final very trying +_dénouement_. Since then disaster upon disaster has come upon us; Peter's +unfortunate marriage, and consequent serious expenses, including the +child now left upon his hands (really, you know, that was an exceedingly +stupid step that Peter took; I tried to dissuade him at the time, but of +course it was no use). And he is so very frequently ill; so am I, you +will say"--(Peggy didn't, because Hilary wasn't, as a matter of fact, ill +quite so often as he believed)--"but two crocks in a household are twice +as inconvenient as one. And now there has been this unpleasant jar with +the Urquharts. Peter, by his rudeness to them, has finally severed the +connection, and we can hope for nothing from that quarter in future. And +I am not sure that I choose to have living with me a much younger brother +who has influential friends of his own in whom he insists that we shall +have neither part nor lot. I strongly object to the way Peter spoke to us +on that occasion; it was extremely offensive." + +"Oh, don't be such a goose, Hilary. The boy only lost his temper for a +moment, and I'm sure that happens seldom enough. And as to the rest of +it, I don't like the way you speak of him, as if he was the cause of our +mischances, and as if his being so mischancey himself wasn't a reason why +we should all stick together, and him with that scrap of a child, too; +though I will say Peter's a handier creature with a child than anyone +would think. I suppose it's the practice he's had handling other costly +things that break easy.... Well, have it your own way, Hilary. Only mind, +if Peter _wants_ to come with us, he surely shall. I'm not going to leave +him behind like a left kitten. And I'd love to have him, for he makes +sunshine in the house when things are blackest." + +"Lately Peter has appeared to me to be rather depressed," said Hilary, +and Peggy too had perceived that this was so. It was something so new in +Peter that it called for notice. + +There was needed no further dispute between Peggy and Hilary, for Peter +said that he and Thomas preferred to stay in London. + +"I can probably find a job of some sort to keep us. I might with luck +get a place as shop-walker. That always looks a glorious life. You merely +walk about and say, 'Yes, madam? This way for hose, madam.' Something +to live on and nothing to do, as the poet says. But I expect they are +difficult places to get, without previous experience. Short of that, +I could be one of the men round stations that open people's cab doors +and take the luggage out; or even a bus-conductor, who knows? Oh, +there are lots of openings. But in Dublin I feel my talents might be +lost.... Thomas and I will move into more modest apartments, and go in +for plain living and high thinking." + +"You poor little dears," said Peggy, and kissed both of them. "Well, +it'll be plain living for the lot of us, that's obvious, and lucky too +to get that.... I'd love to have you two children with us, but ..." + +But Peter, to whom other people's minds were as books that who runs may +read, had no intention of coming with them. That faculty of intuition of +Peter's had drawbacks as well as advantages. He knew, as well as if +Hilary had said so, that Hilary considered their life together a +disastrous series of mishaps, largely owing to Peter, and that he did not +desire to continue it. He knew precisely what was Denis Urquhart's point +of view and state of feelings towards himself and his family, and how +unbridgeable that gulf was. He knew why Lucy was stopping away, and +would stop away (for if other people's thoughts were to him as pebbles in +running water, hers were pebbles seen white and lucid in a still, clear +pool). And he knew very well that he relieved Peggy's kind heart when he +said he and Thomas would stop in London; for to Peggy anything was better +than to worry her poor old Hilary more than need be. + +So, before March was out, about St. Cuthbert's day, in fact, Hilary +Margerison and his family left England for a more distressful country, +to seek their fortunes fresh, and Peter and his family sought modest +apartments in a little street behind St. Austin's Church, where the +apartments are very modest indeed. + +"Are they too modest for you, Thomas?" Peter asked dubiously. "And do you +too much hate the Girl?" + +The Girl was the landlady's daughter, and undertook for a small +consideration to look after Thomas while Peter was out, and feed him at +suitable intervals. Thomas and Peter did rather hate her, for she was a +slatternly girl, matching her mother and her mother's apartments, and +didn't always take her curlers off till the evening, and said "Boo" to +Thomas, merely because he was young--a detestable habit, Peter and +Thomas considered. Peter had to make a great deal of sensible +conversation to Thomas, to make up. + +"I'm sorry," Peter apologised, "but, you see, Thomas, it's all we can +afford. You don't earn anything at all, and I only earn a pound a week, +which is barely enough to keep you in drink. I don't deserve even that, +for I don't address envelopes well; but I suppose they know it's such a +detestable job that they haven't the face to give me less." + +Peter was addressing envelopes because a Robinson relative had given him +the job, and he hadn't the nerve to refuse it. He couldn't well refuse +it, because of Thomas. Uncompanioned by Thomas he would probably have +chosen instead to sweep a crossing or play a barrel-organ, or stand at +a street corner with outstretched hat (though this last would only have +done for a summer engagement, as Peter didn't like the winds that play +round street corners in winter). But Thomas was very much there, and had +to be provided for; so Peter copied letters and addressed envelopes and +earned twenty shillings weekly, and out of it paid for Thomas's drink and +Thomas's Girl and his own food, and beds and a sitting-room and fires +and laundry for both, and occasional luxuries in the way of wooden +animals for Thomas to play with. So they were not extremely poor; they +were respectably well-to-do. For Thomas's sake, Peter supposed it was +worth while not to be extremely poor, even though it meant addressing +envelopes and living in a great grey prison-house of a city, where one +only surmised the first early pushings of the spring beyond the +encompassing gloom. + +Peter used to tell Thomas about that, in order that he might know +something of the joyous world beyond the walls. He told Thomas in March, +taking time by the forelock, about the early violets that were going some +time to open blue eyes in the ditches by the roads where the spring winds +walk; about the blackthorn that would suddenly make a white glory of the +woods; about the green, sticky budding of the larches, and the keen sweet +smell of them, and the damp fragrance of the roaming wind that would blow +over river-flooded fields, smelling of bonfires and wet earth. He took +him through the seasons, telling him of the blown golden armies of the +daffodils that marched out for Easter, and the fragrant white glory of +the may; and the pale pink stars of the hedge-roses, and the yellow joy +of buttercup fields wherein cows stand knee-deep and munch, in order to +give Thomas sweet white milk. + +"Ugh," said Thomas, making a face, and Peter answered, "Yes, I know; +sometimes they come upon an onion-flower and eat that, and that's not +nice, of course. But mostly it's grass and buttercups and clover." Then +he told him of hot July roads, where the soft white dust lies, while the +horses and the cows stand up to their middles in cool streams beneath the +willows and switch their tails, and the earth dreams through the year's +hot noon; and of August, the world's welfare and the earth's warming-pan, +and how, in the fayre rivers, swimming is a sweet exercise. "And my +birthday comes then. Oh, 'tis the merry time, wherein honest neighbours +make good cheer, and God is glorified in his blessings on the earth. +Then cometh September, Thomas"--Peter was half talking, half reading out +of a book he had got to amuse Thomas--"then cometh September, and then he +(that's you, Thomas) doth freshly beginne to garnish his house and make +provision of needfull things for to live in winter, which draweth very +nere.... There are a few nice things in September; ripe plums and pears +and nuts--(no, nuts aren't nice, because our teeth aren't good, are they; +at least mine aren't, and you've only got one and a half); but anyhow, +plums, and a certain amount of yellow sunshine, and Thomas's birthday. +But on the whole it's too near the end of things; and in briefe, I thus +conclude of it, I hold it the Winter's forewarning and the Summer's +farewell. Adieu.... We won't pursue the year further, my dear; the rest +is silence and impenetrable gloom, anyhow in this corner of the world, +and doesn't bear thinking about." + +Thus did Peter talk to Thomas of an evening, when they sat together after +tea over the fire. + +Sometimes he told him news of the world of men. One evening he said to +him, very gently and pitifully, "Dear old man, your mother's dead. For +her sake, one's glad, I suppose. You and I must try to look at it from +her point of view. She's escaped from a poor business. Some day I'll read +you the letter she wrote to you and me as she lay dying; but not yet, for +I never read you sad things, do I? But some day you may be glad to know +that she had thoughts for you at the last. She was sorry she left us, +Thomas; horribly, dreadfully sorry.... I wish she hadn't been. I wish +she could have gone on being happy till the end. It was my fault that she +did it, and it didn't even make her happy. And I suppose it killed her at +the last; or would she anyhow have escaped that way before long? But I +took more care of her than he did.... And now she'll never come back to +us. I've thought sometimes, Thomas, that perhaps she would; that perhaps +she would get tired of him, so tired that she would leave him and come +back to us, and then you'd have had a mother to do for you instead of +only me and the Girl. Poor little Thomas; you'll never have a mother now. +I'm sorry, sorry, sorry about it. Sorry for you, and sorry for her, and +sorry for all of us. It's a pitiful world, Thomas, it seems. I wonder how +you're going to get through it." + +Never before had he talked to Thomas like that. He had been used to speak +to him of new-burnisht joys and a world of treasure. But of late Peter +had been conscious of increasing effort in being cheerful before Thomas. +It was as if the little too much that breaks had been laid upon him and +under it he was breaking. For the first time he was seeing the world not +as a glorious treasure-place full of glad things for touch and sight and +hearing, full of delightful people and absurd jokes, but as a grey and +lonely sea through which one drifted rudderless towards a lee shore. He +supposed that there was, somewhere, a lee shore; a place where the winds, +having blown their uttermost, ceased to blow, and where wrecked things +were cast up at last broken beyond all mending and beyond all struggling, +to find the peace of the utterly lost. He had not got there yet; he and +his broken boat were struggling in the grey cold waters, which had swept +all his cargo from him, bale by bale. From him that hath not shall indeed +be taken away even that which he hath. + +It was Thomas who caused Peter to think of these things newly; Thomas, +who was starting life with so poor a heritage. For Thomas, so like +himself, Peter foresaw the same progressive wreckage. Thomas too, having +already lost a mother, would lose later all he loved; he would give to +some friend all he was and had, and the friend would drop him in the mud +and leave him there, and the cold bitterness as of death would go over +Thomas's head. He would, perhaps, love a woman too, and the woman would +leave him quite alone, not coming near him in his desolation, because he +loved her. He would also lose his honour, his profession, and the +beautiful things he loved to handle and play with. "And then, when you've +lost everything, and perhaps been involved in some of my disgraces, +you'll think that at least you and I can stick together and go under +together and help each other a little. And I daresay you'll find that +I shall say, 'No, I'm going off to Ireland, or Italy, or somewhere; I've +had enough of you, and you can jolly well sink or swim by yourself'--so +you see you won't have even me to live for in the end, just when you want +me most. That's the sort of thing that happens.... Oh, what chance have +you?" said Peter very bitterly, huddled, elbows on knees, over the chilly +fire, while Thomas slumbered in a shawl on the rug. + +Bitterness was so strange in Peter, so odd and new, that Thomas was +disturbed by it, and woke and wailed, as if his world was tumbling about +his ears. + +Peter too felt it strange and new, and laughed a little at it and himself +as he comforted Thomas. But his very laughter was new and very dreary. He +picked Thomas up in his arms and held him close, a warm little whimpering +bundle. Then it was as if the touch of the small live thing that was his +own and had no one in the world but him to fend for it woke in him a new +instinct. There sprang up in him swiftly, new-born out of the travail of +great bitterness, a sharp anger against life, against fate, against the +whole universe of nature and man. To lose and lose and lose--how that +goes on and on through a lifetime! But at last it seems that the limit is +reached, something snaps and breaks, and the loser rises up, philosopher +no more, to take and grasp and seize. The lust to possess, to wring +something for Thomas and himself out of life that had torn from them so +much--it sprang upon him like a wild beast, and fastened deep fangs into +his soul and will. + +Outside, a small April wind stirred the air of the encompassing city, a +faint breath from a better world, seeming to speak of life and hope and +new beginnings. + +Peter, laying Thomas gently on a chair, went to the open window and leant +out, looking into the veil of the unhappy streets that hid an exquisite +world. Exquisiteness was surely there, as always. Mightn't he too, he and +Thomas, snatch some of it for themselves? The old inborn lust for things +concrete, lovely things to handle and hold, caught Peter by the throat. +In that hour he could have walked without a scruple into an empty house +or shop and carried away what he could of its beauties, and brought them +home to Thomas, saying, "Anyhow, here's something for us to go on with." +He was in the mood in which some people take to drink, only Peter didn't +like any drinks except non-alcoholic ones; or to reckless gambling, only +he didn't find gambling amusing; or to some adventure of love, only to +Peter love meant one thing only, and that was beyond his reach. + +But when he had put Thomas to bed, in his little common cheap night-shirt, +he went out into the streets with his weekly earnings in his pockets and +spent them. He spent every penny he had. First he went to a florist's and +bought daffodils, in great golden sheaves. Then he went to a toyshop and +got a splendid family of fluffy beasts, and a musical box, and a Noah's +Ark, and a flute. He had spent all his money by then, so he pawned his +watch and signet ring and bought Thomas some pretty cambric clothes and +a rocking cradle. He had nothing else much to pawn. But he badly wanted +some Japanese paintings to put in the place of the pictures that at +present adorned the sitting-room. Thomas and he must have something nice +and gay to look at, instead of the Royal Family and the Monarch of the +Glen and "Grace Sufficient" worked in crewels. So he went into a shop in +Holborn and chose some paintings, and ordered them to be sent up, and +said, "Please enter them to me," so firmly that they did. Having done +that once, he repeated it at several other shops, and sometimes they +obeyed him and sometimes said that goods could not be sent up without +pre-payment. Pre-payment (or, indeed, as far as Peter could look forward, +post-payment) being out of the question, those goods had to be left where +they were. But Peter, though handicapped by shabby attire, had an +engaging way with him, and most shopmen are trustful and obliging. If +they lost by the transaction, thought Peter recklessly, it was their turn +to lose, not his. It was his turn to acquire, and he had every intention +of doing so. He had a glorious evening, till the shops shut. Then he went +home, and found that the daffodils had come, and he filled the room with +them, converting its dingy ugliness into a shining glory. Then he took +down all the horrible pictures and texts and stacked them behind the +sofa, awaiting the arrival of the Japanese paintings. He thought Thomas +would like the paintings as much as he did himself. Their room in future +should be a bright and pleasant place, fit for human beings to live in. +He cleared the chimney-piece of its horrid, tinkling ornaments to leave +space for his brown pottery jars full of daffodils. He put the ornaments +with the pictures behind the sofa, and when the Girl came in with his +supper requested her at her leisure to remove them. + +"I have been getting some new pictures, you see," he told her, and was +annoyed at the way her round eyes widened. Why shouldn't he get as many +new pictures as he chose, without being gaped at? + +There was more gaping next day, when his purchases were sent up. He had +warned his landlady and the Girl beforehand, that they might not tell the +messengers it must be a mistake and send them away, on what would, no +doubt be their stupid and impertinent impulse. So they gaped and took +them in, and Peter hurried back early from his work and fetched Thomas +in to watch him open parcels and admire the contents. He spread bright +rugs over the horse-hair sofa and chairs, and flung big soft cushions +about them, and said "Hurrah! The first time I've been really comfortable +since I left Cambridge." Then he bathed Thomas and put him into a new +little soft cambric night-shirt, and put him to bed in the rocking-cradle. +Thomas was delighted with it all. He had no doubt inherited Peter's +love of all things bright and beautiful, and now for the first time he +had them. + +"That's more the style, isn't it, old man?" said Peter, stretching +himself among cushions in the arm-chair. Thomas agreed that it was, and +the two epicureans took their ease among the pleasures of the senses. + +"What next?" Peter wondered. "We must have more things still, mustn't we? +Nice things of all sorts; not only the ones we can buy. But we must begin +with the ones we can buy.... Mrs. Baker will have to wait for her rent +for a time; I can't spare any for that.... I've a good mind, Thomas, to +take a whole holiday; a long one. Chuck the envelopes and take to living +like a lord, on tick. It's wonderful how far tick will carry you, if you +try. Muffins for tea, you see, Thomas, only you can't have any. Well, +what's the matter? Why shouldn't I have muffins for tea? You've got +milk, haven't you, and I'm not getting a share in that. Don't be +grudging.... But we want more than muffins and milk, Thomas; and more +than cushions and daffodils and nice pictures. We want a good time. We +want friends; we want someone to love us; we want a holiday. If Leslie +was in England I'd go and say, 'Thomas and I are coming to stay with you +for a time, and you've just got to fork out supplies for us and let us +spend them.' Leslie would do it, too. But people are always away when +one wants them most.... Oh, hang it all, Thomas, I'm not going on with +those horrible envelopes; I'm not. I'm going to do things I like. Why +shouldn't I? Why _shouldn't_ I? Lots of people do; all the best people. +I shall give notice to-morrow. No, I shan't; I shall just not turn up, +then I shan't be bothered with questions.... And we're not going on with +the friends we have here--Mrs. Baker, and the Girl, and the other +envelope-gummers. No; we're going to insist on having nice amusing +friends to play with; friends who are nicer than we are. The Girl isn't +so nice, not by a long way. Rodney is; but he's too busy to be bothered +with us much. We want friends of leisure. We will have them; we _will_. +Why should we be chucked out and left outside people's doors, just +because they're tired of us? The thing that matters is that we're not +tired of them.... To-morrow, Thomas, you and I are going down to a place +called Astleys, in Berkshire, to visit some friends of ours. If they +don't want us, they can just lump us; good for them. Why should they +always have only the things they want? Be ready at nine, old man, and +we'll catch a train as soon after that as may be." + +Thomas laughed, thinking it a splendid plan. He had never seen Astleys in +Berkshire, but he knew it to be a good place, from Peter's voice when he +mentioned it. + +"But I don't want to excite you so late at night," said Peter, "so don't +think any more about it, but go to sleep, if you've finished that milk. +Does your head ache? Mine does. That's the worst of weak heads; they +always ache just when things are getting interesting. But I don't care; +we're going to have things--things to like; we're going to get hold of +them somehow, if we die in gaol for it; and that's worth a headache or +two. Someone says something about having nothing and yet possessing all +things; it's one of the things with no meaning that people do say, and +that make me so angry. It ought to be having nothing and _then_ +possessing all things; because that's the way it's going to be with us. +Good night, Thomas; you may go to sleep now." + +Thomas did so; and Peter lay on the sofa and gazed at the daffodils in +the brown jars that filled the room with light. + + + + +CHAPTER XIX + +THE NEW LIFE + + +Peter, with Thomas over his shoulder, stepped out of the little station +into a radiant April world. Between green, budding hedges, between +ditches where blue violets and joyous-eyed primroses peered up out of wet +grass, a brown road ran, gleaming with puddles that glinted up at the +blue sky and the white clouds that raced before a merry wind. + +Peter said, "Do you like it, old man? Do you?" but Thomas's heart was too +full for speech. He was seeing the radiant wonderland he had heard of; it +crowded upon him, a vivid, many-splendoured thing, and took his breath +away. There were golden ducklings by the grassy roadside, and lambs +crying to him from the fields, and cows, eating (one hoped) sweet grass, +with their little calves beside them. A glorious scene. The gay wind +caught Peter by the throat and brought sudden tears to his eyes, so long +used to looking on grey streets. + +He climbed over a stile in the hedge and took a field path that ran up to +a wood--the wood way, as he remembered, to Astleys. Peter had stayed at +Astleys more than once in old days, with Denis. He remembered the keen, +damp fragrance of the wood in April; the smooth stems of the beeches, +standing up out of the mossy ground, and the way the primroses glimmered, +moon-like, among the tangled ground-ivy; and the way the birds made every +budding bough rock with their clamorous delight. It was a happy wood, +full of small creatures and eager happenings and adventurous quests; +a fit road to take questers after happiness to their goal. In itself it +seemed almost the goal already, so alive was it and full of joy. Was +there need to travel further? Very vividly the impression was borne in on +Peter (possibly on Thomas too) that there was no need; that here, perhaps +round the next twist of the little brown path, was not the way but the +achievement. + +And, rounding the next bend, they knew it to be so; for above the path, +sitting at a beech-tree's foot among creeping ivy, with head thrown back +against the smooth grey stem, and gathered primroses in either hand, was +Lucy. + +Looking round at the sound of feet on the path, she saw them, and smiled +a little, not as if surprised, nor as if she had to change the direction +of her thought, but taking them into her vision of the spring woods as +if they were natural dwellers in it. + +Peter stood still on the path and looked up at her and smiled too. He +said, "Oh, Lucy, Thomas and I have come." + +She bent down towards them, and reached out her hands, dropping the +primroses, for Thomas. Peter gave her Thomas, and she laid him on her +lap, cradled on her two arms, and smiled, still silently. + +Peter sat down on the sloping ground just below her, his back against +another tree. + +"We've come to see you and Denis. You won't come to see us, so we had to +take it into our own hands. We decided, Thomas and I, two days ago, that +we weren't going on any longer in this absurd way. We're going to have a +good time. So we went out and got things--lots of lovely things. And I've +chucked my horrible work. And we've come to see you. Will Denis mind? I +can't help it if he does; we've got to do it." + +Lucy nodded, understanding. "I know. In thinking about you lately, I've +known it was coming to this, rather soon. I didn't quite know when. But +I knew you must have a good time." + +After a little while she went on, and her clear voice fell strange and +tranquil on the soft wood silence: + +"What I didn't quite know was whether you would come and take it--the +good time--or whether I should have to come and bring it to you. I was +going to have come, you know. I had quite settled that. It's taken me +a long time to know that I must: but I do know it now." + +"You didn't come," said Peter suddenly, and his hands clenched sharply +over the ivy trails and tore them out of the earth, and his face whitened +to the lips. "All this time ... you didn't come ... you kept away...." +The memory of that black emptiness shook him. He hadn't realised till it +was nearly over quite how bad it had been, that emptiness. + +The two pale faces, so like, were quivering with the same pain, the same +keen recognition of it. + +"No," Lucy whispered. "I didn't come ... I kept away." + +Peter said, steadying his voice, "But now you will. Now I may come to +you. Oh, I know why you kept away. You thought it would be less hard for +me if I didn't see you. But don't again. It isn't less hard. It's--it's +impossible. First Denis, then you. I can't bear it. I only want to see +you sometimes; just to feel you're there. I won't be grasping, Lucy." + +"Yes," said Lucy calmly, "you will. You're going to be grasping in +future. You're going to take and have.... Peter, my dear, haven't you +reached the place I've reached yet? Don't you know that between you and +me it's got to be all or nothing? I've learnt that now. So I tried +nothing. But that won't do. So now it's going to be all.... I'm coming to +Thomas and you. We three together will find nice things for one another." + +Peter's forehead was on his drawn-up knees. He felt her hand touch his +head, and shivered a little. + +"Denis," he whispered. + +She answered, "Denis has everything. Denis won't miss me among so much. +Denis is the luckiest, the most prosperous, the most succeeding person I +know. Peter, let me try and tell you about Denis and me." + +She paused for a moment, leaning her head back against the beech-tree and +looking up wide-eyed at the singing roof overhead. + +"You know how it was, I expect," she said, with the confidence they +always had in each other's knowledge, that saved so many words. "How +Denis came among us, among you and me and father and Felicity and our +unprosperous, dingy friends, and how he was all bright and shining and +beautiful, and I loved him, partly because he was so bright and +beautiful, and a great deal because you did, and you and I have always +loved the same things. And so I married him; and at the time, and oh, for +ever so long, I didn't understand how it was; how it was all wrong, and +how he and I didn't really belong to each other a bit, because he's in +one lot of people, and I'm in another. He's in the top lot, that gets +things, and I'm in the under lot, with you and father and all the poorer +people who don't get things, and have to find life nice in spite of it. +I'd deserted really; and father and Felicity knew I had; only I didn't +know, or I'd never have done it. I only got to understand gradjully" +(Lucy's long words were apt to be a blur, like a child's), "when I saw +what a lot of good things Denis and his friends had, and how I had to +have them too, 'cause I couldn't get away from them; and oh, Peter, I've +felt smothered beneath them! They're so heavy and so rich, and shut +people out from the rest of the world that hasn't got them, so that +they can't hear or see each other. It's like living in a palace in the +middle of dreadful slums, and never caring. Because you _can't_ care, +however much you try, in the palace, the same as you can if you're down +in the middle of the poorness and the emptiness. Wasn't it Christ who +said how hardly rich men shall enter into the kingdom of heaven? And it's +harder still for them to enter into the other kingdoms, which aren't +heaven at all. It's hard for them to step out from where they are and +enter anywhere else. Peter, can anyone ever leave their world and go into +another. I have failed, you see. Denis would never even begin to try; he +wouldn't see any object. I don't believe it can be done. Except perhaps +by very great people. And we're not that. People like you and me and +Denis belong where we're born and brought up. Even for the ones who try, +to change, it's hard. And most of us don't try at all, or care ... Denis +hardly cares, really. He's generous with money; he lets me give away as +much as I like; but he doesn't care himself. Unhappiness and bad luck and +disgrace don't touch him; he doesn't want to have anything to do with +them; he doesn't like them. Even his friends, the people he likes, he +gets tired of directly they begin to go under. You know that. And it's +dreadful, Peter. I hate it, being comfortable up there and not seeing and +not hearing and not caring. Seems to me we just live to have a good time. +Well, of course, people ought to do that, it's the thing to live for, and +I usen't to mind before I was rich, and father and Felicity and you and I +had a good time together. But when you're rich and among rich people, and +have a good time not because you make it for yourself out of all the +common things that everyone shares--the sunshine and the river and the +nice things in the streets--but have a special corner of good things +marked off for you, then it gets dreadful. 'Tisn't that one thinks one +ought to be doing more for other people; I don't think I've that sort of +conscience much; only that _I don't belong_. I can't help thinking of all +the down-below people, the disreputable, unlucky people, who fail and +don't get things, and I know that's where I really belong. It's like +being born in one family and going and living in another. You never fit +in really; your proper family is calling out to you all the time. Oh, not +only because they aren't rich and lucky, but because they really suit you +best, in little ways as well as big ways. You understand them, and they +understand you. All the butlers and footmen and lady's-maids frighten me +so; I don't like telling them to do things; they're so--so solemn and +respectable. And I don't like creatures to be killed, and I don't like +eating them afterwards. But Denis and his friends and the servants and +everyone thinks it's idiotic to be a vegetarian. Denis says vegetarians +are nearly all cranks and bounders, and long-haired men or short-haired +women. Well, I can't help it; I s'pose that shows where I really and +truly belong, though I don't like short-haired women; it's so ugly, and +they talk so loud very often. And there it is again; I dislike short hair +'cause of that, but Denis dislikes it 'cause _it isn't done_. That's so +often his reason; and he means not done by his partic'lar lot of top-room +people.... So you see, Peter, I don't belong there, do I? I don't belong +any more than you do." + +Peter shook his head. "I never supposed you did, of course." + +"Well," she said next, "what you're thinking now is that Denis wants me. +He _doesn't_--not much. He's not awf'ly fond of me, Peter; I think he's +rather tired of me, 'cause I often want to do tiresome things, that +aren't done. I think he knows I don't belong. He's very kind and pleasant +always; but he'd be as happy without me, and much happier with another +wife who fitted in more. He only took me as a sort of luxury; he didn't +really need me. And you do; you and Thomas. You want me much more than he +ever did, or ever could. You want me so much that even if Denis did want +me a great deal, I should come to you, because you want me more, and +because all his life he's had the things he wanted, and now it's your +turn. 'Tisn't _fair_. Why shouldn't you have things too--you and Thomas? +Thomas and you and I can be happy together with no money and nothing else +much; we can make our own good time as we go along, if we have each +other. Oh, Peter, let's!" + +She bent down to him, reaching out her hands, and Thomas smiled on her +lap. So for a moment the three stayed, and the woods were hushed round +them, waiting. Then in the green roof above a riot of shrill, sweet +triumph broke the hush, and Peter leaped to his feet and laughed. + +"Oh, Lucy, let's. Why not? I told Thomas the day before yesterday that we +were going to have a good time now. Well, then, let's have it. Who's to +prevent it? It's our turn; it's our turn. We'll begin from now and take +things and keep them.... Oh, d'you mean it, Lucy? D'you mean you'll come +and play with us, for ever and ever?" + +"'Course I will," she said, simply, like a child. + +He fell on his knees beside her and leant on his hands and peered into +Thomas's face. + +"Do you hear, Thomas? She's coming; she's coming to us, for always. You +wanted her, didn't you? You wanted her nearly as much as I did, only you +didn't know it so well.... Oh, Lucy, oh, Lucy, oh, Lucy ... I've wanted +you so ..." + +"I've wanted you too," she said. "I haven't talked about that part of it, +'cause it's so obvious, and I knew you knew. All the time, even when I +thought I cared for Denis, I was only half a person without you. Of +course, I always knew that, without thinking much about it, from the time +we were babies. Only I didn't know it meant this; I thought it was more +like being brother and sister, and that we could both be happy just +seeing each other sometimes. It's only rather lately that I've known it +had to be everything. There's nothing at all to say about the way we +care, Peter, because it's such an old stale thing; it's always been, and +I s'pose it always will be. 'Tisn't a new, surprising, sudden thing, like +my falling in love with Denis. It's so deep, it's got root right down at +the bottom, before we can either of us remember. It's like this ivy +that's all over the ground, and out of which all the little flowers +and things grow. And when it's like that...." + +"Yes," said Peter, "when it's like that, there's only one way to take. +What's the good of fighting against life? We're not going to fight any +more, Thomas and I. We're going simply to grab everything we can get. +The more things the better; I always knew that. Who wants to be a +miserable Franciscan on the desert hills? It's so unutterably profane. +Here begins the new life." + +They sat in silence together on the creeping, earth-rooted ivy out of +which all the little flowers and things grew; and all round them the +birds sang how it was spring-time. The fever of the spring was in Peter's +blood, flowing through his veins like fire, and he knew only that life +was good and lovely and was calling to the three of them to come and live +it, to take the April paths together through green woods. The time was +not long past, though it seemed endless years ago, when he would have +liked them to be four, when he would have liked Denis to come too, +because he had so loved Denis that to hurt him and leave him would have +been unthinkable. But the time was past. Peter and Lucy had come to the +place where they couldn't share and didn't want to, and no love but one +matured. They had left civilisation, left friendship, which is part of +civilisation, behind, and knew only the primitive, selfish, human love +that demands all of body and soul. They needed no words to explain to one +another their change of view. For always they had leaped to one another's +thoughts and emotions and desires. + +Lucy said wistfully, after a time, "Denis will never see us again." + +But thoughts of Denis did not, could not, dim the radiant vision of roads +running merrily through the country of the spring. + +Thomas here said that it was milk-time, and Peter, who had thoughtfully +remembered to bring his bottle, produced it from his pocket and applied +it, while Lucy looked on and laughed. + +"In future," she said, "I shall take over that job." + +"I wonder," murmured Peter, "exactly what we contemplate living on. Shall +we sell boot-laces on the road, or play a barrel-organ, or what?" + +"Oh, anything that's nice. But I've got a little, you know. Father hadn't +much, but there was something for Felicity and me. It's seemed nothing, +compared with what I've been living on lately; but it will look quite a +lot when it's all we've got.... Father'd be glad, Peter, if he knew. He'd +say we ought to do it, I know he would. It's partly him I've been hearing +all this time, calling and calling to me to come away and live. He did so +hate fat and sweetness and all smothering things. They just bored him +dreadfully. He wouldn't ever come and stay with us, you know.... Oh, and +I've written to Felicity, telling her what I meant to do. I don't quite +know what she'll say; nobody ever does know, with Felicity.... Now I'm +going back to the house, Peter, and you and Thomas must go back too. But +first we'll settle what to do, and when to do it." + +It didn't take much settling, between three people who saw no +difficulties anywhere, but said simply, "Let us do this," and did it, +as children do. But such plans as they thought desirable they made, +then parted. + +"I shall tell Denis," said Lucy, "I must do that. I'll explain to him +all I can, and leave the rest. But not yet. I shall tell him on Sunday +night." + +"Yes," Peter agreed, simply, while the shadow fell again momentarily on +his vision. "You must do that, of course...." + +He left it at that; for Denis he had no words. + +Lucy got up, and laid Thomas in Peter's arms. + +"How much I've talked and talked, Peter. I've never talked so much +before, have I? And I s'pose I never will again. But it had to be all +said out once. I'm tired of only thinking things, even though I knew +you understood. Saying things makes them alive. They're alive now, and +always will be. So good-bye." + +They stood and looked at one another for a moment in silence, then turned +and took their opposite ways. + +Peter didn't go back to London till the late afternoon. He had things to +show Thomas on this his first day in the country. So he took him a long +walk, and Thomas sat in meadows and got a near view of cows and sheep, +and saw Peter paddle in a stream and try to catch minnows in an old tin +pot that he found. + +Another thing that he found, or rather that found them, was a +disreputable yellow dog. He was accompanying a tramp and his wife along +the road. When the tramp sat down and untied a handkerchief full of apple +pie and cold potatoes (tramps have delightful things to eat as a rule) +the dog came near and asked for his share, and was violently removed to +a distance by the tramp's boot. He cried and ran through the hedge and +came upon Peter and Thomas, who were sitting on the other side, in a +field. Peter looked over the hedge and said, "Is he yours?" and was told, +"Mine! No, 'e ain't. 'E's been follerin' us for miles, and the more I +kick 'im the more 'e follers. Wish someone'd pison 'im. I'm sick of 'im." +His wife, who had the weary, hopeless, utterly resigned face of some +female tramps, said, "'E'll do for 'im soon, my man will," without much +interest. + +"I'll take him with me," said Peter, and drew the disreputable creature +to him and gently rubbed his bruised side, and saw that he had rather a +nice face, meant to be cheerful, and friendly and hopeful eyes. Indeed, +he must be friendly and hopeful to have followed such companions so far. + +"Will you be our dog?" said Peter to him. "Will you come walking with us +in future, and have a little bit of whatever we get? And shall we call +you San Francesco, because you like disreputable people and love your +brother, the sun, and keep company with your little sisters, the fleas? +Very good, then. This is Thomas, and you may lick his face very gently, +but remember that he is smaller than you and has to be tenderly treated +lest he break." + +San Francesco stayed with them through the afternoon, and accompanied +them back to London, smuggled under a seat, because Peter couldn't afford +a ticket for him. He proved a likeable being on further acquaintance, +with a merry grin and an amused cock of the eye; obviously one who took +the world's vagaries with humorous patience. Peter conveyed him from +Paddington to Mary Street with some difficulty, and bought a bone for him +from a cat's-meat-what-orfers man, and took him up to the bright and +beautiful sitting-room. Then he told his landlady that he was about to +leave her. + +"It isn't that I'm not satisfied, you know," he added, fearing to hurt +her, "but I'm going to give up lodgings altogether. I'm going abroad, to +Italy, on Monday." + +"_I_ see." Mrs. Baker saw everything in a moment. Her young gentleman had +obviously been over-spending his income (all these new things must have +cost a pretty penny), and had discovered, what many discover, that flight +was the only remedy. + +"About the rent," she began, "and the bills ..." + +Peter said, "Oh, I'll pay you the rent and the bills before I go. I +promise I will. But I can't pay much else, you know, Mrs. Baker. So when +people come to dun me, tell them I've gone no one knows where. I'm +awfully sorry about it, but I've simply no money left." + +His smile, as always, softened her, and she nodded. + +"I'll deal with 'em, sir ... I knew you was over-spending yourself, as it +were; I could have told you, but I didn't like. You'd always lived so +cheap and quiet till the day before yesterday; then all these new things +so suddenly. Ader and I said as you must 'ave come in for some money, or +else as (you'll excuse me, sir) you was touched in the 'ead." + +"I wasn't," said Peter. "Not in the least. I wanted the things, so I got +them. But now I come to think of it, I shan't want most of them any more, +as I'm going away, so I think I'll just return them to the shops they +came from. Of course they won't be pleased, but they'll prefer it to +losing the money _and_ the things, I suppose, won't they. And we haven't +spoiled them a bit, except that cushion Francesco has just walked over, +and that can be cleaned, I expect. I had to have them, you know, just +when I wanted them; I couldn't have borne not to; but I don't really +need them any more, because I'm going to have other things now. Oh, I'm +talking too much, and you want to be cooking the supper, don't you, and +I want to put Thomas to bed." + + + + +CHAPTER XX + +THE LAST LOSS + + +Three days later it was Easter Day. In the evening, about half-past nine, +when Thomas lay sleeping and Peter was packing the rugs and cushions and +pictures he hadn't paid for into brown paper parcels (a tedious job), +Rodney came in. Peter hadn't seen him for some time. + +"What on earth," said Rodney, lighting his pipe and sitting down, "are +you doing with all that upholstery? Has someone been sending you Easter +presents? Well, I'm glad you're getting rid of them as speedily as may +be." + +Peter said ruefully, because he was tired of the business, "The stupid +things aren't paid for. So I'm packing them up to be sent back directly +the shops open again. I can't afford them, you see. Already most of my +belongings are in pawn." + +"I see." Rodney wasn't specially struck by this; it was the chronic +condition of many of his friends, who were largely of the class who pawn +their clothes on Monday and redeem them on Saturday to wear for Sunday, +and pawn them again, paying, if they can afford it, a penny extra to have +the dresses hung up so that they don't crush. + +"A sudden attack of honesty," Rodney commented. "Well, I'm glad, because +I don't see what you want to cumber yourself with all those cushions and +rugs for. You're quite comfortable enough without them." + +Peter said, "Thomas and I wanted nice things to look at. We were tired of +horse-hair and 'Grace Sufficient'. Thomas is fastidious." + +Rodney put a large finger on Thomas' head. + +"Thomas isn't such a fool.... Hullo, there's another of you." Francesco +woke and came out of his corner and laid his nose on Rodney's knee with +his confiding grin. + +"Yes, that's San Francesco. Rather nice, isn't he. He's coming with us +too. I called him Francesco instead of Francis that he might feel at +home in Italy." + +"Oh, in Italy." + +Peter hadn't meant to tell Rodney that, because he didn't think that +Rodney would approve, and he wanted to avoid an argument. But he had let +it out, of course; he could never keep anything in. + +"That's where we're going to-morrow, to seek our fortunes. Won't it be +rather good in Italy now? We don't know what we shall do when we get +there, or where we shall go; but something nice, for sure." + +"I'm glad," said Rodney. "It's a good country in the spring. Shall you +walk the roads with Thomas slung over your back, or what?" + +"I don't know. Partly, I daresay. But we want to find some little place +between the hills and the sea, and stay there. Perhaps for always; I +don't know. It's going to be extraordinarily nice, anyhow." + +Rodney glanced at him, caught by the ring in his voice, a ring he hadn't +heard for long. He didn't quite understand Peter. When last he saw him, +he had been very far through, alarmingly near the bottom. Was this +recovery natural grace, or had something happened? It seemed to Rodney +rather admirable, and he looked appreciatively at Peter's cheerful face +and happy eyes. + +"Good," he said. "Good--splendid!" + +And then Peter, meeting his pleased look and understanding it, winced +back from it, and coloured, and bent over his brown paper and string. He +valued Rodney's appreciation, a thing not easily won. He felt that in +this moment he had won it, as he had never won it before. For he knew +that Rodney liked pluck, and was thinking him plucky. + +Against his will he muttered, half beneath his breath, "Oh, it isn't +really what _you_ call good. It is good, you know: _I_ think it's good; +but you won't. You'll call it abominable." + +"Oh," said Rodney. + +Peter went on, with a new violence, "I know all you'll say about it, so +I'm not going to give you the opportunity of saying it till I'm gone. You +needn't think I'm going to tell you now and let you tell me I'm wrong. +I'm not wrong; and if I am I don't care. Please don't stay any more; I'd +rather you weren't here to-night. I don't want to tell you anything; only +I had just got to say that, because you were thinking.... Oh, do go now." + +Rodney sat quite still and looked at him, into him, through him, beyond +him. Then he said, "You needn't tell me anything. I know. Lucy and you +are going together." + +Peter stood up, rather unsteadily. + +"Well? That's not clever. Any fool could have guessed that." + +"Yes. And any fool could guess what I'm going to say about it, too. You +know it all already, of course...." + +Rodney was groping for words, helplessly, blindly. + +"Peter, I didn't know you had it in you to be a cad." + +Peter was putting books into a portmanteau, and did not answer. + +"You mean to do that ... to Denis...." + +Peter put in socks and handkerchiefs. + +"And to Lucy.... I don't understand you, Peter.... I simply don't +understand. Are you mad--or drunk--or didn't I really ever know you in +the least?" + +Peter stuffed in Thomas' nightgowns, crumpling them hideously. + +"Very well," said Rodney, very quietly. "It doesn't particularly matter +which it is. In any case you are not going to do it. I shall prevent it." + +"You can't," Peter flung at him, crushing a woolly rabbit in among +Thomas' clothes. + +Rodney sat still and looked at him, resting his chin on his hand; looked +into him, through him, beyond him. + +"I believe I can," he said simply. + +Peter stopped filling the bag, and, still sitting on the floor by it, +delivered himself at last. + +"We care for each other. Isn't that to count, then? We always have cared +for each other. Are we to do without each other for always? We want each +other, we need each other. Denis doesn't need Lucy. He never did; not as +I do. Are Lucy and I to do without each other, living only half a life, +because of him? I tell you, I'm sick to death of doing without things. +The time has come when it won't do any more, and I'm going to take what +I can. I think I would rob anyone quite cheerfully if he had what I +wanted. A few days ago I did rob; I bought things I knew I couldn't pay +for. I'm sending them back now simply because I don't want them any more, +not because I'm sorry I took them. It was fair I should take them; it was +my turn to have things, mine and Thomas's. And now I'm going to take +this, and keep it, till it's taken away from me. I daresay it will be +taken away soon; my things always are. Everything has broken and gone, +one thing after another, all my life--all the things I've cared for. I'm +tired of it. I was sick of it by the time I was ten years old, sick of +always getting ill or smashed up; and that's gone on ever since, and +people have always thought, I know, 'Oh, it's only him, he never minds +anything, he doesn't count, he's just a crock, and his only use is to +play the fool for us.' But I did mind; I did. And I only played the fool +because it would have been drearier still not to, and because there was +always something amusing left to laugh at, not because I didn't mind. +And then I cared for Denis as ... Oh, but you know how I cared for Denis. +He was the most bright and splendid thing I knew in all the splendid +world ... and he chucked me, because everything went wrong that could +go wrong between us without my fault ... and our friendship was +spoilt.... And I cared for Hilary and Peggy; and they would go and do +things to spoil all our lives, and the more I tried, like an ass, to +help, the more I seemed to mess things up, till the crash came, and we +all went to bits together. And we had to give up the only work we +liked--and I did love mine so--and slave at things we hated. And still we +kept sinking and sinking, and crashing on worse and worse rocks, till we +hadn't a sound piece left to float us. And then, when I thought at least +we could go down together, they went away and left me behind. So I'd +failed there too, hopelessly. I always have failed in everything I've +tried. I tried to make Rhoda happy, but that failed too. She left me; and +now she's dead, and Thomas hasn't any mother at all.... And Lucy ... whom +I'd cared for since before I could remember ... and I'd always thought, +without thinking about it, that some day of course we should be +together... Lucy left me, and our caring became wrong, so that at last +we didn't care to see one another at all. And then it was as if hell had +opened and let us in. The other things hadn't counted like that; health, +money, beautiful things, interesting work, honour, friends, marriage, +even Denis--they'd all collapsed and I did mind, horribly. But not like +that. As long as I could see Lucy sometimes, I could go on--and I had +Thomas too, though I don't know why he hasn't collapsed yet. But at last, +quite suddenly, when the emptiness and the losing had been getting to +seem worse and worse for a long time, they became so bad that they were +impossible. I got angry; it was for Thomas more than for myself, I think; +and I said it should end. I said I would take things; steal them, if I +couldn't get them by fair means. And I went down to Astleys, to see them, +to tell them it must end. And in the woods I met Lucy. And she'd been +getting to know too that it must end, for her sake as well as for +mine.... And so we're going to end it, and begin again. We're going to be +happy, because life is too jolly to miss." + +Peter ended defiantly, and flung his razor in among the socks. + +Rodney had listened quietly, his eyes on Peter's profile. When he +stayed silent, Peter supposed that he had at last convinced him of the +unbreakable strength of his purpose for iniquity, and that he would give +him up and go away. After a minute he turned and looked up at Rodney, and +said, "Now do you see that it's no good?" + +Rodney took out his pipe and knocked it out and put it away before he +answered: + +"I'm glad you've said all that, Peter. Not that I didn't know it all +before; of course I did. When I said at first that I didn't understand +you, I was lying. I did understand, perfectly well. But I'm glad you've +said it, because it's well to know that you realise it so clearly +yourself. It saves my explaining it to you. It gives us a common +knowledge to start on. And now may _I_ talk for a little, please? No, +not for a little; for some time." + +"Go on," said Peter. "But it's no use, you know.... What do you mean by +our common knowledge? The knowledge that I'm a failure?" + +Rodney nodded. "Precisely that. You've stated the case so clearly +yourself--in outline, for you've left out a great deal, of course--that +really it doesn't leave much for me to say. Let's leave you alone for +the moment. I want to talk about other people. There are other people +in the world besides ourselves, of course, improbable as the fact +occasionally seems. The fact, I mean, that it's a world not of individual +units but of closely connected masses of people, not one of whom stands +alone. One can't detach oneself; one's got to be in with one camp or +another. The world's full of different and opposing camps--worse luck. +There are the beauty-lovers and the beauty-scorners, and all the +fluctuating masses in between, like most of us, who love some aspects of +it and scorn others. There are the well-meaning and the ill-meaning--and +again the incoherent cross-benchers, who mean a little good and a little +harm and for the most part mean nothing at all either way. Again, there +are what people call the well-bred, the ill-bred, and of course the +half-bred. An idiotic division that, because what do we know, any of us, +of breeding, that we should call it good or bad? But there it is; a most +well-marked division in everyone's eyes. And (and now I'm getting to the +point) there are the rich and the poor--or call them, rather, the Haves +and the Have-nots. I don't mean with regard to money particularly, though +that comes in. But it's an all-round, thing. It's an undoubted fact, +and one there's no getting round, that some people are born with the +acquiring faculty, and others with the losing. Most of us, of course, are +in the half-way house, and win and lose in fairly average proportions. +But some of us seem marked out either for the one or for the other. I +know personally a good many in both camps. Many more of the Have-nots, +though, because I prefer to cultivate their acquaintance. There's a great +deal to be done for the Haves too; they need, I fancy, all the assistance +they can get if they're not to become prosperity-rotten. The Have-Nots +haven't that danger; but they've plenty of dangers of their own; and, +well, I suppose it's a question of taste, and that I prefer them. Anyhow, +I do know a great many. People, you understand, with nothing at all that +seems to make life tolerable. Destitutes, incapables, outcasts, slaves to +their own lusts or to a grinding economic system or to some other cruelty +of fate or men. Whatever the immediate cause of their ill-fortune may be, +its underlying, fundamental cause is their own inherent faculty for +failure and loss, their incompetence to take and hold the good things of +life. You know the stale old hackneyed cry of the anti-socialists, how it +would be no use equalising conditions because each man would soon return +again to his original state. It's true in a deeper sense than they mean. +You might equalise economic conditions as much as you please, but you'd +never equalise fundamental conditions; you'd never turn the poor into the +rich, the Have-Nots into the Haves. You know I'm not a Socialist. I don't +want to see a futile attempt to throw down barriers and merge all camps +in one indeterminate army who don't know what they mean or where they're +going. I'm not a Socialist, because I don't believe in a universal +outward prosperity. I mean, I don't want it; I should have no use for it. +I'm holding no brief for the rich; I've nothing to say about them just +now; and anyhow you and I have no concern with them." Rodney pulled +himself back from the edge of a topic on which he was apt to become +readily vehement. "But Socialism isn't the way out for them any more than +it's the way out for the poor; it's got, I believe, to be by individual +renunciation that their salvation will come; by their giving up, and +stripping bare, and going down one by one and empty-handed into the +common highways, to take their share of hardness like men. It will be +extraordinarily difficult. Changing one's camp is. It's so difficult as +to be all but impossible. Perhaps you've read the Bible story of the +young man with great possessions, and how it was said, 'With men it is +impossible...' Well, the tradition, true or false, goes that in the end +he did it; gave up his possessions and became financially poor. But we +don't know, even if that's true, what else he kept of his wealth; a good +deal, I daresay, that wasn't money or material goods. One can't tell. +What we do know is that to cross that dividing line, to change one's +camp, is a nearly impossible thing. Someone says, 'That division, the +division of those who have and those who have not, runs so deep as almost +to run to the bottom.' The great division, he calls it, between those who +seize and those who lose. Well, the Haves aren't always seizers, I think; +often--more often, perhaps--they have only to move tranquilly through +life and let gifts drop into their hands. It's pleasant to see, if we are +not in a mood to be jarred. It's often attractive. It was mainly that +that attracted you long ago in Denis Urquhart. The need and the want in +you, who got little and lost much, was somehow vicariously satisfied by +the gifts he received from fortune; by his beauty and strength and good +luck and power of winning and keeping. He was pleasant in your eyes, +because of these gifts of his; and, indeed, they made of him a pleasant +person, since he had nothing to be unpleasant about. So your emptiness +found pleasure in his fullness, your poverty in his riches, your weakness +in his strength, and you loved him. And I think if anything could (yet) +have redeemed him, have saved him from his prosperity, it would have been +your love. But instead of letting it drag him down into the scrum and the +pity and the battle of life, he turned away from it and kept it at a +distance, and shut himself more closely between his protecting walls of +luxury and well-being. Then, again, Lucy gave him his chance; but he +hasn't (so far) followed her love either. She'd have led him, if she +could, out of the protecting, confining walls, into the open, where +people are struggling and perishing for lack of a little pity; but he +wouldn't. So far the time hasn't been ripe for his saving; his day is +still to come. It's up to all of us who care for him--and can any of us +help it?--to save him from himself. And chiefly it's your job and Lucy's. +You can do your part now only by clearing out of the way, and leaving +Lucy to do hers. She will do it, I firmly believe, in the end, if you +give her time. Lucy, I know, for I have seen it when I have been with +her, has been troubled about her own removal from the arena, about her +own being confined between walls so that she can't hear the people +outside calling; but that is mere egotism. She can hear and see all +right; she has all her senses, and she will never stop using them. It's +her business to be concerned for Denis, who is blind and deaf. It's her +business to use her own caring to make him care. She's got to drag him +out, not to let herself be shut inside with him. It can be done, and +Lucy, if anyone in the world, can do it--if she doesn't give up and +shirk. Lucy, if anyone in the world, has the right touch, the right +loosing power, to set Denis free. I think that you too have the touch and +the power--but you mustn't use yours; the time for that is gone by. Yours +is the much harder business of clearing out of the way. If you ever loved +Denis, you will do that." + +He paused and looked at Peter, who was still sitting on the floor, +motionless, with bent head. + +"May I go on?" said Rodney, and Peter answered nothing. + +Rodney looked away again out of the window into a grey night sky that +hid the Easter moon, and went on, gently. He was tired of talking; his +discourse had been already nearly as long as an average woman; but he +went on deliberately talking and talking, to give Peter time. + +"So, you see, that is an excellent reason--to you it is, I believe, the +incontrovertible reason--why you should once more give up and lose, and +not take. But, deeper than that, to me more insurmountable than that, is +the true reason, which is simply that that very thing--to lose, to do +without--is your business in life, as you've said yourself. It's your +profession. You are in the camp of the Have-Nots; you belong there. You +can't desert. You can't step out and go over to the enemy. If you did, if +you could (only you can't) it would be a betrayal. And, whatever you +gained, you'd lose by it what you have at present--your fellowship with +the other unfortunates. Isn't that a thing worth having? Isn't it +something to be down on the ground with the poor and empty-handed, not +above them, where you can't hear them crying and laughing? Would you, if +you could, be one of the prosperous, who don't care? Would you, if you +could, be one of those who have their joy in life ready-made and put into +their hands, instead of one of the poor craftsmen who have to make their +own? What's the gaiety of the saints? Not the pleasant cheerfulness of +the Denis Urquharts and their kind, who have things, but the gaiety, in +the teeth of circumstances, of St. Francis and his paupers, who have +nothing and yet possess all things. That's your gaiety; the gaiety that +plays the fool, as you put it, looking into the very eyes of agony and +death; that loses and laughs and makes others laugh in the last ditch; +the gaiety of those who drop all cargoes, fortune and good name and love, +overboard lightly, and still spread sail to the winds and voyage, and +when they're driven by the winds at last onto a lee shore, derelicts +clinging to a broken wreck, find on the shore coloured shells to play +with and still are gay. That's your gaiety, as I've always known it and +loved it. Are you going to chuck that gaiety away, and rise up full of +the lust to possess, and take and grasp and plunder? Are you going to +desert the empty-handed legion, whose van you've marched in all your +life, and join the prosperous?" Rodney broke off for a moment, as if he +waited for an answer. He rose from his chair and began to walk about the +room, speaking again, with a more alright vehemence. "Oh, you may think +this is mere romance, fancy, sentiment, what you will. But it isn't. It's +deadly, solid truth. You can't grasp. You can't try to change your camp. +You--and Lucy too, for she's in the same camp--wouldn't be happy, to put +it at its simplest. You'd know all the time that you'd shirked, deserted, +been false to your business. You'd be fishes out of water, with the +knowledge that you'd taken for your own pleasure something that someone +else ought to have had. It isn't in either of you to do it. You must +leave such work to the Haves. Why, what happens the first time you try it +on? You have to send back the goods you've tried to appropriate to where +they came from. It would be the same always. You don't know _how_ to +possess. Then in heaven's name leave possessing alone, and stick to the +job you are good at--doing without. For you are good at that. You always +have been, except just for just one short interlude, which will pass like +an illness and leave you well again. Believe me, it will. I don't know +when, or how soon; but I do know that sometime you will be happy again, +with the things, the coloured shells, so to speak, that you find still +when all the winds and storms have done their worst and all your cargoes +are broken wrecks at your feet. It will be then, in that last emptiness, +that you'll come to terms with disaster, and play the fool again to amuse +yourself and the other derelicts, because, when there's nothing else +left, there's always laughter." + +Rodney had walked to the window, and now stood looking out at the dim, +luminous night, wherein, shrouded, the Easter moon dwelt in the heart of +shadows. From many churches, many clocks chimed the hour. Rodney spoke +once more, slowly, leaning out into the shadowy night. + +"Through this week," he said, "they have been watching in those churches +a supreme renouncement, the ultimate agony of giving up, the last triumph +of utter loss. I'm not going to talk about that; it's not my business or +my right ... But it surely counts, that giving up whatever we may or may +not believe about it. It shines, a terrible counsel of perfection for +those who have, burning and hurting. But for those who have not, it +doesn't burn and hurt; it shines to cheer and comfort; it is the banner +of the leader of the losing legion, lifted up that the rest may follow +after. Does that help at all?... Perhaps at this moment nothing helps at +all.... Have I said enough? Need I go on?" + +Peter's voice, flat and dead, spoke out of the shadow of the dim room. + +"You have said enough. You need not go on." + +Then Rodney turned and saw him, sitting still on the floor by the +half-packed bag, with the yellow dog sleeping against him. In the dim +light his face looked pale and pinched like a dead man's. + +"You've done your work," the flat voice said. "You've taken it away--the +new life we so wanted. You've shown that it can't be. You're quite right. +And you're right too that nothing helps at all.... Because of Denis, I +can't do this. But I find no good in emptiness; why should I? I want to +have things and enjoy them, at this moment, more desperately than you, +who praise emptiness and doing without, ever wanted anything." + +"I am aware of that," said Rodney. + +"You've got in the way," said Peter, looking up at the tall gaunt figure +by the window; and anger shook him. "You've stepped in and spoilt it all. +Yes, you needn't be afraid; you've spoilt it quite irrevocably. You knew +that to mention Denis was enough to do that. I was trying to forget him; +I could have, till it was too late. You can go home now and feel quite +easy; you've done your job. There's to be no new life for me, or Thomas, +or Lucy, or Francesco--only the same old emptiness. The same old ... oh, +damn!" + +Peter, who never swore, that ugly violence being repugnant to his nature, +swore now, and woke Francesco, who put up his head to lick his friend's +face. But Peter pushed him away, surprising him violently, and caught at +his half-filled bag and snatched at the contents and flung them on the +top of one another on the floor. They lay in a jumbled chaos--Thomas's +clothes and Peter's socks and razor and Thomas's rabbit and Peter's +books; and Francesco snuffled among them and tossed them about, thinking +it a new game. + +"Go away now." Peter flung out the words like another oath. "Go away to +your poverty which you like, and leave us to ours which we hate. There's +no more left for you to take away from us; it's all gone. Unless you'd +like me to throw Thomas out of the window, since you think breakages are +so good." + +Rodney merely said, "I'm not going away just yet. Could you let me stay +here for the night and sleep on the sofa? It's late to go back to-night." + +"Sleep where you like," said Peter. "There's the bed. I don't want it." + +But Rodney stretched himself instead on the horse-hair sofa. He said no +more, knowing that the time for words was past. He lay tired and quiet, +with closed eyes, knowing how Peter and the other disreputable forsaken +outcast sat together huddled on the floor through the dim night, till the +dawn looked palely in and showed them both fallen asleep, Peter's head +resting on Francesco's yellow back. + +It was Rodney who got up stiffly from his hard resting-place in the dark +unlovely morning, and made tea over Peter's spirit-lamp for both of them. +Peter woke later, and drank it mechanically. Then he looked at Rodney and +said, "I'm horribly stiff. Why did neither of us go to bed?" He was pale +and heavy-eyed, and violent no more, but very quiet and tired, as if, +accepting, he was sinking deep in grey and cold seas, that numbed +resistance and drowned words. + +The milk came in, and Peter gave Thomas to drink; and on the heels of the +milk came the post, and a letter for Peter. + +"I suppose," said Peter dully, as he opened it, "she too has found out +that it can't be done." + +The letter said: "Peter, we can't do it. I am horribly, horribly sorry, +but I know it now for certain. Perhaps you know it too, by now. Because +the reason is in you, not in me. It is that you love Denis too much. So +you couldn't be happy. I want you to be happy, more than I want anything +in the world, but it can't be this way. Please, dear Peter, be happy +sometime; please, please be happy. I love you always--if that helps at +all.--Lucy." + +Peter let the note fall on the floor, and stood with bent head by the +side of Thomas's crib, while Thomas guggled his milk. + +"Two minds with but a single thought," he remarked, in that new, dreary +voice of his. "As always.... Well, it saves trouble. And we're utterly +safe now, you see; doubly safe. You can go home in peace." + +Then Rodney, knowing that he could be no more use, left the three +derelicts together. + + + + +CHAPTER XXI + +ON THE SHORE + + +There is a shore along which the world flowers, one long sweet garden +strip, between the olive-grey hills and the very blue sea. Like nosegays +in the garden the towns are set, blooming in their many colours, linked +by the white road running above blue water. For vagabonds in April the +poppies riot scarlet by the white road's edge, and the last of the +hawthorn lingers like melting snow, and over the garden walls the purple +veils of the wistaria drift like twilight mist. Over the garden walls, +too, the sweetness of the orange and lemon blossom floats into the road, +and the frangipani sends delicate wafts down, and the red and white roses +toss and hang as if they had brimmed over from sheer exuberance. If a +door in one of the walls chance to stand ajar, vagabonds on the road may +look in and see an Eden, unimaginably sweet, aflame with oleanders and +pomegranate blossom, and white like snow with tall lilies. + +The road itself is good, bordered on one side by the garden sweetness +and the blossoms that foam like wave-crests over the walls, on the other +breaking down to a steep hill-slope where all the wild flowers of spring +star the grassy terraces, singing at the twisted feet of the olives that +give them grey shadow. So the hillside runs steeply down to where at its +rocky base the blue waves murmur. All down the coast the road turns and +twists and climbs and dips, above little lovely bays and through little +gay towns, caught between mountains and blue water. For those who want a +bed, the hush of the moonlit olives that shadow the terraced slopes gives +sweeter sleep than the inns of the towns, and the crooning of the quiet +sea is a gentler lullaby than the noises of streets, and the sweetness of +the myrtle blossom is better to breathe than the warm air of rooms. To +wander in spring beneath the sun by day and the moon by night along the +sea's edge is a good life, a beautiful life, a cheerful and certainly an +amusing life. Social adventures crowd the road. There are pleasant people +along this shore of little blue bays. Besides the ordinary natives of the +towns and the country-side, and besides the residents in the hotels +(whose uses to vagabonds are purely financial) there is on this shore a +drifting and incalculable population, heterogeneous, yet with a note of +character common to all. A population cosmopolitan and shifting, living +from hand to mouth, vagrants of the road or of the street corner, finding +life a warm and easy thing in this long garden shut between hills and +sea. So warm and lovely and easy a garden is it that it has for that +reason become a lee shore; a shore where the sick and the sad and the +frail and the unfortunate are driven by the winds of adversity to find +a sheltered peace. On the shore all things may be given up; there is no +need to hold with effort any possession, even life itself, for all things +become gifts, easily bestowed and tranquilly received. You may live on +extremely little there, and win that little lightly. You may sell things +along the road for some dealer, or for yourself--plaster casts, mosaic +brooches, picture postcards, needlework of divers colours. If you have +a small cart drawn by a small donkey, you are a lucky man, and can carry +your wares about in it and sell them at the hotels, or in the towns at +fair-time. If you possess an infant son, you can carry him also about in +the cart, and he will enjoy it. Also, if your conversation is like the +sun's, with a friendly aspect to good and bad, you will find many friends +to beguile the way. You may pick them up at fairs, on _festa_ days, like +blackberries. + +On Santa Caterina's day, the 30th of April, there is a great _festa_ in +the coast towns. They hold the saint in especial honour on this shore, +for she did much kindness there in plague-time. Vagabonds with wares to +sell have a good day. There was, on one Santa Caterina's day, a young +man, with a small donkey-cart and a small child and a disreputable yellow +dog, who was selling embroidery. He had worked it himself; he was working +at it even now, in the piazza at Varenzano, when not otherwise engaged. +But a fair is too pleasantly distracting a thing to allow of much +needlework being done in the middle of it. There are so many interesting +things. There are the roulette tables, round which interested but +cautious groups stand, while the owners indefatigably and invitingly +twirl. The gambling instinct is not excessively developed in Varenzano. +There was, of course, the usual resolute and solitary player, who stood +through the hours silently laying one halfpenny after another on clubs, +untempted to any deviation or any alteration of stake, except that on the +infrequent occasions when it really turned out clubs he stolidly laid and +lost his gained halfpennies by the other. By nine o'clock in the morning +he had become a character; spectators nudged new-comers and pointed him +out, with "_Sempre fiori, quello._" The young man with the embroidery was +sorry about him; he had an expression as if he were losing more halfpence +than he could well afford. The young man himself lost all the stakes he +made; but he didn't gamble much, knowing himself not lucky. Instead, he +watched the fluctuating fortunes of a vivacious and beautiful youth near +him, who flung on his stakes with a lavish gesture of dare-devil +extravagance, that implied that he was putting his fortune to the touch +to win or lose it all. It was a relief to notice that his stakes were +seldom more than threepence. When he lost, he swore softly to himself: +"_Dio mio, mio Dio, Dio mio_," and then turned courteously to the +embroidery-seller, who was English, with a free interpretation--"In +Engliss, bai George." This seemed to the embroidery-seller to be true +politeness in misfortune. The beautiful youth seemed to be a person of +many languages; his most frequent interjection was, "_Dio mio_--Holy +Moses--oh hang!" After which he would add an apology, addressed to the +embroidery-seller, who had a certain air of refined innocence, +"_Bestemmiar, no. Brutto bestemmiare. Non gli piace, no_," and resume +his game. + +Peter, who was selling embroidery, liked him so much that he followed him +when he went to try his luck at the cigar game. Here Peter, who never +smoked, won two black and snake-like cigars, which he presented to the +beautiful young man, who received them with immense cordiality. A little +later the young man, whose name was Livio, involved himself in a violent +quarrel with the cigar banker, watched by an amused, placid and impartial +crowd of spectators. Peter knew Livio to have the right on his side, +because the banker had an unpleasant face and Livio accused him of being +not only a Venetian but a Freemason. The banker in response remarked that +he was not going to stay to be insulted by a Ligurian thief, and with +violent gestures unscrewed his tin lady and her bunch of real lemons and +put away his board. Livio burst into a studied and insulting shout of +laughter, stopped abruptly without remembering to bring it to a proper +finish, and began to be pleasant to the embroidery-seller, speaking +broken American English with a strong nasal twang. + +"My name is Livio Ceresole. Bin in America; the States. All over the +place. Chicago, 'Frisco, Pullman cars, dollars--_you_ know. Learnt +Engliss there. Very fine country; I _should_ smile." He did so, and +looked so amiable and so engaging that the embroidery-seller smiled back, +thinking what a beautiful person he was. He had the petulant, half +sensuous, spoilt-boy beauty of a young Antinuous, with a rakish touch +added by the angle of his hat and his snappy American idioms. + +So it came about that those two threw in their lots for a time. There was +something about the embroidery-seller that drew these casual friendships +readily to him; he was engaging, with a great innocence of aspect and +gentleness of demeanour, and a friendly smile that sweetened the world, +and a lovable gift of amusement. + +He had been wandering on this shore for now six months, and had friends +in most of the towns. One cannot help making them; the people there are, +for the most part, so pleasant. A third-class railway carriage, vilely +lighted and full of desperately uncomfortable wooden seats, and so full +of warm air and bad tobacco smoke that Peter often felt sick before the +train moved (he always did so, in any train, soon after) was yet full of +agreeable people, merry and sociable and engagingly witty, and, whether +achieving wit or not, with a warm welcome for anything that had that +intention. There is a special brand of charm, of humour, of infectious +and friendly mirth, and of exceeding personal beauty, that is only fully +known by those who travel third in Italy. + +From Varenzano on this _festa_ day in the golden afternoon the +embroidery-seller and his donkey-cart and his small son and his yellow +dog and Livio Ceresole walked to Castoleto. Livio, who had a sweet voice, +sang snatches of melody in many languages; doggerel songs, vulgarities +from musical comedies, melodies of the street corner; and the singer's +voice redeemed and made music of them all. He was practising his songs +for use at the hotels, where he sang and played the banjo in the +evenings, to add to his income. He told Peter that he was, at the moment, +ruined. + +"In Engliss," he translated, "stony-broke." A shop he had kept in Genoa +had failed, so he was thrown upon the roads. + +"You too are travelling, without a home, for gain?" he inferred. "You are +one of us other unfortunates, you and the little child. Poor little one!" + +"Oh, he likes it," said Peter. "So do I. We don't want a home. This is +better." + +"Not so bad," Livio admitted, "when one can live. But we should like to +make our fortunes, isn't it so?" + +Peter said he didn't know. There seemed so little prospect of it that the +question was purely academical. + +They were coming to Castoleto. Livio stopped, and proceeded to pay +attention to his personal appearance, moistening a fragment of +yesterday's "Corriere della Sera" in his mouth, and applying it with +vigour to his dusty boots. When they shone to his satisfaction, he +produced from his pocket a comb and a minute hand-mirror, and arranged +his crisp waves of dark hair to a gentlemanly neatness. Then he replaced +his pseudo-panama hat, with the slight inclination to the left side that +seemed to him suitable, re-tied his pale blue tie, and passed the mirror +to Peter, who went through similar operations. + +"Castoleto will be gay for the _festa_," Livio said. "Things doing," he +interpreted; adding, "Christopher Columbus born there; found America. +Very big man; yes, _sir_." + +Peter said he supposed so. + +Livio added, resuming his own tongue, "Santa Caterina da Siena visited +Castoleto. Are you a Christian?" + +"Oh, well," said Peter, who found the subject difficult, and was not good +at thinking out difficult things. Livio nodded. "One doesn't want much +church, of course; that's best for the women. But so many English aren't +Christians at all, but heretics." + +They came into Castoleto, which is a small place where the sea washes a +shingly shore just below the town, and the narrow streets smell of fish +and other things. Livio waved his hand towards a large new hotel that +stood imposingly on the hill just behind the town. + +"There we will go this evening, I with my music, you with your +embroideries." That seemed a good plan. Till then they separated, Livio +going to try his fortune at the fair, and Peter and Thomas and Francesco +and Suor Clara (the donkey) establishing themselves on the shore by the +edge of the waveless sea. There Peter got out of the cart a tea-caddy and +a spirit lamp and made tea (he was always rather unhappy if he missed his +tea) and ate biscuits, and gave Thomas--now an interested and cheerful +person of a year and a half old--milk and sopped biscuit, and produced a +bone for Francesco and carrots for Clara, and so they all had tea. + +It was the hour when the sun dips below the western arm of hills that +shuts the little bay, leaving behind it two lakes of pure gold, above +and below. The sea burned like a great golden sheet of liquid glass +spreading, smooth and limpid, from east to west, and swaying with a +gentle hushing sound to and fro which was all the motion it had for +waves. From moment to moment it changed; the living gold melted into +green and blue opal tints, tender like twilight. + +"After tea we'll go paddling," Peter told Thomas. "And then perhaps we'll +get a fisherman to take us out while he drops his net. Santa Caterina +should give good fishing." + +In the town they were having a procession. Peter heard the chanting as +they passed, saw, through the archways into the streets, glimpses of it. +He heard their plaintive hymn that entreated pity: + + "Difendi, O Caterina + Da peste, fame e guerra, + Il popol di Cartoleto + In mare e in terra..." + +Above the hymn rose the howls of little St. John the Baptist, who had +been, no doubt, suddenly mastered by his too high-spirited lamb and upset +on to his face, so that his mother had to rush from out the crowd to +comfort him and brush the dust from his curls that had been a-curling in +papers these three weeks past. + +It was no doubt a beautiful procession, and Peter and Thomas loved +processions, but they had seen one that morning at Varenzano, so they +were content to see and hear this from a distance. + +Why, Peter speculated, do we not elsewhere thus beautify and sanctify +our villages and cities and country places? Why do they not, in fishing +hamlets of a colder clime, thus bring luck to their fishing, thus summon +the dear saints to keep and guard their shores? Why, Peter for the +hundredth time questioned, do we miss so much gaiety, so much loveliness, +so much grace, that other and wiser people have? + +Peter shook his head over it. + +"A sad business, Thomas. But here we are, you and I, and let us be +thankful. Thankful for this lovely country set with pleasant towns and +religious manners and nice people, and for the colour and smoothness +of the sea we're going paddling in, and for our nice tea. _Are_ you +thankful, Thomas? Yes, I'm sure you are." + +Someone, passing behind them, said with surprise, "Is that _you_, +Margerison?" + +Peter, looking round, his tin mug in one hand and a biscuit in the other, +recognised an old schoolfellow. He was standing on the beach staring at +the tea-party--the four disreputable vagabonds and their cart. + +Peter laughed. It rather amused him to come into sudden contact with the +respectable; they were always so much surprised. He had rather liked this +man. Some people had good-temperedly despised him for a molly-coddle; he +had been a delicate boy, and had cherished himself rather. Peter, +delicate himself, incapable of despising anyone, and with a heart that +went out to all unfortunates, had been, in a mild and casual way, his +friend. Looking into his face now, Peter was struck to sorrow and +compassion, because it was the face of a man who had accepted death, and +to whom life gave no more gifts, not even the peace of the lee shore. It +was a restless face, with hollow cheeks unnaturally flushed, and bitter, +querulous lips. His surprise at seeing Peter and his vagabond equipment +made him cough. + +When he had done coughing, he said, "What _are_ you doing, Margerison?" + +Peter said he was having tea. "Have you had yours? I've got another mug +somewhere--a china one." + +As he declined with thanks, Peter thought, "He's dying. Oh, poor chap, +how ghastly for him," and his immense pity made him even gentler than +usual. He couldn't say, "How are you?" because he knew; he couldn't +say, "Isn't this a nice place?" because Ashe must leave it so soon; he +couldn't say, "I am having a good time," because Ashe would have no +more good times, and, Peter suspected, had had few. + +What he did say was, "This is Thomas. And this is San Francesco, and this +is Suor Clara. They're all mine. Do you like their faces?" + +Ashe looked at Francesco, and said, "Rather a mongrel, isn't he?" and +Peter took the comment as condemning the four of them, and divined in +Ashe the respectability of the sheltered life, and was compassionate +again. Ashe cared, during the brief space of time allotted to him, to be +respectably dressed; he cared to lead what he would call a decent life. +Peter, in his disreputability, felt like a man in the open air who looks +into the prison of a sick-room. + +Ashe said he was staying at Varenzano with his mother, and they were +passing through Castoleto on the way back from their afternoon's drive. + +"It's lungs, you know. They don't give me much chance--the doctors, I +mean. It's warm and sheltered on this coast, so I have to be here. I'd +rather be here, I suppose, than doing a beef-and-snow cure in one of +those ghastly places. But it's a bore hanging round and doing nothing. +I'd as soon it ended straight off." + +Ashamed of having been so communicative (but Peter was used to people +being unreserved with him, and never thought it odd), he changed the +subject. + +"Are you on the tramp, or what? Is it comfortable?" + +"Very," said Peter, "and interesting." + +"_Is_ it interesting? How long are you going on with it? When are you +going home?" + +"Oh, this is as much home as anywhere else, you know. I don't see any +reason for leaving it yet. We all like it. I've no money, you see, and +life is cheap here, and warm and nice." + +"Cheap and warm and nice...." Ashe repeated it, vaguely surprised. He +hadn't realised that Peter was one of the permanently destitute, and +tramping not from pleasure but from necessity. + +"What do you _do_?" he asked curiously, seeing that Peter was not at all +embarrassed. + +"Oh, nothing very much. A little needlework, which I sell as I go along. +And various sorts of peddling, sometimes. I'm going up to the hotel this +evening, to try and make the people there buy things from me. And we just +play about, you know, and enjoy the roads and the towns and the fairs and +the seashore. It's all fun." + +Ashe laughed and made himself cough. + +"You awfully queer person! You really like it, living like that?... But +even I don't like it, you know, living shut away from life in this +corner, though I've money enough to be comfortable with. Should I like +it, your life, I wonder? You're not bored, it seems. I always am. What +is it you like so much?" + +Peter said, lots of things. No, he wasn't bored; things were too amusing +for that. + +They couldn't get any further, because Ashe's mother called him from the +carriage in the road. She too looked tired, and had sad eyes. + +Peter looked after them with compassion. They were wasting their little +time together terribly, being sad when they should have found, in these +last few months or years of life, quiet fun on the warm shore where they +had come to make loss less bitter. + +Tea being over, he went paddling, with Thomas laughing on his shoulder, +till it was Thomas's bedtime. Then he put Thomas away in his warm corner +of the cart, and Livio joined him, and they had supper together at a +_trattoria_, and then climbed the road between vineyards and lemon +gardens up to the new white hotel. + +Livio, as they walked, practised his repertory of songs, singing +melodious snatches in the lemon-scented dusk. They came to the hotel, and +found that the inhabitants were sitting round little tables in the dim +garden, having their coffee by the light of hanging lanterns. + +From out of the dusk Livio struck his mandolin and sweetly sang. Peter +meanwhile wandered round from group to group displaying his wares by +the pink light of the lanterns. He met with some success; he really +embroidered rather nicely, and people were good-natured and kind to the +pale-faced, delicate-looking young man who smiled with his very blue, +friendly eyes. There was always an element in Peter that inspired pity; +one divined in him a merry unfortunate. + +The people in the hotel were of many races--French, Italian, German, and +one English family. Castoleto is not an Anglo-Saxon resort; it is small +and of no reputation, and not as yet Anglicised. Probably the one English +family in the hotel was motoring down the coast, and only staying for one +night. + +Peter, in his course round the garden, came suddenly within earshot of +cultured English voices, and heard some one laugh. Then a voice, soft in +quality, with casual, pleasant, unemphasised cadence, said, "Considering +these vile roads, she's running extraordinarily well. Really, something +ought to be done about the roads, though; it's absolutely disgraceful. +Blake says ..." one of the things that chauffeurs do say, and that +Peter did not listen to. + +Peter had stopped suddenly where he was when the speaker had laughed. Of +the many personal attributes of man, some may become slurred out of all +character, disguised and levelled down among the herd, blurred with time, +robbed of individuality. Faces may be so lost and blurred, almost beyond +the recognition of those who have loved them. But who ever forgot a +friend's laugh, or lost the character of his own? If Ulysses had laughed +when he came back to Ithaca, his dog would have missed his eternal +distinction. + +Soft, rather low, a thing not detached from the sentence it broke into, +but rather breaking out of it, and merging then into words again--Peter +had carried it in his ears for ten years. Was there ever any man but one +who laughed quite so? + +Looking down the garden, he saw them, sitting under a pergola, +half-veiled by the purple drifts of the wistaria that hung in trails +between them and him. Through its twilight screen he saw Denis in a +dinner-jacket, leaning back in a cane chair, his elbow on its arm, a +cigarette in his raised hand, speaking. The light from a big yellow +lantern swinging above them lit his clear profile, gleamed on his fair +hair. Opposite him was Lucy, in a white frock, her elbows on a little +table, her chin in her two hands, her eyes wide and grey and full of the +wonder of the twilight. And beyond her sat Lord Evelyn, leaning back with +closed eyes, a cigar in his delicate white hand. + +Peter stood and looked, and a little faint, doubtful smile twitched at +his lips, as at a dear, familiar sight long unseen. Should he approach? +Should he speak? For a moment he hung in doubt. + +Then he turned away. He had no part with them, nor they with him. His +part--Rodney had said it once--was to clear out. + +Livio, close to him, was twanging his mandolin and singing some absurd +melody: + + "Ah, Signor!" + "Scusi, Signora?" + "È forae il mio marito, + Da molti anni smarrito?..." + +Peter broke in softly, "Livio, I go. I have had enough." + +Livio's eyebrows rose; he shrugged his shoulders, but continued his +singing. He, anyhow, had not yet had enough of such a good-natured +audience. + +Peter slipped out of the garden into the white road than ran down between +the grey mystery of the olive groves to the little dirty fishing-town and +the dark, quiet sea. In the eastern sky there was a faint shimmer, a +disturbance of the deep, star-lit blue, a pallor that heralded the rising +of the moon. But as yet the world lay in its mysterious dusk. + +Peter, his feet stirring on the white dust of the road, drew in the +breath of the lemon-grown, pine-grown, myrtle-sweet hills, and the keen +saltness of the sea, and the fishiness of the little, lit, clamorous town +on its edge. In the town there was singing, raucous and merry. Behind in +the garden there was singing, melodious and absurd. It echoes fleeted +down the road. + + "Ah, Signor!" + "Scusi, Signora?" + "È forse il mio marrito..." + +Peter sat on the low white wall to watch the moon rise. And for a moment +the bitter smell of the soft dust on the road was in his nostrils, and he +was taken back into a past bitterness, when the world had been dust to +his feet, dust to his touch, dust in his throat, so that he had lain +dust-buried, and choked for breath, and found none. This time a year ago +he had lain so, and for many months after that. Those months had graved +lines on his face--lines perhaps on his soul--that all the quiet, gay +years could not smooth out. For the peace of the lee shore is not a thing +easily won; to let go and drift before the storms wheresoever they drive +needs a hard schooling; to lose comes first, and to laugh long after. + +The dust Peter's feet had stirred settled down; and now, instead of +its faint bitterness, the sweetness of the evening hills stole about. +And over the still sea the white moon rose, glorious, triumphant, and +straight from her to Peter, cleaving the dark waters, her bright road +ran. + +Peter went down into the little, merry town. + +He and Thomas slept at an inn that night. Livio joined them there next +morning at breakfast. He said, "You were foolish to leave the hotel so +soon. I got a good sum of money. There was an English family, that gave +me a good reward. My music pleased them. The English are always generous +and extravagant. Oh, Dio, I forgot; one of them sent you this note by me. +He explained nothing; he said, 'Is he that was with you your friend? Then +give him this note.' Did he perhaps know you of old, or did he merely +perceive that you were of his country? I know nothing. One does not read +the letters entrusted to one for one's friends. Here it is." + +He handed Peter a folded-up piece of notepaper. Opening it, Peter read, +scrawled unsteadily in pencil, "Come and see me to-morrow morning. I +shall be alone." E.P.U. + +"He followed me to the garden door as I went away," continued Livio, "and +gave it me secretly. I fancy he did not mean his companions to know. You +will go?" + +Peter smiled, and Livio looked momentarily embarrassed. + +"Oh, you know, it came open in my hand; and understanding the language so +well, it leaped to my eyes. I knew you would not mind. You will go and +see this milord? He _is_ a milord, for I heard the waiter address him." + +"Yes," said Peter. "I will go and see him." + +An hour later he was climbing the white road again in the morning +sunshine. + +Asking at the hotel for Lord Evelyn Urquhart, he was taken through the +garden to a wistaria-hung summer-house. The porter indicated it to him +and departed, and Peter, through the purple veils, saw Lord Evelyn +reclining in a long cane chair, smoking the eternal cigarette and reading +a French novel. + +He looked up as Peter's shadow fell between him and the sun, and dropped +the yellow book with a slight start. For a moment neither of them spoke; +they looked at each other in silence, the pale, shabby, dusty youth with +his vivid eyes; the frail, foppish, middle-aged, worn-out man, with his +pale face twitching a little and his near-sighted eyes screwed up, as if +he was startled, or dazzled, or trying hard to see something. + +The next moment Lord Evelyn put out a slim, fine hand. + +"How are you, Peter Margerison? Sit down and talk to me." + +Peter sat down in the chair beside him. + +Lord Evelyn said, "I'm quite alone this morning. Denis and Lucy have +motored to Genoa. I join them there this afternoon.... You didn't know +last night that I saw you." + +"No," said Peter. "I believed that none of you had seen me. I didn't want +you to; so I came away." + +Lord Evelyn nodded. "Quite so; quite so. I understood that. And I didn't +mention you to the others. Indeed, I didn't mean to take any notice of +you at all; but at the end I changed my mind, and sent for you to come. +I believe I'm right in thinking that your wish is to keep out of the way +of our family." + +"Yes," said Peter. + +"You're right. You've been very right indeed. There's nothing else you +could have done, all this time." Peter glanced at him quickly, to see +what he knew, and saw. + +Lord Evelyn saw the questioning glance. + +"Oh, yes, yes, boy. Of course, I knew about you and Lucy. I'm not such +a blind fool as I've sometimes been thought in the past--eh, Peter +Margerison? I always knew you cared for Lucy; and I knew she cared for +you. And I knew when she and you all but went off together. I asked Lucy; +I can read the child's eyes better than books, you see. I read it, and I +asked her, and she admitted it." + +"It was you who stopped her," said Peter quietly. + +Lord Evelyn tapped his fingers on his chair arm. + +"I'm not a moralist; anything but a moralist, y'know. But as a man of the +world, with some experience, I knew that couldn't be. So I told her the +truth." + +"The truth?" Peter wondered. + +"Yes, boy, the truth. The only truth that mattered to Lucy. That you +couldn't be happy that way. That you loved Denis too much to be happy +that way. When I said it, she knew it. 'Deed, I believe she'd known it +before, in her heart. So she wrote to you, and ended that foolish idea. +You know now that she was right, I think?" + +"I knew it then. I was just going to telegraph to her not to come when +I got her letter. No, I didn't know she was right; but I knew we couldn't +do it. I didn't know it for myself, either; I had to be told. When I was +told, I knew it." + +"Ah." Lord Evelyn looked at the pale face, that had suddenly taken a look +of age, as of one who looks back into a past bitterness. + +"Ah." He looked in silence for a moment, then said, "You've been through +a bad time, Peter." + +Peter's face twitched suddenly, and he answered nothing. + +"All those months," said Lord Evelyn, and his high, unsteady voice shook +with a curious tremor, "all that summer, you were in hell." + +Peter gave no denial. + +"I knew it," said Lord Evelyn. "And you never answered the letter I wrote +you." + +"No," said Peter slowly. "I answered no letters at all, I think. I +don't remember exactly what I did, through that summer. I suppose I +lived--because here I am. And I suppose I kept Thomas alive--because +he's here too. But for the rest--I don't know. I hated everyone and +everything. I believe Rodney used to come and see me sometimes; but I +didn't care.... Oh, what's the good of talking about it? It's over now." + +Lord Evelyn was shading his face with a shaking hand. + +"Poor boy," he muttered to himself. "Poor boy. Poor boy." + +Peter, recovering his normal self, said, "You've been awfully good to +me, Lord Evelyn. I've behaved very badly to you, I believe. Thanks most +awfully for everything. But don't pity me now, because I've all I want." + +"Happy, are you?" Lord Evelyn looked up at him again, searchingly. + +"Quite happy." Peter's smile was reassuring. + +"The dooce you are!" Lord Evelyn murmured. "Well, I believe you.... Look +here, young Peter, I've a proposal to make. In the first place, is it +over, that silly business of yours and Lucy's? Can you meet without +upsetting each other?" + +Peter considered for a moment. + +"Yes; I think we can. I suppose I shall always care--I always have--but +now that we've made up our minds that it won't do ... accepted it, you +know.... Oh, yes, I think we could meet, as far as that goes." + +Lord Evelyn nodded approval. + +"Very good, very good. Now listen to me. You're on the roads, aren't you, +without a penny, you and your boy?" + +"Yes. I make a little as I go along, you know. One doesn't need much +here. We're quite comfortable." + +"Are you, indeed?... Well now, I see no reason why you shouldn't be more +comfortable still. I want you to come and live with me." + +Peter startled, looked up, and coloured. Then he smiled. + +"It's most frightfully good of you...." + +"Rubbish, rubbish." Lord Evelyn testily waved his words aside. "'Tisn't +for your sake. It's for mine. I want your company.... My good boy, +haven't you ever guessed, all these years, that I rather like your +company? That was why I was so angry when you and your precious brother +made a fool of me long ago. It hurt, because I liked you, Peter +Margerison. That was why I couldn't forgive you. Demme! I don't think +I've forgiven you yet, nor ever shall. That is why I came and insulted +you so badly one day as you remember. That's why I've such a soft place +for Lucy, who's got your laugh and your voice and your tricks of talk, +and looks at me with your white face. That's why I wasn't going to let +her and you make young fools of yourselves together. That, I suppose, +is why I know all the time what you're feeling; why I knew you were in +hell all last summer; why I saw you, though I'm such a blinde bat now, +last night, when neither Denis nor Lucy did. And that's why I want +you and your boy to come and keep me company now, till the end." + +Peter put out his hand and took Lord Evelyn's. + +"I don't know what I can say to thank you. I do appreciate it, you know, +more than anything that's ever happened to me before. I can't think how +you can be so awfully nice to me...." + +"Enough, enough," said Lord Evelyn. "Will you or won't you? Yes or no?" + +Peter at that gave his answer quickly. + +"No. I can't, you know." + +Lord Evelyn turned on him sharply. + +"You _won't_? The devil take it!" + +"It's like this," said Peter, disturbed and apologetic, "we don't want to +lead what's called respectable lives, Thomas and I. We don't want to be +well-off--to live with well-off people. We--we can't, d'you see. It's not +the way we're made. We don't belong. We're meant just to drift about the +bottom, like this, and pick up a living anyhow." + +"The boy's a fool," remarked Lord Evelyn, throwing back his head and +staring at the roof. + +Peter, who hated to wound, went on, "If we could share the life of any +rich person, it would be you." + +"Good Lord, I'm not rich. Wish I were. Rich!" + +"Oh, but you are, you know. You're what _we_ mean by rich.... And it's +not only that. There's Denis and Lucy too. We've parted ways, and I do +think it's best we shouldn't meet much. What's the good of beginning +again to want things one can't have? I might, you know; and it would +hurt. I don't now. I've given it all up. I don't want money; I don't want +Denis's affection ... or Lucy ... or any of the things I have wanted, and +that I've lost. I'm happy without them; without anything but what one +finds to play with here as one goes along. One finds good things, you +know--friends, and sunshine, and beauty, and enough minestra to go on +with, and sheltered places on the shore to boil one's kettle in. I'm +happy. Wouldn't it be madness to leave it and go out and begin having and +wanting things again?" + +Lord Evelyn had been listening with a curious expression of comprehension +struggling with impatience. + +"And the boy?" he said. "D'you suppose there'll never come a time when +you want for the boy more than you can give him here, in these dirty +little towns you like so much?" + +"Oh," said Peter, "how can one look ahead? Depend on it, if Thomas is one +of the people who are born to have things, he will have them. And if he's +not, he won't, whatever I try to get for him. He's only one and a half +now; so at least there's time before we need think of that. He's happy at +present with what he's got." + +"And is it your purpose, then, to spend all your life--anyhow, many +years--in these parts, selling needlework?" + +"I've no purpose," said Peter. "I must see what turns up. No, I daresay I +shall try England again some time. But, wherever I am, I think I know now +what is the happy way to live, for people like me. We're no use, you see, +people like me; we make a poor job at the game, and we keep failing and +coming bad croppers and getting hurt and in general making a mess of +things. But at least we can be happy. We can't make our lives sublime, +and departing leave behind us footprints on the sands of time--oh, I +don't think I want to, in the least--but we can make a fairly good time +for ourselves and a few other people out of the things we have. That's +what we're doing, Thomas and I. And it's good enough." + +Lord Evelyn looked at him long in silence, with his narrowed, searching +eyes, that seemed always to be looking for something in his face and +finding it there. + +Then he sighed a little, and Peter, struck through by remorse, saw how +old he looked in that moment. + +"How it takes one back--takes one back," muttered Lord Evelyn. + +Then he turned abruptly on Peter. + +"Lest you get conceited, young Peter, with me begging for your company +and being kindly refused, I'll tell you something. I loved your mother; +my brother's wife. Did you ever guess that?--guess why I liked you a good +deal?" + +"Yes," said Peter, and Lord Evelyn started. + +"You did? Demme! that's her again. She always guessed everything, and +so did you. She guessed I cared.... You're her own child--only she was +lovely, you know, and you're not, don't think it.... Well, she had her +follies, like you--a romantic child, she always was.... You must go +your own way, young Peter. I'll not hinder or help you till you want +me.... And now I'm tired; I've talked too much. I'm not going to ask you +to lunch with me, for I don't want you. Leave me now." + +Peter paused for a moment still. He wanted to ask questions, and could +not. + +"Well, what now? Oh, I see; you want the latest news of your Denis and +Lucy. Well, they're doing as well as can be expected. Denis--I need +hardly say, need I?--flourishes like the green bay tree in all his works. +He's happy, like you. No, not like you a bit; he's got things to be +happy about; his happiness isn't a reasonless lunacy; it's got a sound +bottom to it. The boy is a fine boy, probably going to be nearly as +beautiful as Denis, but with Lucy's eyes. And Lucy's happy enough, I +hope. Knows Denis inside and out, you know, and has accepted him, for +better or worse. I don't believe she's pining for you, if that's what +you want to know. You may be somewhere deep down at the bottom of her +always--shouldn't wonder if you are--but she gives the top of her to +Denis all right--and more than that to the boy--and all of her to life +and living, as she always did and always must. You two children seem to +be tied to life with stronger ropes than most people, an't you. Sylvia +was, before you. Not to any one thing in life, or to many things, but +just to life itself. So go and live it in your own way, and don't bother +me any more. You've tired me out." + +Peter said good-bye, and went. He loved Lord Evelyn, and his eyes +were sad because he had thrown back his offer on his hands. He didn't +think Lord Evelyn had many more years before him, though he was only +fifty-five; and for a moment he wondered whether he couldn't, after all, +accept that offer till the end came. He even, at the garden wall, hung +for a moment in doubt, with the echo of that high, wistful voice in his +ears. + +But before him the white road ran down from the olive-grey hills to the +little gay town by the blue sea's edge, and the sweetness of the scented +hills in the May sunshine caught him by the throat, and, questioning no +more, he took the road. + +He loved Lord Evelyn; but the life he offered was not for Peter, not for +Thomas as yet; though Thomas, in the years to come, should choose his own +path. At present there was for both of them the merry, shifting life of +the roads, the passing friendships, lightly made, lightly loosed, the +olive hills, silver like ghostly armies in the pale moonlight, the +sweetness of the starry flowers at their twisted stems, the sudden blue +bays that laughed below bends of the road, the cities, like many-coloured +nosegays on a pale chain, the intimate sweetness of lemon gardens by day +and night, the happy morning on the hills and sea. + +For these--Peter analysed the distinction--are, or may be, for all +alike. There is no grabbing here; a man may share the overflowing sun not +with one but with all. The down-at-heels, limping, broken, army of the +Have-Nots are not denied such beauty and such peace as this, if they will +but take it and be glad. The lust to possess here finds no fulfilment; +having nothing, yet possessing all things, the empty-handed legion laughs +along its way. The last, the gayest, the most hilarious laughter begins +when, destitute utterly, the wrecked pick up coloured shells upon the lee +shore. For there are shells enough and to spare for all; there is no +grasping here. + +Peter, with a mind at ease and Francesco grinning at his heels, sauntered +down the warm, dusty road to find Thomas and have lunch. + + + +***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE LEE SHORE*** + + +******* This file should be named 16612-8.txt or 16612-8.zip ******* + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/6/6/1/16612 + + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at <a href = "https://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a></pre> +<p>Title: The Lee Shore</p> +<p>Author: Rose Macaulay</p> +<p>Release Date: August 28, 2005 [eBook #16612]</p> +<p>Language: English</p> +<p>Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1</p> +<p>***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE LEE SHORE***</p> +<p> </p> +<h3>E-text prepared by Suzanne Shell, Mary Meehan,<br /> + and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team<br /> + (https://www.pgdp.net/</h3> +<p> </p> +<hr class="full" /> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> + +<h1>THE LEE SHORE</h1> + +<h2>BY R. MACAULAY</h2> + +<h3>1912</h3> + +<h3>HODDER & STOUGHTON<br /> +NEW YORK<br /> +GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY</h3> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + + +<div class="blockquot"><p>TO P.R.</p></div> + + +<div class="blockquot"><p>That division, the division of those who have +and those who have not, runs so deep as almost +to run to the bottom.</p></div> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<h2>Contents</h2> + +<!-- Autogenerated TOC. Modify or delete as required. --> +<p> +<a href="#CHAPTER_I"><b>CHAPTER I--<span class="smcap">A Hereditary Bequest</span></b></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_II"><b>CHAPTER II--<span class="smcap">The Choice of a Career</span></b></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_III"><b>CHAPTER III--<span class="smcap">The Hopes</span></b></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_IV"><b>CHAPTER IV--<span class="smcap">The Complete Shopper</span></b></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_V"><b>CHAPTER V--<span class="smcap">The Splendid Morning</span></b></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_VI"><b>CHAPTER VI--<span class="smcap">Hilary, Peggy, and the Boarders</span></b></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_VII"><b>CHAPTER VII--<span class="smcap">Diana, Actæon, and Lord Evelyn</span></b></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_VIII"><b>CHAPTER VIII--<span class="smcap">Peter Understands</span></b></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_IX"><b>CHAPTER IX--<span class="smcap">The Fat in the Fire</span></b></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_X"><b>CHAPTER X--<span class="smcap">The Loss of a Profession</span></b></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XI"><b>CHAPTER XI--<span class="smcap">The Loss of an Idea</span></b></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XII"><b>CHAPTER XII--<span class="smcap">The Loss of a Goblet and Other Things</span></b></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XIII"><b>CHAPTER XIII--<span class="smcap">The Loss of the Single State</span></b></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XIV"><b>CHAPTER XIV--<span class="smcap">Peter, Rhoda, and Lucy</span></b></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XV"><b>CHAPTER XV--<span class="smcap">The Loss of a Wife</span></b></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XVI"><b>CHAPTER XVI--<span class="smcap">A Long Way</span></b></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XVII"><b>CHAPTER XVII--<span class="smcap">Mischances in the Rain</span></b></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XVIII"><b>CHAPTER XVIII--<span class="smcap">The Breaking-Point</span></b></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XIX"><b>CHAPTER XIX--<span class="smcap">The New Life</span></b></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XX"><b>CHAPTER XX--<span class="smcap">The Last Loss</span></b></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XXI"><b>CHAPTER XXI--<span class="smcap">On the Shore</span></b></a><br /> +</p> +<!-- End Autogenerated TOC. --> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>THE LEE SHORE</h2> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_I" id="CHAPTER_I"></a>CHAPTER I</h2> + +<h3>A HEREDITARY BEQUEST</h3> + + +<p>During the first week of Peter Margerison's first term at school, +Urquhart suddenly stepped, a radiant figure on the heroic scale, out of +the kaleidoscopic maze of bemusing lights and colours that was Peter's +vision of his new life.</p> + +<p>Peter, seeing Urquhart in authority on the football field, asked, "Who is +it?" and was told, "Urquhart, of course," with the implication "Who else +could it be?"</p> + +<p>"Oh," Peter said, and blushed. Then he was told, "Standing right in +Urquhart's way like that! Urquhart doesn't want to be stared at by all +the silly little kids in the lower-fourth." But Urquhart was, as a +matter of fact, probably used to it.</p> + +<p>So that was Urquhart. Peter Margerison hugged secretly his two pieces of +knowledge; so secret they were, and so enormous, that he swelled visibly +with them; there seemed some danger that they might even burst him. That +great man was Urquhart. Urquhart was that great man. Put so, the two +pieces of knowledge may seem to have a certain similarity; there was in +effect a delicate discrimination between them. If not wholly distinct one +from the other, they were anyhow two separate aspects of the same +startling and rather magnificent fact.</p> + +<p>Then there was another aspect: did Urquhart know that he, Margerison, was +in fact Margerison? He showed no sign of such knowledge; but then it was +naturally not part of his business to concern himself with silly little +kids in the lower-fourth. Peter never expected it.</p> + +<p>But a few days after that, Peter came into the lavatories and +found Urquhart there, and Urquhart looked round and said, "I say, +you—Margerison. Just cut down to the field and bring my cap. You'll find +it by the far goal, Smithson's ground. You can bring it to the lavatories +and hang it on my peg. Cut along quick, or you'll be late."</p> + +<p>Peter cut along quick, and found the velvet tasselled thing and brought +it and hung it up with the care due to a thing so precious as a fifteen +cap. The school bell had clanged while he was down on the field, and he +was late and had lines. That didn't matter. The thing that had emerged +was, Urquhart knew he was Margerison.</p> + +<p>After that, Urquhart did not have occasion to honour Margerison with his +notice for some weeks. It was, of course, a disaster of Peter's that +brought them into personal relations. Throughout his life, Peter's +relations were apt to be based on some misfortune or other; he always had +such bad luck. Vainly on Litany Sundays he put up his petition to be +delivered "from lightning and tempest, from plague, pestilence, and +famine, from battle and murder, and from sudden death." Disasters seemed +to crowd the roads on which he walked; so frequent were they and so +tragic that life could scarcely be lived in sober earnest; it was, for +Peter the comedian, a tragi-comic farce. Circumstances provided the +tragedy, and temperament the farce.</p> + +<p>Anyhow, one day Peter tumbled on to the point of his right shoulder and +lay on his face, his arm crooked curiously at his side, remarking that he +didn't think he was hurt, only his arm felt funny and he didn't think he +would move it just yet. People pressed about him; suggested carrying him +off the field; asked if he thought it was broken; asked him how he felt +now; asked him all manner of things, none of which Peter felt competent +to answer. His only remark, delivered in a rather weak and quavering +voice, was to the effect that he would walk directly, only he would like +to stay where he was a little longer, please. He said it very politely. +It was characteristic of Peter Margerison that misfortune always made him +very polite and pleasant in his manners, as if he was saying, "I am sorry +to be so tiresome and feeble: do go on with your own businesses, you more +fortunate and capable people, and never mind me."</p> + +<p>As they stood in uncertainty about him, someone said, "There's Urquhart +coming," and Urquhart came. He had been playing on another ground. He +said, "What is it?" and they told him it was Margerison, his arm or his +shoulder or something, and he didn't want to be moved. Urquhart pushed +through the crowd that made way for him, and bent over Margerison and +felt his arm from the shoulder to the wrist, and Margerison bit at the +short grass that was against his face.</p> + +<p>"That's all right," said Urquhart. "I wanted to see if it was sprained or +broken anywhere. It's not; it's just a put-out shoulder. I did that once, +and they put it in on the field; it was quite easy. It ought to be done +at once, before it gets stiff." He turned Peter over on his back, and +they saw that he was pale, and his forehead was muddy where it had +pressed on the ground, and wet where perspiration stood on it. Urquhart +was unlacing his own boot.</p> + +<p>"I'm going to haul it in for you," he told Peter. "It's quite easy. It'll +hurt a bit, of course, but less now than if it's left. It'll slip in +quite easily, because you haven't much muscle," he added, looking at the +frail, thin, crooked arm. Then he put his stockinged foot beneath Peter's +arm-pit, and took the arm by the wrist and straightened it out. The other +thin arm was thrown over Peter's pale face and working mouth. The muddy +forehead could be seen getting visibly wetter. Urquhart threw himself +back and pulled, with a long and strong pull. Sharp gasps came from +beneath the flung-up left arm, through teeth that were clenched over a +white jersey sleeve. The thin legs writhed a little. Urquhart desisted, +breathing deeply.</p> + +<p>"Sorry," he said; "one more'll do it." The one more was longer and +stronger, and turned the gasps into semi-groans. But as Urquhart had +predicted, it did it.</p> + +<p>"There," said Urquhart, resting and looking pleased, as he always did +when he had accomplished something neatly. "Heard the click, didn't +you? It's in all right. Sorry to hurt you, Margerison; you were jolly +sporting, though. Now I'm going to tie it up before we go in, or it'll +be out again."</p> + +<p>So he tied Peter's arm to Peter's body with his neck scarf. Then he took +up the small light figure in his arms and carried it from the field.</p> + +<p>"Hurt much now?" he asked, and Peter shook an untruthful head and grinned +an untruthful and painful grin. Urquhart was being so inordinately decent +to him, and he felt, even in his pain, so extremely flattered and exalted +by such decency, that not for the world would he have revealed the fact +that there had been a second faint click while his arm was being bound +to his side, and an excruciating jar that made him suspect the abominable +thing to be out again. He didn't know how the mechanism worked, but he +was sure that the thing Urquhart had with such labour hauled in had +slipped out and was disporting itself at large in unlawful territory. He +said nothing, a little because he really didn't think he could quite make +up his mind to another long and strong pull, but chiefly because of +Urquhart and his immense decency. Success was Urquhart's rôle; one did +not willingly imagine him failing. If heroes fail, one must not let them +know it. Peter shut his eyes, and, through his rather sick vision of +trespassing rabbits popping in and out through holes in a fence, knew +that Urquhart's arms were carrying him very strongly and easily and +gently. He hoped he wasn't too heavy. He would have said that he could +walk, only he was rather afraid that if he said anything he might be +sick. Besides, he didn't really want to walk; his shoulder was hurting +him very much. He was so white about the cheeks and lips that Urquhart +thought he had fainted.</p> + +<p>After a little while, Urquhart was justified in his supposition; it was +characteristic of Peter to convert, as promptly as was feasible, any +slight error of Urquhart's into truth. So Peter knew nothing when +Urquhart carried him indoors and delivered him into other hands. He +opened his eyes next on the doctor, who was untying his arm and cutting +his sleeve and saying cheerfully, "All right, young man, all right."</p> + +<p>The next thing he said was, "I was told it had been put in."</p> + +<p>"Yes," said Peter languidly. "But it came out again, I think."</p> + +<p>"So it seems. Didn't they discover that down there?"</p> + +<p>Peter moved his head limply, meaning "No."</p> + +<p>"But you did, did you? Well, why didn't you say so? Didn't want to have +it hauled at again, I suppose? Well, we'll have it in directly. You won't +feel it much."</p> + +<p>So the business was gone through again, and this time Peter not only half +but quite groaned, because it didn't matter now.</p> + +<p>When the thing was done, and Peter rigid and swathed in bed, the doctor +was recalled from the door by a faint voice saying, "Will you please not +tell anyone it came out again?"</p> + +<p>"Why not?" The doctor was puzzled.</p> + +<p>"Don't know," said Peter, after finding that he couldn't think of a +reason. But then he gave the true one.</p> + +<p>"Urquhart thought he'd got it in all right, that's all."</p> + +<p>"Oh." The doctor was puzzled still. "But that's Urquhart's business, not +yours. It wasn't your fault, you know."</p> + +<p>"Please," said Peter from the bed. "Do you mind?"</p> + +<p>The doctor looked and saw feverish blue lamps alight in a pale face, and +soothingly said he did not mind. "Your shoulder, no one else's, isn't +it?" he admitted. "Now you'd better go to sleep; you'll be all right +directly, if you're careful not to move it or lie on it or anything."</p> + +<p>Peter said he would be careful. He didn't at all want to move it or lie +on it or anything. He lay and had waking visions of the popping rabbits. +But they might pop as they liked; Peter hid a better thing in his inmost +soul. Urquhart had said, "Sorry to hurt you, Margerison. You were jolly +sporting, though." In the night it seemed incredible that Urquhart had +stooped from Valhalla thus far; that Urquhart had pulled in his arm with +his own hands and called him sporting to his face. The words, and the +echo of the soft, pleasant, casual voice, with its unemphasised +intonations, spread lifting wings for him, and bore him above the aching +pain that stayed with him through the night.</p> + +<p>Next morning, when Peter was wishing that the crumbs of breakfast that +got between one's back and one's pyjamas were less sharp-cornered, and +wondering why a dislocated shoulder should give one an aching bar of pain +across the forehead, and feeling very sad because a letter from home had +just informed him that his favourite guinea-pig had been trodden on by +the gardener, Urquhart came to see him.</p> + +<p>Urquhart said, "Hullo, Margerison. How are you this morning?" and Peter +said he was very nearly all right now, thanks very much. He added, +"Thanks awfully, Urquhart, for putting it in, and seeing after me and +everything."</p> + +<p>"Oh, that's all right." Urquhart's smile had the same pleasant quality as +his voice. He had never smiled at Peter before. Peter lay and looked at +him, the blue lamps very bright in his pale face, and thought what a +jolly voice and face Urquhart had. Urquhart stood by the bed, his hands +in his pockets, and looked rather pleasantly down at the thin, childish +figure in pink striped pyjamas. Peter was fourteen, and looked less, +being delicate to frailness. Urquhart had been rather shocked by his +extreme lightness. He had also been pleased by his pluck; hence the +pleasant expression of his eyes. He was a little touched, too, by the +unmistakable admiration in the over-bright blue regard. Urquhart was not +unused to admiration; but here was something very whole-hearted and +rather pleasing. Margerison seemed rather a nice little kid.</p> + +<p>Then, quite suddenly, and still in his pleasant, soft, casual tones, +Urquhart dragged Peter's immense secret into the light of day.</p> + +<p>"How are your people?" he said.</p> + +<p>Peter stammered that they were quite well.</p> + +<p>"Of course," Urquhart went on, "I don't remember your mother; I was only +a baby when my father died. But I've always heard a lot about her. Is +she..."</p> + +<p>"She's dead, you know," broke in Peter hastily, lest Urquhart should make +a mistake embarrassing to himself. "A long time ago," he added, again +anxious to save embarrassment.</p> + +<p>"Yes—oh yes." Urquhart, from his manner, might or might not have known.</p> + +<p>"I live with my uncle," Peter further told him, thus delicately and +unobstrusively supplying the information that Mr. Margerison too was +dead. He omitted to mention the date of this bereavement, having always +a delicate sense of what did and did not concern his hearers. The decease +of the lady who had for a brief period been Lady Hugh Urquhart, might be +supposed to be of a certain interest to her stepson; that of her second +husband was a private family affair of the Margerisons.</p> + +<p>(The Urquhart-Margerison connection, which may possibly appear +complicated, was really very simple, and also of exceedingly little +importance to anyone but Peter; but in case anyone feels a desire to have +these things elucidated, it may here be mentioned that Peter's mother had +made two marriages, the first being with Urquhart's father, Urquhart +being already in existence at the time; the second with Mr. Margerison, a +clergyman, who was also already father of one son, and became Peter's +father later. Put so, it sounds a little difficult, chiefly because they +were all married so frequently and so rapidly, but really is simplicity +itself.)</p> + +<p>"I live with my uncle too," Urquhart said, and the fact formed a shadowy +bond. But Peter's tone had struck a note of flatness that faintly +indicated a lack of enthusiasm as to the ménage. This note was, to +Peter's delicately attuned ears, absent from Urquhart's voice. Peter +wondered if Lord Hugh's brother (supposing it to be a paternal uncle) +resembled Lord Hugh. To resemble Lord Hugh, Peter had always understood +(till three years ago, when his mother had fallen into silence on that +and all other topics) was to be of a charm.... One spoke of it with a +faint sigh. And yet of a charm that somehow had lacked something, the +intuitive Peter had divined; perhaps it had been too splendid, too +fortunate, for a lady who had loved all small, weak, unlucky things. +Anyhow, not long after Lord Hugh's death (he was killed out hunting) she +had married Mr. Margerison, the poorest clergyman she could find, and the +most devoted to the tending of the unprosperous.</p> + +<p>Peter remembered her—compassionate, delicate, lovely, full of laughter, +with something in the dance of her vivid dark-blue eyes that hinted at +radiant and sad memories. She had loved Lord Hugh for a glorious and +brief space of time. The love had perhaps descended, a hereditary +bequest, with the deep blue eyes, to her son. Peter would have understood +the love; the thing he would not have understood was the feeling that +had flung her on the tide of reaction at Mr. Margerison's feet. Mr. +Margerison was a hard liver and a tremendous giver. Both these things +had come to mean a great deal to Sylvia Urquhart—much more than they +had meant to the girl Sylvia Hope.</p> + +<p>And hence Peter, who lay and looked at Lord Hugh Urquhart's son with +wide, bright eyes. With just such eyes—only holding, let us hope, an +adoration more masked—Sylvia Hope had long ago looked at Lord Hugh, +seeing him beautiful, delicately featured, pale, and fair of skin, built +with a strong fineness, and smiling with pleasant eyes. Lord Hugh's +beauty of person and charm of manner had possibly (not certainly) meant +more to Sylvia Hope than his son's meant to her son; and his prowess at +football (if he had any) had almost certainly meant less. But, apart from +the glamour of physical skill and strength and the official glory of +captainship, the same charm worked on mother and son. The soft, quick, +unemphasised voice, with the break of a laugh in it, had precisely the +same disturbing effect on both.</p> + +<p>"Well," Urquhart was saying, "when will they let you play again? You must +buck up and get all right quickly.... I shouldn't wonder if you made a +pretty decent three-quarter sometime.... You ought to use your arm as +soon as you can, you know, or it gets stiff, and then you can't, and +that's an awful bore.... Hurt like anything when I hauled it in, didn't +it? But it was much better to do it at once."</p> + +<p>"Oh, much," Peter agreed.</p> + +<p>"How does it feel now?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, all right. I don't feel it much. I say, do you think I ought to use +it at once, in case it gets stiff?" Peter's eyes were a little anxious; +he didn't much want to use it at once.</p> + +<p>But Urquhart opined that this would be over-great haste. He departed, and +his last words were, "You must come to breakfast with me when you're up +again."</p> + +<p>Peter lay, glorified, and thought it all over. Urquhart knew, then; he +had known from the first. He had known when he said, "I say, you, +Margerison, just cut down to the field ..."</p> + +<p>Not for a moment did it seem at all strange to Peter that Urquhart should +have had this knowledge and given no sign till now. What, after all, was +it to a hero that the family circle of an obscure individual such as he +should have momentarily intersected the hero's own orbit? School has this +distinction—families take a back place; one is judged on one's own +individual merits. Peter would much rather think that Urquhart had come +to see him because he had put his arm out and Urquhart had put it in +(really though, only temporarily in) than because his mother had once +been Urquhart's stepmother.</p> + +<p>Peter's arm did not recover so soon as Urquhart's sanguineness had +predicted. Perhaps he began taking precautions against stiffness too +soon; anyhow he did not that term make a decent three-quarter, or any +sort of a three-quarter at all. It always took Peter a long time to get +well of things; he was easy to break and hard to mend—made in Germany, +as he was frequently told. So cheaply made was he that he could perform +nothing. Defeated dreams lived in his eyes; but to light them there +burned perpetually the blue and luminous lamps of undefeated mirth, and +also an immense friendliness for life and mankind and the delightful +world. Like the young knight Agenore, Peter the unlucky was of a mind +having no limits of hope. Over the blue and friendly eyes that lit the +small pale face, the half wistful brows were cocked with a kind of +whimsical and gentle humour, the same humour that twitched constantly +at the corners of his wide and flexible mouth. Peter was not a beautiful +person, but one liked, somehow, to look at him and to meet his +half-enquiring, half-amused, wholly friendly and sympathetic regard. +By the end of his first term at school, he found himself unaccountably +popular. Already he was called "Margery" and seldom seen by himself. He +enjoyed life, because he liked people and they liked him, and things in +general were rather jolly and very funny, even with a dislocated +shoulder. Also the great Urquhart would, when he remembered, take a +little notice of Peter—enough to inflate the young gentleman's spirit +like a blown-out balloon and send him soaring skywards, to float gently +down again at his leisure.</p> + +<p>Towards the end of the term, Peter's half-brother Hilary came to visit +him. Hilary was tall and slim and dark and rather beautiful, and he lived +abroad and painted, and he told Peter that he was going to be married to +a woman called Peggy Callaghan. Peter, who had always admired Hilary from +afar, was rather sorry. The woman Peggy Callaghan would, he vaguely +believed, come between Hilary and his family; and already there were more +than enough of such obstacles to intercourse. But at tea-time he saw the +woman, and she was large and fair and laughing, and called him, in her +rich, amused voice "little brother dear," and he did not mind at all, +but liked her and her laugh and her mirthful, lazy eyes.</p> + +<p>Peter was a large-minded person; he did not mind that Hilary wore no +collar and a floppy tie. He did not mind this even when they met Urquhart +in the street. Peter whispered as he passed, "<i>That's</i> Urquhart," and +Hilary suddenly stopped and held out his hand, and said pleasantly, "I am +glad to meet you." Peter blushed at that, naturally (for Hilary's cheek, +not for his tie), and hoped that Urquhart wasn't much offended, but that +he understood what half-brothers who lived abroad and painted were, and +didn't think it was Peter's fault. Urquhart shook hands quite pleasantly, +and when Hilary added, "We shared a stepmother, you and I; I'm Peter's +half-brother, you know," he amiably agreed. Peter hoped he didn't think +that the Urquhart-Margerison connection was being strained beyond due +bounds. Hilary said further, "You've been very good to my young brother, +I know," and it was characteristic of Peter that, even while he listened +to this embarrassing remark, he was free enough from self-consciousness +to be thinking with a keen though undefined pleasure how extraordinarily +nice to look at both Hilary and Urquhart, in their different ways, were. +(Peter's love of the beautiful matured with his growth, but in intensity +it could scarcely grow.) Urquhart was saying something about bad luck and +shoulders; it was decent of Urquhart to say that. In fact, things were +going really well till Hilary, after saying, "Good-bye, glad to have met +you," added to it the afterthought, "You must come and stay at my uncle's +place in Sussex some time. Mustn't he, Peter?" At the same time—fitting +accompaniment to the over-bold words—Peter saw a half-crown, a round, +solid, terrible <i>half-crown</i>, pressed into Urquhart's unsuspecting hand. +Oh, horror! Which was the worse, the invitation or the half-crown? Peter +could never determine. Which was the more flagrant indecency—that he, +young Margerison of the lower fourth, should, without any encouragement +whatever, have asked Urquhart of the sixth, captain of the fifteen, head +of his house, to come and stay with him; or that his near relative should +have pressed half-a-crown into the great Urquhart's hand as if he +expected him to go forthwith to the tuck-shop at the corner and buy +tarts? Peter wriggled, scarlet from his collar to his hair.</p> + +<p>Urquhart was a polite person. He took the half-crown. He murmured +something about being very glad. He even smiled his pleasant smile. And +Peter, entirely unexpectedly to himself, did what he always did in the +crises of his singularly disastrous life—he exploded into a giggle. So, +some years later, he laughed helplessly and suddenly, standing among the +broken fragments of his social reputation and his professional career. He +could not help it. When the worst had happened, there was nothing else +one could do. One laughed from a sheer sense of the completeness of the +disaster. Peter had a funny, extremely amused laugh; hardly the laugh of +a prosperous person; rather that of the unhorsed knight who acknowledges +the utterness of his defeat and finds humour in the very fact. It was as +if misfortune—and this misfortune of the half-crown and the invitation +is not to be under-estimated—sharpened all the faculties, never blunt, +by which he apprehended humour. So he looked from Hilary to Urquhart, +and, mentally, from both to his cowering self, and exploded.</p> + +<p>Urquhart had passed on. Hilary said, "What's the matter with <i>you</i>?" and +Peter recovered himself and said "Nothing." He might have cried, with +Miss Evelina Anvill, "Oh, my dear sir, I am shocked to death!" He did +not. He did not even say, "Why did you stamp us like that?" He would not +for the world have hurt Hilary's feelings, and vaguely he knew that this +splendid, unusual half-brother of his was in some ways a sensitive +person.</p> + +<p>Hilary said, "The Urquharts ought to invite you to stay. The connection +is really close. I believe your mother was devoted to that boy as a baby. +You'd like to go and stay there, wouldn't you?"</p> + +<p>Peter looked doubtful. He was nervous. Suppose Hilary met Urquhart +again.... Dire possibilities opened. Next time it might be "Peter must go +and stay at <i>your</i> uncle's place in Berkshire." That would be worse. Yes, +the worst had not happened, after all. Urquhart might have met Peggy. +Peggy would in that case have said, "You nice kind boy, you've been such +a dear to this little brother of ours, and I hear you and these boys used +to share a mamma, so you're really brothers, and so, of course, <i>my</i> +brother too; and <i>what</i> a nice face you've got!" There were in fact, +no limits to what Peggy might say. Peggy was outrageous. But it was +surprising how much one could bear from her. Presumably, Peter used to +reflect in after years, when he had to bear from her a very great deal +indeed, it was simply by virtue of her being Peggy. It was the same with +Hilary. They were Hilary and Peggy, and one took them as such. Indeed, +one had to, as there was certainly no altering them. And Peter loved both +of them very much indeed.</p> + +<p>When Peter went home for the holidays, he found that Hilary's alliance +with the woman Peggy Callaghan was not smiled upon. But then none of +Hilary's projects were ever smiled upon by his uncle, who always said, +"Hilary must do as he likes. But he is acting with his usual lack of +judgment." For four years he had been saying so, and he said it again +now. To Hilary himself he further said, "You can't afford a wife at all. +You certainly can't afford Miss Callaghan. You have no right whatever to +marry until you are earning a settled livelihood. You are not of the +temperament to make any woman consistently happy. Miss Callaghan is the +daughter of an Irish doctor, and a Catholic."</p> + +<p>"It is," said Hilary, "the most beautiful of all the religions. If +I could bring myself under the yoke of any creed at all ..."</p> + +<p>"Just so," said his uncle, who was a disagreeable man; "but you can't," +and Hilary tolerantly left it at that, merely adding, "There will be no +difficulty. We have arranged all that. Peggy is not a bigot. As to the +rest, I think we must judge for ourselves. I shall be earning more now, +I imagine."</p> + +<p>Hilary always imagined that; imagination was his strong point. His +initial mistake was to imagine that he could paint. He did not think that +he had yet painted anything very good; but he knew that he was just about +to do so. He had really the artist's eye, and saw keenly the beauty that +was, though he did not know it, beyond his grasp. His uncle, who knew +nothing about art, could have told him that he would never be able to +paint, simply because he had never been, and would never be, able to +work. That gift he wholly lacked. Besides, like young Peter, he seemed +constitutionally incapable of success. A wide and quick receptiveness, +a considerable power of appreciation and assimilation, made such genius +as they had; the power of performance they desperately lacked; their +enterprises always let them through. Failure was the tragi-comic note +of their unprosperous careers.</p> + +<p>However, Hilary succeeded in achieving marriage with the cheerful Peggy +Callaghan, and having done so they went abroad and lived an uneven and +rather exciting life of alternate squalor and luxury in one story of what +had once been a glorious roseate home of Venetian counts, and was now +crumbling to pieces and let in flats to the poor. Hilary and his wife +were most suitably domiciled therein, environed by a splendid dinginess +and squalor, pretentious, tawdry, grandiose, and superbly evading the +common. Peggy wrote to Peter in her large sprawling hand, "You dear +little brother, I wish you'd come and live with us. We have <i>such</i> +fun...." That was the best of Peggy. Always and everywhere she had such +fun. She added, "Give my sisterly regards to the splendid hero who shared +your mamma, and tell him we too live in a palace." That was so like +Peggy, that sudden and amused prodding into the most secret intimacies +of one's emotions. Peggy always discerned a great deal, and was blind +to a great deal more.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_II" id="CHAPTER_II"></a>CHAPTER II</h2> + +<h3>THE CHOICE OF A CAREER</h3> + + +<p>Hilary, stretching his slender length wearily in Peter's fat arm-chair, +was saying in his high, sweet voice:</p> + +<p>"It's the merest pittance, Peter, yours and mine. The Robinsons have it +practically all. The <i>Robinsons</i>. Really, you know ..."</p> + +<p>The sweet voice had a characteristic, vibrating break of contempt. Hilary +had always hated the Robinsons, who now had it practically all. Hilary +looked pale and tired; he had been settling his dead uncle's affairs for +the last week. The Margerisons' uncle had not been a lovable man; Hilary +could not pretend that he had loved him. Peter had, as far as he had been +permitted to do so; Peter found it possible to be attached to most of the +people he came across; he was a person of catholic sympathies and +gregarious instincts. Even when he heard how the Robinsons had it +practically all, he bore no resentment either against his uncle or the +Robinsons. Such was life. And of course he and Hilary did not make wise +use of money; that they had always been told.</p> + +<p>"You'll have to leave Cambridge," Hilary told him. "You haven't enough to +keep you here. I'm sorry, Peter; I'm afraid you'll have to begin and try +to earn a living. But I can't imagine how, can you? Has any paying line +of life ever occurred to you as possible?"</p> + +<p>"Never," Peter assured him. "But I've not had time to think it over yet, +of course. I supposed I should be up here for two years more, you see."</p> + +<p>At Hilary's "You'll have to leave Cambridge," his face had changed +sharply. Here was tragedy indeed. Bother the Robinsons.... But after +a moment's pause for recovery he answered Hilary lightly enough. Such, +again, was life. A marvellous two terms and a half, and then the familiar +barred gate. It was an old story.</p> + +<p>Hilary's thoughts turned to his own situation. They never, to tell the +truth, dwelt very long on anybody else's.</p> + +<p>"We," he said, "are destitute—absolutely. It's simply frightful, the +wear and strain of it. Peggy, of course," he added plaintively, "is <i>not</i> +a good manager. She likes spending, you know—and there's so seldom +anything to spend, poor Peggy. So life is disappointing for her. The +babies, I needn't say, are growing up little vagabonds. And they will +bathe in the canals, which isn't respectable, of course; though one is +relieved in a way that they should bathe anywhere."</p> + +<p>"If he was selling any pictures," Peter reflected, "he would tell me," so +he did not enquire. Peter had tact as to his questions. One rather needed +it with Hilary. But he wondered vaguely what the babies had, at the +moment, to grow up upon, even as little vagabonds. Presently Hilary +enlightened him.</p> + +<p>"I edit a magazine," he said, and Peter perceived that he was both proud +and ashamed of the fact. "At least I am going to. A monthly publication +for the entertainment and edification of the Englishman in Venice. Lord +Evelyn Urquhart is financing it. You know he has taken up his residence +in Venice? A pleasant crank. Venice is his latest craze. He buys glass. +And, indeed, most other things. He shops all day. It's a mania. When he +was young I believe he had a very fine taste. It's dulled now—a fearful +life, as they say. Well, his last fancy is to run a magazine, and I'm to +edit it. It's to be called 'The Gem.' 'Gemm' Adriatica,' you know, and +all that; besides, it's more or less appropriate to the contents. It's to +be largely concerned with what Lord Evelyn calls 'charming things.' +Things the visiting Englishman likes to hear about, you know. It aims at +being the Complete Tourist's Guide. I have to get hold of people who'll +write articles on the Duomo mosaics, and the galleries and churches and +palaces and so on, and glass and lace and anything else that occurs to +them, in a way calculated to appeal to the cultivated British resident or +visitor. I detest the breed, I needn't say. Pampered hotel Philistines +pretending to culture and profaning the sanctuaries, Ruskin in hand. +<i>Ruskin</i>. Really, you know.... Well, anyhow, my mission in life for +the present is to minister to their insatiable appetite for rhapsodising +over what they feel it incumbent on them to admire."</p> + +<p>"Rather fascinating," Peter said. It was a pity that Hilary always +so disliked any work he had to do. Work—a terrific, insatiable god, +demanding its hideous human sacrifices from the dawn of the world till +twilight—so Hilary saw it. The idea of being horrible, all the concrete +details into which it was translated were horrible too.</p> + +<p>"If it was me," said Peter, "I should minister to my own appetite, no one +else's. Bother the cultivated resident. He'd jolly well have to take what +I gave him. And glass and mosaic and lace—what glorious things to write +about.... I rather love Lord Evelyn, don't you."</p> + +<p>Peter remembered him at Astleys, in Berkshire—Urquhart's uncle, tall +and slim and exquisite, with beautiful waistcoats and white, attractive, +nervous hands, that played with a monocle, and a high-pitched voice, and +a whimsical, prematurely worn-out face, and a habit of screwing up +short-sighted eyes and saying, with his queer, closed enunciation, "Quate +charming. Quate." He had always liked Peter, who had been a gentle and +amused boy and had reminded him of Sylvia Hope, lacking her beauty, but +with a funny touch of her charm. Peter had loved the things he loved, +too—the precious and admirable things he had collected round him through +a recklessly extravagant life. Peter at fifteen, in the first hour of his +first visit to Astleys, had been caught out of the incredible romance of +being in Urquhart's home into a new marvel, and stood breathless before a +Bow rose bowl of soft and mellow paste, ornamented with old Japan May +flowers in red and gold and green, and dated "New Canton, 1750."</p> + +<p>"Lake it?" a high voice had asked behind his shoulder. "Lake the sort +of thing?" and there was the tall, funny man swaying on his heels and +screwing his glass into his eye and looking down on Peter with whimsical +interest. Little Peter had said shyly that he did.</p> + +<p>"Prefer chaney to cricket?" asked Urquhart's uncle, with his agreeable +laugh that was too attractive to be described as a titter, a name that +its high, light quality might have suggested. But to that Peter said +"No." He had been asked to Astleys for the cricket week; he was going to +play for Urquhart's team. Not that he was any good; but to scrape through +without disgrace (of course he didn't) was at the moment the goal of +life.</p> + +<p>Lord Evelyn had seemed disappointed. "If I could get you away from +Denis," he said, "I'll be bound cricket wouldn't be in the 'also rans.'"</p> + +<p>And at that moment Denis had sauntered up, and Peter's worshipping regard +had turned from Lord Evelyn's rose bowl to his nephew, and it was Bow +china that was not among the also rans. At that too Lord Evelyn had +laughed, with his queer, closed mirth.</p> + +<p>"Keep that till you fall in love," he had inwardly admonished Peter's +back as the two walked away together. "I daresay she won't deserve it any +better—but that's a law of nature, and this is sheer squandering. My +word, how that boy does lake things—and people!" After all, it was +hardly for any Urquhart to condemn squandering.</p> + +<p>That was Lord Evelyn, as he lived in Peter's memory—a generous, +whimsical, pleasant crank, touched with his nephew's glamour of charm.</p> + +<p>When Peter said, "I rather love him, don't you," Hilary replied, "He's a +fearful old spendthrift."</p> + +<p>Peter demurred at the old. It jarred with one's conceptions of Lord +Evelyn. "I don't suppose he's much over fifty," he surmised.</p> + +<p>"No, I daresay," Hilary indifferently admitted. "He's gone the pace, of +course. Drugs, and all that. He soon won't have a sound faculty left. Oh, +I'm attached to him; he's entertaining, and one can really talk to him, +which is exceptional in Venice, or, indeed, anywhere else. Is his nephew +still up here, by the way?"</p> + +<p>"Yes. He's going down this term."</p> + +<p>"You see a good deal of him, I suppose?"</p> + +<p>"Off and on," said Peter.</p> + +<p>"Of course," said Hilary, "you're almost half-brothers. I do feel that +the Urquharts owe us something, for the sake of the connexion. I shall +talk to Lord Evelyn about you. He was very fond of your mother.... I am +very sorry about you, Peter. We must think it over sometime, seriously."</p> + +<p>He got up and began to walk about the room in his nervous, restless way, +looking at Peter's things. Peter's room was rather pleasing. Everything +in it had the air of being the selection of a personal and discriminating +affection. There was a serene self-confidence about Peter's tastes; he +always knew precisely what he liked, irrespective of what anyone else +liked. If he had happened to admire "The Soul's Awakening" he would +beyond doubt have hung a copy of it in his room. What he had, as a matter +of fact, hung in his room very successfully expressed an aspect of +himself. The room conveyed restfulness, and an immense love, innate +rather than grafted, of the pleasures of the eye. The characteristic of +restfulness was conveyed partly by the fat green sofa and the almost +superfluous number of extremely comfortable arm-chairs, and Peter's +attitude in one of them. On a frame in a corner a large piece of +embroidery was stretched—a cherry tree in blossom coming to slow birth +on a green serge background. Peter was quite good at embroidery. He +carried pieces of it (mostly elaborately designed book-covers) about in +his pockets, and took them out at tea-parties and (surreptitiously) at +lectures. He said it was soothing, like smoking; only smoking didn't +soothe him, it made him feel ill. On days when he had been doing tiresome +or boring or jarring things, or been associating with a certain type of +person, he did a great deal of embroidery in the evenings, because, as he +said, it was such a change. The embroidery stood for a symbol, a type of +the pleasures of the senses, and when he fell to it with fervour beyond +the ordinary, one understood that he had been having a surfeit of the +displeasures of the senses, and felt need to restore the balance.</p> + +<p>Hilary stopped before a piece of extremely shabby, frayed and dingy +tapestry, that had the appearance of having once been even dingier and +shabbier. It looked as if it had lain for years in a dusty corner of +a dusty old shop, till someone had found it and been pleased by it and +taken possession, loving it through its squalor.</p> + +<p>"Rather nice," said Hilary. "Really good, isn't it?"</p> + +<p>Peter nodded. "Gobelin, of the best time. Someone told me that +afterwards. When I bought it, I only knew it was nice. A man wanted to +buy it from me for quite a lot."</p> + +<p>Hilary looked about him. "You've got some good things. How do you pick +them up?"</p> + +<p>"I try," said Peter, "to look as if I didn't care whether I had them or +not. Then they let me have them for very little. The man I got that +tapestry from didn't know how nice it was. I did, but I cheated him."</p> + +<p>"Well," Hilary said, passing his hand wearily over his forehead, "I must +go to your detestable station and catch my train.... I've got a horrible +headache. The strain of all this is frightful."</p> + +<p>He looked as if it was. His pale face, nervous and strained, stabbed at +Peter's affection for him. Peter's affection for Hilary had always been +and always would be an unreasoning, loyal, unspoilably tender thing.</p> + +<p>He went to the station to help Hilary to catch his train. The enterprise +was a failure; it was not a job at which either Margerison was good. They +had to wait in the detestable station for another. The annoyance of that +(it is really an abnormally depressing station) worked on Hilary's +nervous system to such an extent that he might have flung himself on the +line and so found peace from the disappointments of life, had not Peter +been at hand to cheer him up. There were certainly points about young +Peter as a companion for the desperate.</p> + +<p>Peter, having missed hall, as well as Hilary's train, went back to his +room and put an egg on to boil. He lay back in his most comfortable chair +to watch it; he needed comfort rather. He was going down. It had been so +jolly—and it was over.</p> + +<p>He had not got much to show for the good time he had had. Physically, he +was more of a wreck than he had been when he came up. He was slightly +lame in one leg, having broken it at football (before he had been +forbidden to play) and had it badly set. He mended so badly always. He +was also at the moment right-handed (habitually he used his left) and +that was motor bicycling. He had not particularly distinguished himself +in his work. He was good at nothing except diabolo, and not very good at +that. And he had spent more money than he possessed, having drawn +lavishly on his next year's allowance. He might, in fact, have been +described as an impoverished and discredited wreck. But for such a one +he had looked very cheerful, till Hilary had said that about going down. +That was really depressing.</p> + +<p>Peter, as the egg boiled, looked back rather wistfully over his year. +It seemed a very long time ago since he had come up. His had been an +undistinguished arrival; he had not come as a sandwich man between two +signboards that labelled his past career and explained his path that was +to be; he had been unaddressed to any destination. The only remark on his +vague and undistinguished label had perhaps been of the nature of +"Brittle. This side up with care." He had no fame at any game; he did not +row; he was neither a sporting nor, in any marked degree, a reading man. +He did a little work, but he was not very fond of it or very good. The +only things one could say of him were that he seemed to have an immense +faculty of enjoyment and a considerable number of friends, who knew him +as Margery and ate muffins and chocolates between tea and dinner in his +rooms.</p> + +<p>He had been asked at the outset by one of these friends what sort of +things he meant to "go in for." He had said that he didn't exactly know. +"Must one go in for anything, except exams?" The friend, who was +vigorously inclined, had said that one certainly ought. One could—he had +measured Peter's frail physique and remembered all the things he couldn't +do—play golf. Peter had thought that one really couldn't; it was such a +chilly game. Well, of course, one might speak at the Union, said the +persevering friend, insisting, it seemed, on finding Peter a career. +"Don't they talk about politics?" enquired Peter. "I couldn't do that, +you know. I don't approve of politics. If ever I have a vote I shall sell +it to the highest female bidder. Fancy being a Liberal or a Conservative, +out of all the nice things there are in the world to be! There are +health-fooders, now. I'd rather be that. And teetotallers. A man told me +he was a teetotaller to-day. I'll go in for that if you like, because +I don't much like wine. And I hate beer. These are rather nice +chocolates—I mean, they were."</p> + +<p>The indefatigable friend had further informed him that one might be a +Fabian and have a red tie, and encourage the other Fabians to wash. Or +one might ride.</p> + +<p>"One might—" Peter had made a suggestion of his own—"ride a motor +bicycle. I saw a man on one to-day; I mean he had been on it—it was on +him at the moment; it had chucked him off and was dancing on him, and +something that smelt was coming out of a hole. He was such a long way +from home; I was sorry about it."</p> + +<p>His friend had said, "Serve him right. Brute," expressing the general +feeling of the moment about men who rode motor bicycles.</p> + +<p>"Isn't it funny," Peter had reflectively said. "They must get such an +awful headache first—and then to be chucked off and jumped on so hard, +and covered with the smelly stuff—and then to have to walk home dragging +it, when it's deformed and won't run on its wheels. Unless, of course, +one is blown up into little bits and is at rest.... But it is so awfully, +frightfully ugly, to look at and to smell and to hear. Like your +wallpaper, you know."</p> + +<p>Peter's eyes had rested contentedly on his own peaceful green walls. He +really hadn't felt in the least like "going in for" anything, either +motor bicycling or examinations.</p> + +<p>"I suppose you'll just footle, then," his friend had summed it up, and +left him, because it was half-past six, and they had dinner at that +strange hour. That was why they were able to run it into their tea, +since obviously nothing could be done between, even by Peter's energetic +friend. This friend had little hope for Peter. Of course, he would just +footle; he always had. But one was, nevertheless, rather fond of him. +One would like him to do things, and have a sporting time.</p> + +<p>As a matter of fact, Peter gave his friend an agreeable surprise. He went +in, or attempted to go in, for a good many things. He plunged ardently +into football, though he had never been good, and though he always got +extremely tired over it, which was supposed to be bad for him, and +frequently got smashed up, which he knew to be unpleasant for him. This +came to an abrupt end half way through the term. Then he took, quite +suddenly, to motor bicycling. All this is merely to say that the +incalculable factor that sets temperament and natural predilection at +nought had entered into Peter's life. Of course, it was absurd. Urquhart, +being what he was, could successfully do a number of things that Peter, +being what <i>he</i> was, must inevitably come to grief over. But still he +indomitably tried. He even profaned the roads and outraged all æsthetic +fitness in the endeavour, clacking into the country upon a hired +motor-bicycle and making his head ache badly and getting very cold, and +being from time to time thrown off and jumped upon and going about in +bandages, telling enquirers that he supposed he must have knocked against +something somewhere, he didn't remember exactly. The energetic friend had +been caustic.</p> + +<p>"I've no intention of sympathising with you," he had remarked; "because +you deserve all you get. You ass, you know when it's possible to get +smashed up over anything you're safe to do it, so what on earth do you +expect when you take up a thing like this?"</p> + +<p>"Instant death every minute," Peter had truly replied. (His nerves had +been a little shaken by his last ride, which had set his trouser-leg on +fire suddenly, and nearly, as he remarked, burnt him to death.) "But I +go on. I expect the worst, but I am resigned. The hero is not he who +feels no fear, for that were brutal and irrational."</p> + +<p>"What do you <i>do</i> it for?" his friend had querulously and superfluously +demanded.</p> + +<p>"It's so frightfully funny," Peter had said, reflecting, "that I should +be doing it. That's why, I suppose. It makes me laugh. You might take to +the fiddle if you wanted a good laugh. I take to my motor-bicycle. It's +the only way to cheer oneself up when life is disappointing, to go and do +something entirely ridiculous. I used to stand on my head when I'd been +rowed or sat upon, or when there was a beastly wind; it cheered me a lot. +I've given that up now; so I motor-bicycle. Besides," he had added, "you +said I must go in for something. You wouldn't like it if I did my +embroidery all day."</p> + +<p>But on the days when he had been motor-bicycling, Peter had to do a great +deal of embroidery in the evenings, for the sake of the change.</p> + +<p>"I don't wonder you need it," a friend of the more æsthetically cultured +type remarked one evening, finding him doing it. "You've been playing +round with the Urquhart-Fitzmaurice lot to-day, haven't you? Nice man, +Fitzmaurice, isn't he? I like his tie-pins. You know, we almost lost him +last summer. He hung in the balance, and our hearts were in our mouths. +But he is still with us. You look as if he had been very much with you, +Margery."</p> + +<p>Peter looked meditative and stitched. "Old Fitz," he murmured, "is one of +the best. A real sportsman.... Don't, Elmslie; I didn't think of that, I +heard Childers say it. Childers also said, 'By Jove, old Fitz knocks +spots out of 'em every time,' but I don't know what he meant. I'm trying +to learn to talk like Childers. When I can do that, I shall buy a tie-pin +like Fitzmaurice's, only mine will be paste. Streater's is paste; he's +another nice man."</p> + +<p>"He certainly is. In fact, Margery, you really are <i>not</i> particular +enough about the company you keep. You shun neither the over-bred nor the +under-bred. Personally I affect neither, because they don't amuse me. You +embrace both."</p> + +<p>"Yes," Peter mildly agreed. "But I don't embrace Streater, you know. I +draw the line at Streater. Everyone draws the line at Streater; he's of +the baser sort, like his tie-pins. Wouldn't it be vexing to have people +always drawing lines at you. There'd be nothing you could well do, except +to draw one at them, and they wouldn't notice yours, probably, if they'd +got theirs in first. You could only sneer. One can always sneer. I +sneered to-day."</p> + +<p>"You can't sneer," Elmslie told him brutally; "and you can't draw lines; +and what on earth you hang about with so many different sorts of idiots +for I don't know.... I think, if circumstances absolutely compelled me to +make bosom friends of either, I should choose the under-bred poor rather +than the over-bred rich. That's the sort of man I've no use for. The sort +of man with so much money that he has to chuck it all about the place to +get rid of it. The sort of man who talks to you about beagles. The sort +of man who has a different fancy waistcoat for each day of the week."</p> + +<p>"Well," said Peter, "that's nice. I wish I had."</p> + +<p>His friend turned a grave regard on him. "The sort of man who rides a +motor-bicycle.... You really should, Margery," he went on, "learn to be +more fastidious. You mustn't let yourself be either dazzled by fancy +waistcoats or sympathetically moved by unclean collars. Neither is +interesting."</p> + +<p>"I never said they were," Peter said. "It's the people inside them...."</p> + +<p>Peter, in brief, was a lover of his kind, and the music life played to +him was of a varied and complex nature. But, looking back, it was easy to +see how there had been, running through all the variations, a dominant +motive in the piece.</p> + +<p>As Peter listened to the boiling of his egg, and thought how hard it +would be when he took it off, the dominant motive came in and stood by +the fire, and looked down on Peter. He jingled things in his pockets and +swayed to and fro on his heels like his uncle Evelyn, and he was slim in +build, and fair and pale and clear-cut of face, and gentle and rather +indifferent in manner, and soft and casual in voice, and he was in his +fourth year, and life went extremely well with him.</p> + +<p>"It boils," he told Peter, of the egg.</p> + +<p>Peter took it off and fished it out with a spoon, and began rummaging for +an egg-cup and salt and marmalade and buns in the locker beneath his +window seat. Having found these things, he composed himself in the fat +arm-chair to dine, with a sigh of satisfaction.</p> + +<p>"You slacker," Urquhart observed. "Well, can you come to-morrow? The drag +starts at eleven."</p> + +<p>"It's quite hard," said Peter, unreasonably disappointed in it. "Oh, yes, +rather; I'll come." How short the time for doing things had suddenly +become.</p> + +<p>Urquhart remarked, looking at the carpet, "What a revolting mess. Why?"</p> + +<p>"My self-filling bath," Peter explained. "I invented it myself. Well—it +did fill itself. Quite suddenly and all at once, you know. It was a very +beautiful sight. But rather unrestrained at present. I must improve +it.... Oh, this is my last term."</p> + +<p>"Sent down?" Urquhart sympathetically enquired. It was what one might +expect to happen to Peter.</p> + +<p>"Destitute," Peter told him. "The Robinsons have it practically all. +Hilary told me to-day. I am thrown on the world. I shall have to work. +Hilary is destitute too, and Peggy has nothing to spend, and the babies +insist on bathing in the canals. Bad luck for us, isn't it. Oh, and +Hilary is going to edit a magazine called 'The Gem,' for your uncle in +Venice. That seems rather a nice plan. The question is, what am I to +apply <i>my</i> great gifts to?"</p> + +<p>Urquhart whistled softly. "As bad as all that, is it?"</p> + +<p>"Quite as bad. Worse if anything.... The only thing in careers that I +can fancy at the moment is art dealing—picking up nice things cheap and +selling them dear, you know. Only I should always want to keep them, of +course. If I don't do that I shall have to live by my needle. If they +pass the Sweated Industries Bill, I suppose one will get quite a lot. +It's the only Bill I've ever been interested in. My uncle was extremely +struck by the intelligent way I took notice of it, when I had +disappointed him so much about Tariff Reform and Education."</p> + +<p>"You'd probably be among the unskilled millions whom the bill turns out +of work."</p> + +<p>"Then I shall be unemployed, and march with a flag. I shall rather like +that.... Oh, I suppose somehow one manages to live, doesn't one, whether +one has a degree or not. And personally I'd rather not have one, because +it would be such a mortifying one. Besides," Peter added, after a +luminous moment of reflection, "I don't believe a degree really matters +much, in my profession. You didn't know I had a profession, I expect; +I've just thought of it. I'm going to be a buyer for the Ignorant Rich. +Make their houses liveable-in. They tell me what they want—I get hold +of it for them. Turn them out an Italian drawing-room—Della Robbia +mantel-piece, Florentine fire-irons, Renaissance ceiling, tapestries and +so on. Things they haven't energy to find for themselves or intelligence +to know when they see them. I love finding them, and I'm practised at +cheating. One has to cheat if one's poor but eager.... A poor trade, +but my own. I can grub about low shops all day, and go to sales at +Christie's. What fun."</p> + +<p>Urquhart said, "You'd better begin on Leslie. You're exactly what he +wants."</p> + +<p>"Who's Leslie?" Peter was eating buns and marmalade, in restored spirits.</p> + +<p>"Leslie's an Ignorant Rich. He's a Hebrew. His parents weren't called +Leslie, but never mind. Leslie rolls. He also bounds, but not +aggressively high. One can quite stand him; in fact, he has his good +points. He's rich but eager. Also he doesn't know a good thing when he +sees it. He lacks your discerning eye, Margery. But such is his eagerness +that he is determined to have good things, even though he doesn't know +them when he sees them. He would like to be a connoisseur—a collector of +world-wide fame. He would like to fill his house with things that would +make people open their eyes and whistle. But at present he's got no guide +but price and his own pure taste. Consequently he gets hopelessly let in, +and people whistle, but not in the way he wants. He's quite frank; he +told me all about it. What he wants is a man with a good eye, to do his +shopping for him. It would be an ideal berth for a man with the desire +but not the power to purchase; a unique partnership of talent with +capital. There you are. You supply the talent. He'd take you on, for +certain. It would be a very nice little job for you to begin with. By +the time you've decorated his town house and his country seat and his +shooting-box and all his other residences, you'll be fairly started in +your profession. I'll write to him about you."</p> + +<p>Peter chuckled. "How frightfully funny, though. I wonder why anyone +should want to have things unless they like to have them for themselves. +Just as if I were to hire Streater, say, to buy really beautiful +photographs of actresses for me!... Well, suppose he didn't like the +things I bought for him? Suppose our tastes didn't agree? Should I have +to try and suit his, or would he have to put up with mine?"</p> + +<p>"There's only one taste in the matter," Urquhart told him. "He hasn't got +any. You could buy him any old thing and tell him it was good and he'd +believe you, provided it cost enough. That's why he has to have a buyer +honest though poor—he couldn't check him in the least. I shall tell him +that, however many the things you might lie about, you are a George +Washington where your precious bric-a-brac is concerned, because it's +the one thing you care about too much to take it flippantly."</p> + +<p>Peter chuckled again. Life, having for a little while drifted perilously +near to the shores of dullness, again bobbed merrily on the waters of +farce. What a lot of funny things there were, all waiting to be done! +This that Urquhart suggested should certainly, if possible, be one of +them.</p> + +<p>A week later, when Mr. Leslie had written to engage Peter's services, +Urquhart's second cousin Rodney came into Peter's room (a thing he had +never done before, because he did not know Peter much) and said, "But why +not start a curiosity shop of your own? Or be a travelling pedlar? It +would be so much more amusing."</p> + +<p>Peter felt a little flattered. He liked Rodney, who was in his third year +and had never before taken any particular notice of him. Rodney was a +rather brilliant science man; he was also an apostle, a vegetarian, a +fine football player, an ex-Fabian, and a few other things. He was a +large, emaciated-looking person, with extraordinarily bright grey eyes, +inspiring a lean, pale, dark-browed face—the face of an ascetic, lit by +a flame of energising life. He looked as if he would spend and be spent +by it to the last charred fragment, in pursuit of the idea. There was +nothing in his vivid aspect of Peter Margerison's gentle philosophy of +acquiescence; he looked as if he would to the end dictate terms to life +rather than accept them—an attitude combined oddly with a view which +regarded the changes and chances of circumstance as more or less +irrelevant to life's vital essence.</p> + +<p>Peter didn't know why Rodney wanted him to be a travelling pedlar—except +that, as he had anyhow once been a Socialist, he presumably disliked the +rich (ignorant or otherwise) and included Leslie among them. Peter always +had a vague feeling that Rodney did not wholly appreciate his cousin +Urquhart, for this same reason. A man of means, Rodney would no doubt +have held, has much ado to save his soul alive; better, if possible, be +a bricklayer or a mendicant friar.</p> + +<p>"Some day," said Peter politely, "I may have to be a travelling pedlar. +This is only an experiment, to see if it works."</p> + +<p>He was conscious suddenly of two opposing principles that crossed swords +with a clash. Rodney and Urquhart—poverty and wealth—he could not +analyse further.</p> + +<p>But Rodney was newly friendly to him for the rest of that term. Urquhart +commented on it.</p> + +<p>"Stephen always takes notice of the destitute. The best qualification for +his regard is to commit such a solecism that society cuts you, or such a +crime that you get a month's hard. Short of that, it will do to have a +hole in your coat, or paint a bad picture, or produce a yesterday's +handkerchief. He probably thinks you're on the road to that. When you +get there, he'll swear eternal friendship. He can't away with the +prosperous."</p> + +<p>"What a mistake," Peter said. It seemed to him a singularly perverse +point of view.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_III" id="CHAPTER_III"></a>CHAPTER III</h2> + +<h3>THE HOPES</h3> + + +<p>It was rather fun shopping for Leslie. Leslie was a stout, quiet, +ponderous person between thirty and forty, and he really did not bound +at all; Urquhart had done him less than justice in his description. There +was about him the pathos of the very rich. He was generous in the +extreme, and Peter's job proved lucrative as well as pleasant. He grew +curiously fond of Leslie; his attitude towards him was one of respect +touched with protectiveness. No one should any more "do" Leslie, if he +could help it.</p> + +<p>"He's let me," Peter told his cousin Lucy, "get rid of all his horrible +Lowestoft forgeries; awful things they were, with the blue hardly dry on +them. Frightful cheek, selling him things like that; it's so insulting. +Leslie's awfully sweet-tempered about being gulled, though. He's very +kind to me; he lets me buy anything I like for him. And he recommends me +to his friends, too. It's a splendid profession; I'm so glad I thought +of it. If I hadn't I should have had to go into a dye shop, or be a +weaver or something. It wouldn't have been good form; it wouldn't even +have been clean. I should have had a day-before-yesterday's handkerchief +and Rodney would have liked me more, but Denis would probably have cut +me. As it is I'm quite good form and quite clean, and I move in the best +circles. I love the Ignorant Rich; they're so amusing. I know such +a nice lady. She buys potato rings. She likes them to be Dublin +hall-marked and clearly dated seventeen hundred and something—so, +naturally, they always were till I began to buy them for her. I've +persuaded her to give away the most blatant forgeries to her god-children +at their baptisms. Babies like them, sham or genuine."</p> + +<p>Peter was having tea with his cousin Lucy and Urquhart in the White City. +Peter and Lucy were very fond of the White City. Peter's cousin Lucy was +something like a small, gay spring flower, with wide, solemn grey eyes +that brimmed with sudden laughters, and a funny, infectious gurgle of a +laugh. She was a year younger than Peter, and they had all their lives +gone shares in their possessions, from guinea-pigs to ideas. They admired +the same china and the same people, with unquestioning unanimity. Lucy +lived in Chelsea, with an elder sister and a father who ran at his own +expense a revolutionary journal that didn't pay, because those who would +have liked to buy it couldn't, for the most part, afford to, and because +those who could have afforded to didn't want to, and because, in short, +journals run by nice people never do pay.</p> + +<p>Lucy played the 'cello, the instrument usually selected by the small +in stature. In the intervals of this pursuit, she went about the world +open-eyed to all new-burnished joys that came within her vision, and +lived by admiration, hope and love, and played with Peter at any game, +wise or foolish, that turned up. Often Urquhart played with them, and +they were a happy party of three. Peter and Lucy shared, among other +things, an admiration of Urquhart.</p> + +<p>Peter was finding the world delightful just now. This first winter in +London was probably the happiest time he ever had. He hardly missed +Cambridge; he certainly didn't miss the money that the Robinsons had. +His profession was to touch and handle the things he loved; the Ignorant +Rich were delightful; the things he bought for them were beyond all +words; the sales he attended were revels of joy; it was all extremely +entertaining, and Leslie a dear, and everyone very kind. The affection +that always found its way to Peter through his disabilities spoke for +something in him that must, it would seem, be there; possibly it was +merely his friendly smile. He was anyhow of the genus comedian, that +readily endears itself.</p> + +<p>He and Urquhart and Lucy all knew how to live. They made good use of +most of the happy resources that London offers to its inhabitants. They +went in steamers to and fro between Putney and Greenwich, listening to +concertinas and other instruments of music. They looked at many sorts of +pictures, talked to many sorts of people, and attended many sorts of +plays. Urquhart and Peter had even become associates of the Y.M.C.A. +(representing themselves as agnostics seeking for light) on account of +the swimming-baths. As Peter remarked, "Christian Young Men do not +bathe very much, and it seems a pity no one should." On the day when they +had tea at the White City, they had all had lunch at a very recherché +café in Soho, where the Smart Set like to meet Bohemians, and you can +only get in by being one or the other, so Peter and Lucy went as the +Smart Set, and Urquhart as a Bohemian, and they liked to meet each other +very much.</p> + +<p>The only drawback to Peter's life was the bronchitis that sprang at him +out of the fogs and temporarily stopped work. He had just recovered from +an attack of it on the day when he was having tea at the White City, and +he looked a weak and washed-out rag, with sunken blue eyes smiling out of +a very white face.</p> + +<p>"You would think, to look at him," Urquhart said to Lucy, "that he had +been going in extensively for the flip-flap this afternoon. It's a pity +Stephen can't see you, Margery; you look starved enough to satisfy even +him. You never come across Stephen now, I suppose? You wouldn't, of +course. He has no opinion of the Ignorant Rich. Nor even of the +well-informed rich, like me. He's blindly prejudiced in favour of the +Ignorant Poor."</p> + +<p>Lucy nodded. "I know. He's nice to me always. I go and play my 'cello to +his friends."</p> + +<p>"I always keep him in mind," said Peter, "for the day when my patrons get +tired of me. I know Rodney will be kind to me directly I take to street +peddling or any other thoroughly ill-bred profession. The kind he +despises most, I suppose, are my dear Ignorant Rich—the ill-bred but by +no means breadless. (That's my own and not very funny, by the way.) Did +I tell you, Denis, that Leslie is going to begin educating the People in +Appreciation of Objects of Art? Isn't it a nice idea? I'm to help. +Leslie's a visionary, you know. I believe plutocrats often are. They've +so much money and are so comfortable that they stop wanting material +things and begin dreaming dreams. I should dream dreams if I was a +plutocrat. As it is my mind is earthly. I don't want to educate anyone. +Well, anyhow we're going to Italy in the spring, to pick things up, as +Leslie puts it. That always sounds so much as if we didn't pay for them. +Then we shall bring them home and have free exhibits for the Ignorant +Poor, and I shall give free and instructive lectures. Isn't it a pleasant +plan? We're going to Venice. There's a Berovieri goblet that some +Venetian count has, that Leslie's set his heart on. We are to acquire +it, regardless of expense, if it turns out to be all that is rumoured."</p> + +<p>Urquhart scoffed here.</p> + +<p>"Nice to be infallible, isn't it. You and your goblets and your Ignorant +Rich. And your brother Hilary and my uncle Evelyn. Your great gifts seem +to run in the family. My uncle, I hear, is ruining himself with buying +the things your brother admires. My poor uncle, Miss Hope, is getting so +weak-sighted that he can't judge for himself as he used, so he follows +the advice of Margery's brother. It keeps him very happy and amused, +though he'll soon be bankrupt, no doubt."</p> + +<p>Lucy, as usual, laughed at the Urquhart family and the Margerison family +and the world at large. When she laughed, she opened her grey eyes wide, +while they twinkled with dancing light.</p> + +<p>Then she said, "Oh, I want to go on the flip-flap. Peter mustn't come, +because it always makes him sick; so will you?"</p> + +<p>Urquhart said he would, so they did, and Peter watched them, hoping +Urquhart didn't mind much. Urquhart never seemed to mind being ordered +about by Lucy. And Lucy, of course, had accepted him as an intimate +friend from the first, because Peter had said she was to, and because, as +she remarked, he was so astonishingly nice to look at and to listen to.</p> + +<p>Among the visitors who frequented Lucy's home, people whom she considered +astonishingly pleasant to look at and to listen to did not abound; so +Lucy enjoyed the change all the more.</p> + +<p>The first time Peter took Urquhart down to Chelsea to call on his Hope +uncle and cousins, one Sunday afternoon, he gave him a succinct account +of the sort of people they would probably meet there.</p> + +<p>"They have oddities in, you know—and particularly on Sunday afternoons. +They usually have one or two staying in the house, too. They keep open +house for wastrels. A lot of them are aliens—Polish refugees, Russian +anarchists, oppressed Finns, massacred Armenians who do embroidery; +violinists who can't earn a living, decayed chimney-sweeps and so forth. +'Disillusioned (or still illusioned) geniuses, would-bes, theorists, +artistic natures, failed reformers, knaves and fools incompetent or +over-old, broken evangelists and debauchees, inebriates, criminals, +cowards, virtual slaves' ... Anyhow it's a home for Lost Hopes. (Do you +see that?) My uncle is keen on anyone who tries to revolt against +anything—governments, Russians, proprieties, or anything else—and +Felicity is keen on anyone who fails."</p> + +<p>"And your other cousin—what is she keen on?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, Lucy's too young for the Oddities, like me. She and I sit in a +corner and look on. It's my uncle and Felicity they like to talk to. They +talk about Liberty to them, you know. My uncle is great on Liberty. And +they give them lemon in their tea, and say how wicked Russians are, and +how stupid Royal Academicians are, and buy the Armenians' embroidery, +and so forth. Lucy and I don't do that well. I disapprove of liberty for +most people, I think, and certainly for them; and I don't like lemon in +my tea, and though I'm sure Russians are wicked, I believe oppressed +Poles are as bad—at least their hair is as bushy and their nails as +long—and I prefer the embroidery I do myself; I do it quite nicely, I +think. And I don't consider that Celtic poets or Armenian Christians wash +their hands often enough.... They nearly all asked me the time last +Sunday. I was sorry about it."</p> + +<p>"You feared they were finding their afternoon tedious?"</p> + +<p>"No; but I think their watches were up the spout, you see. So I was +sorry. I never feel so sorry for myself as when mine is. I'm really +awfully grateful to Leslie; if it wasn't for him I should never be able +to tell anyone the time. By the way, Leslie's awfully fond of Felicity. +He writes her enormous cheques for her clubs and vagabonds and so on. But +of course she'll never look at him; he's much too well-off. It's not low +to tell you that, because he makes it so awfully obvious. He'll probably +be there this afternoon. Oh, here we are."</p> + +<p>They found the Hopes' small drawing-room filled much as Peter had +predicted. Dermot Hope was a tall, wasted-looking man of fifty-five, with +brilliant eyes giving significance to a vague face. He had very little +money, and spent that little on "Progress," whose readers were few and +ardent, and whose contributors were very cosmopolitan, and full of zeal +and fire; several of them were here this afternoon. Dermot Hope himself +was most unconquerably full of fire. He could be delightful, and +exceedingly disagreeable, full of genial sympathy and appreciation, and +of a biting irony. He looked at Urquhart, whom he met for the first time, +with a touch of sarcasm in his smile. He said, "You're exactly like your +father. How do you do," and seemed to take no further interest in him. +He had certainly never taken much in Lord Hugh, during the brief year of +their brotherhood.</p> + +<p>For Peter his glance was indulgent. Peter, not being himself a reformer, +or an idealist, or a lover of progress, or even, according to himself, of +liberty, but an acceptor of things as they are and a lover of the good +things of this world, was not particularly interesting to his uncle, of +course; but, being rather an endearing boy, and the son of a beloved +sister, he was loved; and, even had he been a stranger, his position +would have been regarded as more respectable than Urquhart's, since he +had so far failed to secure many good things.</p> + +<p>Felicity, a gracious and lovely person of twenty-nine, gave Peter and +Urquhart a smile out of her violet eyes and murmured "Lucy's in the +corner over there," and resumed the conversation she was trying to divide +between Joseph Leslie and a young English professor who was having a +holiday from stirring up revolutions at a Polish university. The division +was not altogether easy, even to a person of Felicity's extraordinary +tact, particularly as they both happened to be in love with her. Felicity +had a great deal of listening to do always, because everyone told her +about themselves, and she always heard them gladly; if she hastened the +end a little sometimes, gently, they never knew it. She, in fact, wanted +to hear about them as much—really as much, though the desire in these +proportions is so rare as to seem incredible—as they wanted to let her +hear. Her wish to hear was a temptation to egotism; those who disliked +egotism in themselves had to fight the temptation, and seldom won. +She did not believe—no one but a fool (and she was not that) could have +believed—all the many things that were told her; the many things that +must always, while pity and the need to be pitied endure, be told to the +pitiful; but she seldom said so. She merely looked at the teller with her +long and lovely violet eyes, that took in so much and gave out such +continual friendship, and saw how, behind the lies, the need dwelt +pleading. Then she gave, not necessarily what the lies asked for, but +what, in her opinion, pity owed to that which pleaded. She certainly +gave, as a rule, quite too much, in whatever coin she paid. That was +inevitable.</p> + +<p>"You give from the emotions," Joseph Leslie told her, "instead of +from reason. How bad for you: how bad for them. And worse when it is +friendship than when it is coin that you can count and set a limit to. +Yes. Abominably bad for everyone concerned."</p> + +<p>"Should one," wondered Felicity, "give friendship, as one is supposed to +give money, on C.O.S. principles? Perhaps so; I must think about it."</p> + +<p>But her thinking always brought her back to the same conclusion as +before. Consequently her circle of friends grew and grew. She even +included in it a few of the rich and prosperous, not wishing her chain +of fellowship, whose links she kept in careful repair, to fail anywhere. +But it showed strain there. It was forged and flung by the rich and +prosperous, and merely accepted by Felicity.</p> + +<p>Leslie, though rich and prosperous, stepped into the linked circle led +by Peter, who was neither. Having money, and a desire to make himself +conscious of the fact by using it, he consulted Miss Hope as to how +best to be philanthropic. He wanted, it seemed, to be a philanthropist as +well as a collector, and felt incapable of being either otherwise than +through agents. His personal share in both enterprises had to be limited +to the backing capital.</p> + +<p>Miss Hope said, "Start a settlement," and he had said, "I can't unless +you'll work it for me. Will you?" So he started a settlement, and she +worked it for him, and he came about the place and got in the way and +wrote heavy cheques and adored Felicity and suggested at suitable +intervals that she should marry him.</p> + +<p>Felicity had no intention of marrying him. She called him a rest. No one +likes being called a rest when they desire to be a stimulant, or even a +gentle excitement. Felicity was an immense excitement to Mr. Leslie +(though he concealed it laboriously under a heavy and matter-of-fact +exterior) and it is of course pleasanter when these things are +reciprocal. But Mr. Leslie perceived that she took much more interest +even in her young cousin Peter than in him. "Do you find him a useful +little boy?" she asked him this afternoon, before Peter and Urquhart +arrived.</p> + +<p>Leslie nodded. "Useful boy—very. And pleasant company, you know. I don't +know much about these things, but he seems to have a splendid eye for a +good thing. Funny thing is, it works all round—in all departments. +Native genius, not training. He sees a horse between a pair of shafts in +a country lane; looks at it; says 'That's good. That would have a fair +chance for the Grand National'—Urquhart buys it for fifty pounds +straight away—and it <i>does</i> win the Grand National. And he knows nothing +special about horses, either. That's what I call genius. It's the same +eye that makes him spot a dusty old bit of good china on a back shelf of +a shop among a crowd of forged rubbish. I've none of that sort of sense; +I'm hopeless. But I like good things, and I can pay for them, and I give +that boy a free rein. He's furnishing my house well for me. It seems to +amuse him rather."</p> + +<p>"He loves it," said Felicity. "His love of pleasant things is what he +lives by. Including among them Denis Urquhart, of course."</p> + +<p>"Yes." Leslie pursed thoughtful lips over Denis Urquhart. He was perhaps +slightly touched with jealousy there. He was himself rather drawn towards +that tranquil young man, but he knew very well that the drawing was +one-sided; Urquhart was patently undrawn.</p> + +<p>"Rather a flash lot, the Urquharts, aren't they?" he said; and Peter, who +liked him, would have had to admit that the remark was perilously near to +a bound. "Seem to have a sort of knack of dazzling people."</p> + +<p>"He's an attractive person, of course," Miss Hope replied; and she didn't +say it distantly; she was so sorry for people who bounded, and so many of +her friends did. "It's pleasing to see, isn't it—such whole-souled +devotion?"</p> + +<p>Mr. Leslie grunted. "I won't say pearls before swine—because Urquhart +isn't a swine, but a very pleasant, ordinary young fellow. But worship +like that can't be deserved, you know; not by anyone, however +beautifully he motors through life. Margerison's too—well, too nice, +to put it simply—to give himself to another person, body and soul, like +that. It's squandering."</p> + +<p>"And irritates you," she reflected, but merely said, "Is squandering +always a bad thing, I wonder?"</p> + +<p>It was at this point that Peter and Urquhart came in. Directed by +Felicity to Lucy in an obscure corner, they found her being talked to by +one of the Oddities; he looked rather like an oppressed Finn. He was +talking and she was listening, wide-eyed and ingenuous, her small hands +clasped on her lap. Peter and Urquhart sat down by her, and the oppressed +Finn presently wandered away to talk to Lucy's father.</p> + +<p>Lucy gave a little sigh of relief.</p> + +<p>"<i>Wish</i> they wouldn't come and talk to me," she said. "I'm no good to +them; I don't understand; and I hate people to be unhappy. I'm dreadfully +sorry they are. I don't want to have to think about them. Why can't they +be happy? There are so many nice things all about. 'Tis such <i>waste</i>." +She looked up at Urquhart, and her eyes laughed because he was happy and +clean, and shone like a new pin.</p> + +<p>"It's nicest," she said, "to be happy and clean. And it's not bad to be +happy and dirty; or <i>very</i> bad to be unhappy and clean; but ..." She shut +her lips with a funny distaste on the remaining alternative. "And I'm +horribly afraid Felicity's going to get engaged to Mr. Malyon, that young +one talking to her, do you see? He helps with conspiracies in Poland."</p> + +<p>"But he's quite clean," said Urquhart, looking at him.</p> + +<p>Lucy admitted that. "But he'll get sent to Siberia soon, don't you see, +and Felicity will go too, I know."</p> + +<p>Peter said, "If I was Felicity I'd marry Leslie; I wouldn't hesitate for +a moment. I wish it was me he loved so. Fancy marrying into all those +lovely things I'm getting for him. Only I hope she won't, because then +she'd take over the shopping department, and I should be left unemployed. +Oh, Lucy, he's let me buy him the heavenliest pair of Chelsea +<i>jardinières</i>, shaped like orange-tubs, with Cupids painted on blue +panels. You must come and see them soon."</p> + +<p>Lucy's eyes, seeing the delightful things, widened and danced. She loved +the things Peter bought.</p> + +<p>Suddenly Peter, who had a conscience somewhere, felt a pang in it, and, +to ease it, regretfully left the corner and wandered about among his +uncle's friends, being pleasant and telling them the time. He did that +till the last of them had departed. Urquhart then had to depart also, and +Peter was alone with his relatives. It was only after Urquhart had gone +that Peter realised fully what a very curious and incongruous element he +had been in the room. Realising it suddenly, he laughed, and Lucy laughed +too. Felicity looked at them indulgently.</p> + +<p>"Babies. What's the matter now?"</p> + +<p>"Only Denis," explained Peter.</p> + +<p>"That young man," commented Dermot Hope, without approbation, "is +remarkably well-fed, well-bred, and well-dressed. Why do you take him +about with you?"</p> + +<p>"That's just why, isn't it, Peter," put in Lucy. "Peter and I <i>like</i> +people to be well-fed and well-bred and well-dressed."</p> + +<p>Felicity touched her chin, with her indulgent smile.</p> + +<p>"Baby again. You like no such thing. You'd get tired of it in a week."</p> + +<p>"Oh, well," said Lucy, "a week's a long time."</p> + +<p>"He's got no fire in all his soul and body," complained Dermot Hope. +"He's a symbol of prosperous content—of all we're fighting. It's people +like him who are the real obstructionists; the people who don't see, not +because they're blind, but because they're too pleased with their own +conditions to look beyond them. It's people like him who are pouring +water on the fires as they are lit, because fires are such bad form, +and might burn up their precious chattels if allowed to get out of hand. +Take life placidly; don't get excited, it's so vulgar; that's their +religion. They've neither enthusiasm nor imagination in them. And so ..."</p> + +<p>And so forth, just as it came out in "Progress" once a month. Peter +didn't read "Progress," because he wasn't interested in the future, being +essentially a child of to-day. Besides, he too hated conflagrations, +thinking the precious chattels they would burn up much too precious for +that. Peter was no lover either of destruction or construction; perhaps +he too was an obstructionist; though not without imagination. His uncle +knew he had a regrettable tendency to put things in the foreground and +keep ideas very much in the background, and called him therefore a +phenomenalist. Lucy shared this tendency, being a good deal of an artist +and nothing at all of a philosopher.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IV" id="CHAPTER_IV"></a>CHAPTER IV</h2> + +<h3>THE COMPLETE SHOPPER</h3> + + +<p>Six months later Peter called at the Hopes' to say good-bye before he +went to Italy. He found Lucy in, and Urquhart was there too, talking +to her in a room full of leaping fire-shadows. Peter sat down on the +coal-scuttle (it was one of those coal-scuttles you can sit on +comfortably) and said, "Leslie's taking me to Italy on Sunday. Isn't +it nice for me. I wish he was taking you too."</p> + +<p>Lucy, clasping small hands, said, "Oh, Peter, I wish he was!"</p> + +<p>Urquhart, looking at her said, "Do you want to go?" and she nodded, with +her mouth tight shut as if to keep back floods of eloquence on that +subject. "So do I," said Urquhart, and added, in his casual way, "Will +you and your father come with me?"</p> + +<p>"You paying?" said Lucy, in her frank, unabashed way like a child's; and +he smiled down at her.</p> + +<p>"Yes. Me paying."</p> + +<p>"'Twould be nice," she breathed, her grey eyes wide with wistful +pleasure. "I would love it. But—but father wouldn't, you know. He +wouldn't want to go, and if he did he'd want to pay for it himself, +and do it his own way, and travel third-class and be dreadfully +uncomfortable. Wouldn't he, Peter?"</p> + +<p>Peter feared that he would.</p> + +<p>"Thank you tremendously, all the same," said Lucy, prettily polite.</p> + +<p>"I shall have to go by myself, then," said Urquhart. "What a bore. I +really am going, you know, sometime this spring, to stay with my uncle +in Venice. I expect I shall come across you, Margery, with any luck. I +shan't start yet, though; I shall wait for better motoring weather. No, +I can't stop for tea, thanks; I'm going off for the week-end. Good-bye. +Good-bye, Margery. See you next in Venice, probably."</p> + +<p>He was gone. Lucy sat still in her characteristic attitude, hands clasped +on her knees, solemn grey eyes on the fire.</p> + +<p>"He's going away for the week-end," she said, realising it for herself +and Peter. "But it's more amusing when he's here. When he's in town, I +mean, and comes in. That's nice and funny, isn't it."</p> + +<p>"Yes," said Peter.</p> + +<p>"But one can go out into the streets and see the people go by—and that's +nice and funny too. And there are the Chinese paintings in the British +Museum ... and concerts ... and the Zoo ... and I'm going to a theatre +to-night. It's <i>all</i> nice and funny, isn't it."</p> + +<p>"Yes," said Peter again. He thought so too.</p> + +<p>"Even when you and he are both gone to Italy," said Lucy, reassuring +herself, faintly interrogative. "Even then ... it can't be dull. It can't +be dull ever."</p> + +<p>"It hasn't been yet," Peter agreed. "But I wish you were coming too to +Italy. You must before long. As soon as ..." He left that unfinished, +because it was all so vague at present, and he and Lucy always lived in +the moment.</p> + +<p>"Well," said Lucy, "let's have tea." They had it, out of little Wedgwood +cups, and Lucy's mood of faint wistfulness passed over and left them +chuckling.</p> + +<p>Lucy was a little sad about Felicity, who was now engaged to the young +professor who was conspiring in Poland.</p> + +<p>"I knew she would, of course. I told you so long ago. He's quite sure +to get arrested before long, so that settled it. And they're going to +be married directly and go straight out there and plot. He excites the +students, you know; as if students needed exciting by their +professors.... I shall miss Felicity horribly. <i>'Tis</i> too bad."</p> + +<p>Peter, to cheer her up, told her what he and Leslie were going to do in +Italy.</p> + +<p>"I'll write, of course. Picture post cards, you know. And if ever I've +twopence halfpenny to spare I'll write a real letter; there'll be a lot +to tell you." Peter expected Leslie to be rather funny in Italy, picking +things up.</p> + +<p>"A great country, I believe, for picking things up," he had said. +"Particularly for the garden." He had been referring to his country seat.</p> + +<p>"I see," said Peter. "You want to Italianise the garden. I'm not quite +sure.... Oh, you might, of course. Iron-work gates, then; and carved +Renaissance oil-tanks, and Venetian well-heads, and such-like. All right; +we'll see what we can steal. But it's rather easy to let an Italianised +garden become florid; you have to be extremely careful with it."</p> + +<p>"That's up to you," said Mr. Leslie tranquilly.</p> + +<p>So they went to Italy, and Peter picked things up with judgment, and +Leslie paid for them with phlegm. They picked up not only carved +olive-oil tanks and well-heads and fifteenth-century iron-work gates from +ancient and impoverished gardens, but a contemporarily copied Della +Robbia fireplace, and designs for Renaissance ceilings, and a rococo +carved and painted altar-piece from a mountain church whose <i>parroco</i> was +hard-up, and a piece of 1480 tapestry that Peter loved very much, whereon +St. Anne and other saints played among roses and raspberries, beautiful +to behold. These things made both the picker-up and the payer exceedingly +contented. Meanwhile Peter with difficulty restrained Leslie from +"picking up" stray pieces of mosaic from tessellated pavements, and other +curios. Oddly together with Leslie's feeling for the costly went the +insane and indiscriminate avidity of the collecting tourist.</p> + +<p>"You can't do it," Peter would shrilly and emphatically explain. "It's +like a German tripper collecting souvenirs. Things aren't interesting +merely because you happen to have been to the places they belong to. What +do you want with that bit of glass? It isn't beautiful; when it's taken +out of the rest of its pattern like that it's merely ridiculous. I +thought you wanted <i>beautiful</i> things."</p> + +<p>Leslie would meekly give in. His leaning on Peter in this matter of +what he wanted was touching. In the matter of what he admired, where no +questions of acquisition came in, he and his shopping-man agreed less. +Leslie here showed flashes of proper spirit. He also read Ruskin in the +train. Peter had small allegiance there; he even, when irritated, called +Ruskin a muddle-head.</p> + +<p>"He's a good man, isn't he?" Leslie queried, puzzled. "Surely he knows +what he's talking about?" and Peter had to admit that that was so.</p> + +<p>"He tells me what to like," the self-educator said simply. "And I try to +like it. I don't always succeed, but I try. That's right, isn't it?"</p> + +<p>"I don't know." Peter was puzzled. "It seems to me rather a funny way of +going about it. When you've succeeded, are you much happier? I mean, what +sort of a liking is it? Oh, but I don't understand—there aren't two +sorts really. You either like a thing, or ... well."</p> + +<p>At times one needed a rest from Leslie. But outside the province of art +and the pleasures of the eye he was lovable, even likeable, having here +a self-dependence and a personality that put pathos far off, and made +him himself a rest. And his generosity was limitless. It was almost an +oppression; only Peter, being neither proud nor self-conscious, was not +easily oppressed. He took what was lavished on him and did his best to +deserve it. But it was perhaps a little tiring. Leslie was a thoroughly +good sort—a much better sort than most people knew—but Italy was +somehow not the fit setting for him. Nothing could have made Peter +dislike things pleasant to look at; but Leslie's persevering, +uncomprehending groping after their pleasantness made one feel desirous +to dig a gulf between them and him. It was rather ageing. Peter missed +Urquhart and Lucy; one felt much younger with them. The thought of their +clean, light, direct touch on life, that handled its goods without +fumbling, and without the need of any intervening medium, was as +refreshing as a breath of fresh air in a close room.</p> + +<p>Rodney too was refreshing. They came across him at Pietrasanta; he was +walking across Tuscany by himself, and came to the station, looking very +dusty and disreputable, to put the book he had finished into his bag that +travelled by train and get out another.</p> + +<p>"Come out of that," he said to Peter, "and walk with me to Florence. +Trains for bags; roads for men. You can meet your patron in Florence. +Come along."</p> + +<p>And Peter, after a brief consultation with the accommodating Leslie, did +come along. It was certainly more than amusing. The road in Tuscany is +much better than the railway. And Rodney was an interesting and rather +attractive person. Since he left Cambridge he had been pursuing abstruse +chemical research in a laboratory he had in a Westminster slum. Peter +never saw him in London, because the Ignorant Rich do not live in slums, +and because Rodney was not fond of the more respectable quarters of the +city.</p> + +<p>Peter was set speculating vaguely on Rodney's vivid idealism. To Peter, +ideas, the unseen spirits of life, were remote, neither questioned nor +accepted, but simply in the background. In the foreground, for the +moment, were a long white road running through a river valley, and little +fortress cities cresting rocky hills, and the black notes of the +cypresses striking on a background of silver olives. In these Peter +believed; and he believed in blue Berovieri goblets, and Gobelin +tapestries, and in a great many other things that he had seen and saw at +this moment; he believed intensely, with a poignant vividness of delight, +in all things visible. For the rest, it was not that he doubted or +wondered much; he had not thought about it enough for that; but it was +all very remote. What was spirit, apart from form? Could it be? If so, +would it be valuable or admirable? It was the shapes and colours of +things, after all, that mattered. As to the pre-existence of things and +their hereafter, Peter seldom speculated; he knew that it was through +entering the workshop (or the play-room, he would rather have said) of +the phenomenal, where the idea took limiting lines and definite shape and +the tangible charm of the sense-apprehended, that life for him became +life. Rodney attained to his real by looking through the manifold veils +of the phenomenal, as through so much glass; Peter to his by an adoring +delight in their complex loveliness. He was not a symbolist; he had no +love of mystic hints and mist-veiled distances; he was George Herbert's</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Man who looks on glass<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And on it rests his eye,<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>because glass was so extremely jolly. Rodney looked with the mystic's +eyes on life revealed and emerging behind its symbols; Peter with the +artist's on life expressed in the clean and lovely shapes of things, +their colours and tangible sweetness. To Peter Rodney's idealism would +have been impossibly remote; things, as things, had a delightful concrete +reality that was its own justification. They needed to interpret nothing; +they were themselves; no veils, but the very inner sanctuary.</p> + +<p>Both creeds, that of things visible and that of the idea, were good, and +suited to the holders; but for those on whom fortune frequently frowns, +for those whose destiny it is to lose and break and not to attain, +Peter's has drawbacks. Things do break so; break and get lost and are no +more seen; and that hurts horribly. Remains the idea, Rodney would have +said; that, being your own, does not get lost unless you throw it away; +and, unless you are a fool, you don't throw it away until you have +something better to take its place.</p> + +<p>Anyhow they walked all day and slept on the road. On the third night +they slept in an olive garden; till the moon, striking in silver slants +between silver trees, lit on Rodney's face, and he opened dreamy eyes on +a pale, illumined world. At his side Peter, still in the shadows, slept +rolled up in a bag. Rodney slept with a thin plaid shawl over his knees. +He glanced for a moment at Peter's pale face, a little pathetic in sleep, +a little amused too at the corners of the lightly-closed lips. Rodney's +brief regard was rather friendly and affectionate; then he turned from +the dreaming Peter to the dreaming world. They had gone to sleep in a +dark blue night lit by golden stars, and the olive trees had stood dark +and unwhispering about them, gnarled shapes, waiting their +transformation. Now there had emerged a white world, a silver mystery, +a pale dream; and for Rodney the reality that shone always behind the +shadow-foreground dropped the shadows like a veil and emerged in clean +and bare translucence of truth. The dome of many-coloured glass was here +transcended, its stain absorbed in the white radiance of the elucidating +moon. So elucidating was the moon's light that it left no room for +confusion or doubt. So eternally silver were the still ranks of the +olives that one could imagine no transformation there. That was the pale +and immutable light that lit all the worlds. Getting through and behind +the most visible and obvious of the worlds one was in the sphere of true +values; they lay all about, shining in unveiled strangeness, eternally +and unalterably lit. So Rodney, who had his own value-system, saw them.</p> + +<p>Peter too was caught presently into the luminous circle, and stirred, and +opened pleased and friendly eyes on the white night—Peter was nearly +always polite, even to those who woke him—then, half apologetically, +made as if to snuggle again into sleep, but Rodney put out a long thin +arm and shoved him, and said, "It's time to get up, you slacker," and +Peter murmured:</p> + +<p>"Oh, bother, all right, have you made tea?"</p> + +<p>"No," said Rodney. "You can do without tea this morning."</p> + +<p>Peter sat up and began to fumble in his knapsack.</p> + +<p>"I see no morning," he patiently remarked, as he struck a match and lit +a tiny spirit-lamp. "I see no morning; and whether there is a morning or +merely a moon I cannot do without tea. Or biscuits."</p> + +<p>He found the biscuits, and apparently they had been underneath him all +night.</p> + +<p>"I thought the ground felt even pricklier than usual," he commented. "I +do have such dreadfully bad luck, don't I. Crumbs, Rodney? They're quite +good, for crumbs. Better than crusts, anyhow. I should think even you +could eat crumbs without pampering yourself. And if crumbs then tea, or +you'll choke. Here you are."</p> + +<p>He poured tea into two collapsible cups and passed one to Rodney, who had +been discoursing for some time on his special topic, the art of doing +without.</p> + +<p>Then Peter, drinking tea and munching crumbs, sat up in his bag and +looked at what Rodney described as the morning. He saw how the long, +pointed olive leaves stood with sharp edges against pale light; how +the silver screen was, if one looked into it, a thing of magic details +of delight, of manifold shapes and sharp little shadowings and delicate +tracery; how gnarled stems were light-touched and shadow-touched and +silver and black; how the night was delicate, marvellous, a radiant +wonder of clear loveliness, illustrated by a large white moon. Peter +saw it and smiled. He did not see Rodney's world, but his own.</p> + +<p>But both saw how the large moon dipped and dipped. Soon it would dip +below the dim land's rim, and the olive trees would be blurred and +twisted shadows in a still shadow-world.</p> + +<p>"Then," said Peter dreamily, "we shall be able to go to sleep again."</p> + +<p>Rodney pulled him out of his bag and firmly rolled it up.</p> + +<p>"Twelve kilometres from breakfast. Thirty from tea. No, we don't tea +before Florence. Go and wash."</p> + +<p>They washed in a copper bucket that hung beside a pulley well. It was +rather fun washing, till Peter let the bucket slip off the hook and +gurgle down to the bottom. Then it was rather fun fishing for it with +the hook, but it was not caught, and they abandoned it in sudden alarm at +a distant sound, and hastily scrambled out of the olive garden onto the +white road.</p> + +<p>Beneath their feet lay the thick soft dust, unstirred as yet by the day's +journeyings. The wayfaring smell of it caught at their breath. Before +them the pale road wound and wound, between the silver secrecy of the +olive woods, towards the journeying moon that dipped above a far and +hidden city in the west. Then a dim horizon took the dipping moon, and +there remained a grey road that smelt of dust and ran between shadowed +gardens that showed no more their eternal silver, but gnarled and twisted +stems that mocked and leered.</p> + +<p>One traveller stepped out of his clear circle of illumined values into +the shrouded dusk of the old accustomed mystery, and the road ran faint +to his eyes through a blurred land, and he had perforce to take up +again the quest of the way step by step. Reality, for a lucid space of +time emerging, had slipped again behind the shadow-veils. The ranks of +the wan olives, waiting silently for dawn, held and hid their secret.</p> + +<p>The other traveller murmured, "How many tones of grey do you suppose +there are in an olive tree when the moon has set? But there'll be more +presently. Listen...."</p> + +<p>The little wind that comes before the dawn stirred and shivered, and +disquieted the silence of the dim woods. Peter knew how the stirred +leaves would be shivering white, only in the dark twilight one could not +see.</p> + +<p>The dusk paled and paled. Soon one would catch the silver of up-turned +leaves.</p> + +<p>On the soft deep dust the treading feet of the travellers moved quietly. +One walked with a light unevenness, a slight limp.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_V" id="CHAPTER_V"></a>CHAPTER V</h2> + +<h3>THE SPLENDID MORNING</h3> + + +<p>"Listen," said Peter again; and some far off thing was faintly jarring +the soft silence, on a crescendo note.</p> + +<p>Rodney listened, and murmured, "Brute." He hated them more than Peter +did. He was less wide-minded and less sweet-tempered. Peter had a gentle +and not intolerant æsthetic aversion, Rodney a fervid moral indignation.</p> + +<p>It came storming over the rims of twilight out of an unborn dawn, and the +soft dust surged behind. Its eyes flamed, and lit the pale world. It was +running to the city in the dim west; it was in a hurry; it would be there +for breakfast. As it ran it played the opening bars of something of +Tchaichowsky's.</p> + +<p>Rodney and Peter leant over the low white wall and gazed into grey +shivering gardens. So could they show aloof contempt; so could they +elude the rioting dust.</p> + +<p>The storming took a diminuendo note; it slackened to a throbbing murmur. +The brute had stopped, and close to them. The brute was investigating +itself.</p> + +<p>"Perhaps," Rodney hoped, but not sanguinely, "they'll have to push it all +the way to Florence." Still contempt withheld a glance.</p> + +<p>Then a pleasant, soft voice broke the hushed dusk with half a laugh, and +Peter wheeled sharply about. The man who had laughed was climbing again +into his seat, saying, "It's quite all right." That remark was extremely +characteristic; it would have been a suitable motto for his whole career.</p> + +<p>The next thing he said, in his gentle, unsurprised voice, was to the +bare-headed figure that smiled up at him from the road.</p> + +<p>"You, Margery?... What a game. But what have you done with the Hebrew? +Oh, that's Stephen, isn't it. That accounts for it: but how did he get +you? I say, you can't have slept anywhere; there's <i>been</i> nowhere, for +miles. And have you left Leslie to roam alone among the Objects of Beauty +with his own unsophisticated taste for guide? I suppose he's chucked +you at last; very decent-spirited of him, I think, don't you, Stephen?"</p> + +<p>"I chucked him," Peter explained, "because he bought a sham Carlo Dolci. +I drew the line at that. Though if one must have a Carlo Dolci, I suppose +it had better be a sham one, on the whole. Anyhow, I came away and took +to the road. We sleep in ditches, and we like it very much, and I make +tea every morning in my little kettle. I'm going to Florence to help +Leslie to buy bronze things for his grates—dogs, you know, and shovels +and things. Leslie will have been there for three days now; I do wonder +what he's bought."</p> + +<p>"You'd better come on in the car," Urquhart said. "Both of you. Why is +Stephen looking so proud? I shall be at Florence for breakfast. <i>You</i> +won't, though. Bad luck. Come along; there's loads of room."</p> + +<p>Rodney stood by the wall. He was unlike Peter in this, that his +resentment towards a person who motored across Tuscany between dusk and +dawn was in no way lessened by the discovery of who it was.</p> + +<p>Peter stood, his feet deep in dust, and smiled at Urquhart. Rodney +watched the two a little cynically from the wall. Peter looked what he +was—a limping vagabond tramp, dust-smeared, bare-headed, very much +part of the twilight road. In spite of his knapsack, he had the air of +possessing nothing and smiling over the thought.</p> + +<p>Peter said, "How funny," meaning the combination of Urquhart and the +motor-car and Tuscany and the grey dawn and Rodney and himself; Urquhart +was smiling down at them, his face pale in the strange dawn-twilight. +The scene was symbolical of their whole relations; it seemed as if +Urquhart, lifted triumphantly above the road's dust, had always so smiled +down on Peter, in his vagabond weakness.</p> + +<p>"I don't think," Urquhart was saying, "that you ought to walk so far in +the night. It's weakening." To Urquhart Peter had always been a brittle +incompetent, who could not do things, who kept breaking into bits if +roughly handled.</p> + +<p>"Rodney and I don't think," Peter returned, in the hushed voice that +belonged to the still hour, "that you ought to motor so loud in the +night. It's common. Rodney specially thinks so. Rodney is sulking; he +won't come and speak to you."</p> + +<p>Urquhart called to his cousin: "Come with me to Florence, you and +Margery. Or do you hate them too much?"</p> + +<p>"Much too much," Rodney admitted, coming forwards perforce. "Thank you," +he added, "but I'm on a walking tour, and it wouldn't do to spoil it. +Margery isn't, though. You go, Margery, if you like."</p> + +<p>Urquhart said, "Do, Margery," and Peter looked wistful, but declined. He +wanted horribly badly to go with Urquhart; but loyalty hindered.</p> + +<p>Urquhart said he was going to Venice afterwards, to stay with his uncle +Evelyn.</p> + +<p>"Good," said Peter. "Leslie and I are going to do Venice directly we've +cleared Florence of its Objects of Beauty. You can imagine the way Leslie +will go about Florence, his purse in his hand, asking the price of the +Bargello. 'Worth having, isn't it? A good thing, I think?' If we decide +that it is he'll have it, whatever the price; he always does. He's a +sportsman; I can't tell you how attached I am to him." Peter had not told +even Urquhart that one was ever glad of a rest from Leslie.</p> + +<p>Urquhart said, "Well, if you <i>won't</i> come," and hummed into the paling +twilight, and before him fled the circle of golden light and after him +swept the dust. Peter's eyes followed the golden light and the surging +whiteness till a bend in the road took them, and the world was again dim +and grey and very still. Only the little cool wind that soughed among the +olive leaves was like the hushed murmuring of quiet waves. Eastwards, +among the still, mysterious hills and silver plains, a translucent dawn +was coming.</p> + +<p>Peter's sigh was very unobtrusive. "After all," he murmured, "motoring +does make me feel sick."</p> + +<p>Rodney gave half a cynical smile with the corner of his mouth not +occupied with his short and ugly pipe. Peter was pipeless; smoking, +perhaps, had the same disastrous effect.</p> + +<p>"But all the same," said Peter, suddenly aggrieved, "you might be +pleasant to your own cousin, even if he is in a motor. Why be proud?"</p> + +<p>He was really a little vexed that Rodney should look with aloofness +on Urquhart. For him Urquhart embodied the brilliance of life, its +splendidness and beauty and joy. Rodney, with his fanatical tilting at +prosperity, would, Peter half consciously knew, have to see Urquhart +unhorsed and stripped bare before he would take much notice of him.</p> + +<p>"Too many things," said Rodney, indistinctly over his thick pipe. +"That's all."</p> + +<p>Peter, irritated, said, "The old story. The more things the better; why +not? You'd be happy on a desert island full of horrid naked savages. You +think you're civilised, but you're really the most primitive person +I know."</p> + +<p>Rodney said he was glad; he liked to be primitive, and added, "But +you're wrong, of course. The naked savages would like anything they could +get—beads or feathers or top hats; they're not natural ascetics; the +simple life is enforced.... St. Francis took off all his clothes in the +Piazza and began his new career without any."</p> + +<p>"Disgusting," murmured Peter.</p> + +<p>"That," said Rodney, "is what people like Denis should do. They need to +unload, strip bare, to find themselves, to find life."</p> + +<p>"Denis," said Peter, "is the most alive person I know, as it happens. +He's found life without needing to take his clothes off—so he scores +over St. Francis."</p> + +<p>Denis had rushed through the twilight vivid like a flame—he had lit it +for a moment and left it grey. Peter knew that.</p> + +<p>"But he hasn't," Rodney maintained, "got the key of the thing. If he +did take his clothes off, it would be a toss-up whether he found more +life or lost what he's got. That's all wrong, don't you see. That's what +ails all these delightful, prosperous people. They're swimming with +life-belts."</p> + +<p>"You'll be saying next," said Peter, disgusted, "that you admire +Savonarola and his bonfire."</p> + +<p>"I do, of course. But he'd only got hold of half of it—half the gospel +of the empty-handed. The point is to lose and laugh." For a moment Rodney +had a vision of Peter standing bare-headed in the dust and smiling. "To +drop all the trappings and still find life jolly—just because it <i>is</i> +life, not because of what it brings. That's what St. Francis did. That's +where Italy scores over England. I remember at Lerici the beggars +laughing on the shore, with a little maccaroni to last them the day. +There was a man all done up in bandages, hopping about on crutches and +grinning. Smashed to bits, and his bones sticking out of his skin for +hunger, but there was the sun and the sea and the game he was playing +with dice, and he looked as if he was saying, '<i>Nihil habentes, omnia +possidentes</i>; isn't it a jolly day?' When Denis says that, I shall begin +to have hopes for him. At present he thinks it's a jolly day because he's +got money to throw about and a hundred and one games to play at and +friends to play them with, and everything his own way, and a new +motor.... Well, but look at that now. Isn't it bare and splendid—all +clean lines—no messing and softness; it might be cut out of rock. Oh, +I like Tuscany."</p> + +<p>They had rounded a bend, and a spacious country lay there stretched to +the morning, and over it the marvel of the dawn opened and blossomed like +a flower. From the basin of the shining river the hills stood back, and +up their steep sides the vine-hung mulberries and close-trimmed olives +climbed (olives south of the Serchio are diligently pruned, and lack the +generous luxuriance of the north), and against the silver background the +sentinel cypresses stood black, like sharp music notes striking abruptly +into a vague symphony; and among the mulberry gardens and the olives and +the cypresses white roads climbed and spiralled up to little cresting +cities that took the rosy dawn. Tuscany emerging out of the dim mystery +of night had a splendid clarity, an unblurred cleanness of line, an +austere fineness, as of a land hewn sharply out of rock.</p> + +<p>Peter would not have that fine bareness used as illustration; it was too +good a thing in itself. Rodney the symbolist saw the vision of life in +it, Peter the joy of self-sufficient beauty.</p> + +<p>The quiet road bore them through the hushed translucence of the +dawn-clear land. Everything was silent in this limpid hour; the little +wind that had whitened the olives and set the sea-waves whispering +there had dropped now and lay very still.</p> + +<p>The road ran level through the river basin. Far ahead they could see it +now, a white ribbon laid beside a long golden gleam that wound and wound.</p> + +<p>Peter sighed, seeing so much of it all at once, and stopped to rest on +the low white wall, but instead of sitting on it he swayed suddenly +forward, and the hill cities circled close about him, and darkened and +shut out the dawn.</p> + +<p>The smell of the dust, when one was close to it, was bitter and odd. +Somewhere in the further darkness a voice was muttering mild and +perplexed imprecations. Peter moved on the strong arm that was supporting +him and opened his eyes and looked on the world again. Between him and +the rosy morning, Rodney loomed large, pouring whisky into a flask.</p> + +<p>It all seemed a very old and often-repeated tale. One could not do +anything; one could not even go a walking-tour: one could not (of this +one was quite sure) take whisky at this juncture without feeling horribly +sick. The only thing that occurred to Peter, in the face of the dominant +Rodney, was to say, "I'm a teetotaller." Rodney nodded and held the flask +to his lips. Rodney was looking rather worried.</p> + +<p>Peter said presently, still at length in the dust, "I'm frightfully +sorry. I suppose I'm tired. Didn't we get up rather early and walk rather +fast?"</p> + +<p>"I suppose," said Rodney, "you oughtn't to have come. What's wrong, you +rotter?"</p> + +<p>Peter sat up, and there lay the road again, stretching and stretching +into the pink morning.</p> + +<p>"Thirty kilometres to breakfast," murmured Peter. "And I don't know that +I want any, even then. Wrong?... Oh ... well, I suppose it's heart. I +have one, you know, of a sort. A nuisance, it's always been. Not +dangerous, but just in the way. I'm sorry, Rodney—I really am."</p> + +<p>Rodney said again, "You absolute rotter. Why didn't you tell me? What in +the name of anything induced you to walk at all? You needn't have."</p> + +<p>Peter looked down the long road that wound and wound into the morning +land. "I wanted to," he said. "I wanted to most awfully.... I wanted to +try it.... I thought perhaps it was the one thing.... Football's off +for me, you know—and most other things.... Only diabolo left ... and +ping-pong ... and jig-saw. I'm quite good at those ... but oh, I did want +to be able to walk. Horribly I wanted it."</p> + +<p>"Well," said Rodney practically, "it's extremely obvious that you aren't. +You ought to have got into that thing, of course. Only then, as you +remarked, you would have felt sick. Really, Margery...."</p> + +<p>"Oh, I know," Peter stopped him hastily. "<i>Don't</i> say the usual things; +I really feel too unwell to bear them. I know I'm made in Germany and all +that—I've been hearing so all my life. And now I should like you to go +on to Florence, and I'll follow, very slow. It's all very well, Rodney, +but you were going at about seven miles an hour. Talk of motors—I +couldn't see the scenery as we rushed by. That's such a Vandal-like +way of crossing Tuscany."</p> + +<p>"Well, you can cross the rest of Tuscany by train. There's a station at +Montelupo; we shall be there directly."</p> + +<p>Peter, abruptly renouncing his intention of getting up, lay back giddily. +The marvellous morning was splendid on the mountains.</p> + +<p>"How extremely lucky," remarked Peter weakly, "that I wasn't in this +position when Denis came by. Denis usually does come by at these crucial +moments you know—always has. He probably thinks by now that I am an +escaped inhabitant of the Permanent Casualty Ward. Bother. I wish he +didn't."</p> + +<p>"Since it's obvious," said Rodney, "that you can't stand, let alone walk, +I had better go on to Montelupo and fetch a carriage of sorts. I wonder +if you can lie there quietly till I come back, or if you'll be having +seizures and things? Well, I can't help it. I must go, anyhow. There's +the whisky on your left."</p> + +<p>Peter watched him go; he went at seven miles an hour; the dust ruffled +and leapt at his heels.</p> + +<p>Peter sat very still leaning back against the rough white wall, and +thought what a pity it all was. What a pity, and what a bore, that one +could not do things like other people. Short of being an Urquhart, who +could do everything and had everything, whose passing car flamed +triumphant and lit the world into a splendid joy, and was approved under +investigation with "quite all right"—short of that glorious competence +and pride of life, one might surely be an average man, who could walk +from San Pietro to Florence without tumbling on the road at dawn. Peter +sighed over it, rather crossly. The marvellous morning was insulted by +his collapse; it became a remote thing, in which he might have no share. +As always, the inexorable "Not for you" rose like a barred gate between +him and the lucid country the white road threaded.</p> + +<p>Peter in the dust began to whistle softly, to cheer himself, and because +he was really feeling better, and because anyhow, for him or not for him, +the land at dawn was a golden and glorious thing, and he loved it. What +did it matter whether he could walk through it or not? There it lay, +magical, clear-hewn, bathed in golden sunrise.</p> + +<p>Round the turn of the road a bent figure came, stepping slowly and with +age, a woodstack on his back. Heavier even than a knapsack containing a +spirit kettle and a Decameron and biscuit remainders in a paper bag, it +must be. Peter watched the slow figure sympathetically. Would he sway and +topple over; and if he did would the woodstack break his fall? The whisky +flask stood ready on Peter's left.</p> + +<p>Peter stopped whistling to watch; then he became aware that once more the +hidden distances were jarring and humming. He sat upright, and waited; a +little space of listening, then once again the sungod's chariot stormed +into the morning.</p> + +<p>Peter watched it grow in size. How extremely fortunate.... Even though +one was again, as usual, found collapsed and absurd.</p> + +<p>The woodstack pursued its slow advance. The music from Tchaichowsky +admonished it, as a matter of form, from far off, then sharply, +summarily, from a lessening distance. The woodstack was puzzled, vaguely +worried. It stopped, dubiously moved to one side, and pursued its +cautious way a little uncertainly.</p> + +<p>Urquhart, without his chauffeur this time, was driving over the +speed-limit, Peter perceived. He usually did. But he ought to slacken +his pace now, or he would miss Peter by the wall. He was nearing the +woodstack, just going to pass it, with a clear two yards between. It was +not his doing: it was the woodstack that suddenly lessened the distance, +lurching over it, taking the middle of the road.</p> + +<p>Peter cried, "Oh, don't—oh, <i>don't</i>," idiotically, sprawling on hands +and knees.</p> + +<p>The car swung sharply about like a tugged horse; sprang to the other side +of the road, hung poised on a wheel, as near as possible capsized. A less +violent jerk and it would have gone clean over the woodstack that lay in +the road on the top of its bearer.</p> + +<p>By the time Peter got there, Urquhart had lifted the burden from the old +bent figure that lay face downwards. Gently he turned it over, and they +looked on a thin old face gone grey with more than age.</p> + +<p>"He can't be," said Urquhart. "He can't be. I didn't touch him."</p> + +<p>Peter said nothing. His eyes rested on the broken end of a chestnut-stick +protruding from the faggot, dangling loose by its bark. Urquhart's glance +followed his.</p> + +<p>"I see," said Urquhart quietly. "That did it. The lamp or something must +have struck it and knocked him over. Poor old chap." Urquhart's hand +shook over the still heart. Peter gave him the whisky flask. Two minutes +passed. It was no good.</p> + +<p>"His heart must have been bad," said Urquhart, and the soft tones of his +pleasant voice were harsh and unsteady. "Shock, I suppose. How—how +absolutely awful."</p> + +<p>How absolutely incongruous, Peter was dully thinking. Urquhart and +tragedy; Urquhart and death. It was that which blackened the radiant +morning, not the mercifully abrupt cessation of a worn-out life. For +Peter death had two sharply differentiated aspects—one of release to +the tired and old, for whom the grasshopper was a burden; the other of +an unthinkable blackness of tragedy—sheer sharp loss that knew no +compensation. It was not with this bitter face that death had stepped +into their lives on this clear morning. One could imagine that weary +figure glad to end his wayfaring so; one could even imagine those steps +to death deliberately taken; and one did imagine those he left behind +him accepting his peace as theirs.</p> + +<p>Peter said, "It wasn't your fault. It was his doing—poor chap."</p> + +<p>The uncertain quaver in his voice brought Urquhart's eyes for a moment +upon his face, that was always pale and was now the colour of putty.</p> + +<p>"You're ill, aren't you?... I met Stephen.... I was coming back anyhow; +I knew you weren't fit to walk."</p> + +<p>He muttered it absently, frowning down on the other greyer face in the +grey dust. Again his hand unsteadily groped over the still heart, and lay +there for a moment.</p> + +<p>Abruptly then he looked up, and met Peter's shadow-circled eyes.</p> + +<p>"I was over-driving," he said. "I ought to have slowed down to pass him." +He stood up, frowning down on the two in the road.</p> + +<p>"We've got to think now," he said, "what to do about it."</p> + +<p>To that thinking Peter offered no help and no hindrance. He sat in the +road by the dead man and the bundle of wood, and looked vaguely on the +remote morning that death had dimmed. Denis and death: Peter would have +done a great deal to sever that incredible connection.</p> + +<p>But it was, after all, for Denis to effect that severing, to cut himself +loose from that oppressing and impossible weight.</p> + +<p>He did so.</p> + +<p>"I don't see," said Denis, "that we need ... that we can ... do anything +about it."</p> + +<p>Above the clear mountains the sun swung up triumphant, and the wide river +valley was bathed in radiant gold.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VI" id="CHAPTER_VI"></a>CHAPTER VI</h2> + +<h3>HILARY, PEGGY, AND HER BOARDERS</h3> + + +<p>When Leslie and Peter went to Venice to pick up Berovieri goblets and +other things, Leslie stayed at the Hotel Europa and Peter in the Palazzo +Amadeo. The Palazzo Amadeo is a dilapidated palace looking onto the Rio +delle Beccarie; it is let in flats to the poor; and in the sea-story +suite of the great, bare, dingy, gilded rooms lived Hilary and Peggy +Margerison, and three disreputable infants who insisted on bathing in the +canals, and the boarders. The boarders were at the moment six in number; +Peter made seven. The great difficulty with the boarders, Peggy told him, +was to make them pay. They had so little money, and such a constitutional +reluctance to spend that little on their board.</p> + +<p>"The poor things," said Peggy, who had a sympathetic heart. "I'm sure I'm +sorry for them, and I hate to ask them for it. But one's got to try and +live."</p> + +<p>She was drying Illuminato (baptized in that name by his father's +desire, but by his mother called Micky) before the stove in the great +dining-room. Illuminato had just tumbled off the bottom step into the +water, and had been fished out by his uncle Peter; he was three, and had +humorous, screwed-up eyes and a wide mouth like a frog's, so that Hilary, +who detested ugliness, could really hardly be fond of him. Peggy was; but +then Peggy always had more sense of humour than Hilary.</p> + +<p>A boarder looked in to see if lunch was ready. It was not, but Peggy +began preparations by screaming melodiously for Teresina. They heard the +boarder sigh. He was a tall young man with inspired eyes and oily hair. +Peter had observed him the night before, with some interest.</p> + +<p>"That's Guy Vyvian," Peggy told him, looking for Illuminato's dryer suit +in the china cupboard.</p> + +<p>"Fancy," said Peter.</p> + +<p>"Yes," said Peggy, pulling out a garment and dropping a plate out of its +folds on the polished marble floor. "There now! Micky, you're a tiresome +little ape and I don't love you. Guy Vyvian's an ape, too, entirely; his +one merit is that he writes for 'The Gem,' so that Hilary can take the +rent he won't pay out of the money he gives him for his articles. It +works out pretty well, on the whole, I fancy; they're neither of them +good at paying, so it saves them both bother. ("È pronto, Teresina?" +"Subito, subito," cried Teresina from the kitchen.) "I can't abide +Vyvian," Peggy resumed. "The babies hate him, and he makes himself horrid +to everyone, and lets Rhoda Johnson grovel to him, and stares at the +stains on the table-cloth, as if his own nails weren't worse, and turns up +his nose at the food. Poor little Rhoda! You saw her? The little thin +girl with a cough, who hangs on Vyvian's words and blushes when her +mother speaks. She's English governess to the Marchesa Azzareto's +children. Mrs. Johnson's a jolly old soul; I'm fond of her; she's the +best of the boarders, by a lot. Now, precious, if you tumble in again +this morning, you shall sit next to Mr. Vyvian at dinner. You go and tell +the others that from me. It isn't respectable, the way you all go on. +Here's the minestra at last."</p> + +<p>Teresina, clattering about the marble floor with the minestra, screamed +"Pronto," very loud, and the boarders trailed in one by one. First came +Mr. Guy Vyvian, sauntering with resignedly lifted brows, and looking as +if it ought to have been ready a long time ago; he was followed by Mrs. +Johnson, a stout and pleasant lady, who looked as if she was only too +delighted that it was ready now, and the more the better; her young +daughter, Rhoda, wearing a floppy smocked frock and no collar but a bead +necklace, coughed behind her; she looked pale and fatigued, and as if it +didn't matter in the least if it was never ready at all. She was being +talked to by a round-faced, fluffy-haired lady in a green dress and +pince-nez, who took an interest in the development of her deplorably +uncultured young mind—a Miss Barnett, who was painting pictures to +illustrate a book to be called "Venice, Her Spirit." The great hope for +young Rhoda, both Miss Barnett and Mr. Vyvian felt, was to widen the gulf +between her and her unspeakable mother. They, who quarrelled about +everything else, were united in this enterprise. The method adopted +was to snub Mrs. Johnson whenever she spoke. That was no doubt why, as +Peggy had told Peter, Rhoda blushed on those frequent occasions.</p> + +<p>The party was completed by a very young curate, and an elderly spinster +with mittens and many ailments, the symptoms of which she lucidly +specified in a refined undertone to any lady who would listen; with +gentlemen, however, she was most discreet, except with the curate, who +complained that his cloth was no protection. Finally Hilary came in and +took the head of the table, and Peggy and the children took the other +end. Peter found himself between Mrs. Johnson and Miss Barnett, and +opposite Mr. Vyvian and Rhoda.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Johnson began to be nice to him at once, in her cheery way.</p> + +<p>"Know Venice?" and when Peter said, "Not yet," she told him, "Ah, you'll +like it, I know. So pleasant as it is. Particlerly for young people. It +gives me rheumatics, so much damp about. But my gel Rhoder is that fond +of it. Spends all her spare time—not as she's got much, poor gel—in the +gall'ries and that. Art, you know. She goes in for it, Rhoder does. I +don't, now. I'm a stupid old thing, as they'll all tell you." She nodded +cheerfully and inclusively at Mr. Vyvian and Rhoda and Miss Barnett. They +did not notice. Vyvian, toying disgustedly with his burnt minestra, was +saying in his contemptuous voice, "Of course, if you like <i>that</i>, you may +as well like the Frari monuments at once and have done."</p> + +<p>Rhoda was crimson; she had made another mistake. Miss Barnett, who +disputed the office of mentor with Vyvian, whom she jealously disliked, +broke in, in her cheery chirp, "I don't agree with you, Mr. Vyvian. I +consider it a very fine example of Carpaccio's later style; I think you +will find that some good critics are with me." She addressed Peter, +ignoring the intervening solidity of Mrs. Johnson. "Do you support me, +Mr. Margerison?"</p> + +<p>"I've not seen it yet," Peter said rather timidly. "It sounds very nice."</p> + +<p>Miss Barnett gave him a rather contemptuous look through her pince-nez +and turned to Hilary.</p> + +<p>"Lor!" whispered Mrs. Johnson to Peter. "They do get so excited about +pictures. Just like that they go on all day, squabblin' and peckin' each +other. Always at Rhoder they are too, tellin' her she must think this and +mustn't think that, till the poor gel don't know if she's on her head or +her heels. She don't like <i>me</i> to interfere, or it's all I can do +sometimes not to put in my word and say, 'You stick to it, Rhoder my +dear; you stand up to 'em and your mother'll back you.' But Rhoder don't +like that. 'Mother,' she says, quite sharp, 'Mother, you don't know a +thing about Art, and they do. You let be, and don't put me to shame +before my friends.' That's what she'd like to say, anyhow, if she's too +good a gel to say it. Rhoder's ashamed of my ignorance, that's what it +is." This was a furtive whisper, for Peter's ear alone. Having thus +unburdened herself Mrs. Johnson cleared her throat noisily and said very +loud, "An' what do you think of St. Mark's?" That was a sensible and +intelligent question, and she hoped Rhoda heard.</p> + +<p>Peter said he thought it was very nice. That Rhoda certainly heard, and +she looked at him with a curious expression, in which hope predominated. +Was this brother of the Margerisons another fool, worse than her? Would +he perhaps make her folly shine almost like wisdom by comparison? She +exchanged a glance with Vyvian; it was extraordinarily sweet to be able +to do that; so many glances had been exchanged àpropos of <i>her</i> remarks +between Vyvian and Miss Barnett. But here was a young man who thought St. +Mark's was very nice. "The dear Duomo!" Miss Barnett murmured, protecting +it from Tourist Insolence.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Johnson agreed enthusiastically with Peter.</p> + +<p>"I call it just sweet. You should see it on a Sunday, Mr. Margerison—Mr. +Peter, as I should say, shouldn't I?—all the flags flying, and the sun +shining on the gilt front an' all, and the band playing in the square; +an' inside half a dozen services all at once, and the incense floatin' +everywhere. Not as I'm partial to incense; it makes me feel a bit +squeamish—and Miss Gould there tells me it affects her similarly, don't +it, Miss Gould? Incense, I say—don't it give you funny feelin's within? +Seem to upset you, as it were?"</p> + +<p>Miss Gould, disturbed in her intimate conversation with the curate, held +up mittened hands in deprecating horror, either at the delicacy of the +question called across the table with gentlemen present, or at the memory +it called up in her of the funny feelings within.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Johnson took it as that, and nodded. "Just like me, she is, in that +way. But I like to see the worship goin' on, all the same. Popish, you +know, of course," she added, and then, bethinking herself, "But perhaps +you're a Roman, Mr. Peter, like your dear brother and sister? Well, Roman +or no Roman, I always say as how Mrs. Margerison is one of the best. A +dear, cheery soul, as has hardships to contend with; and if she finds the +comforts of religion in graven images an' a bead necklace, who am I to +say her no?"</p> + +<p>"Peggy," said Hilary wearily across the table, "Illuminato is making a +little beast of himself. Put him out."</p> + +<p>Peggy scrubbed Illuminato's bullet head dry with her handkerchief (it had +been lying in his minestra bowl), slapped him lightly on the hands, and +said absently, "Don't worry poor Daddy, who's so tired." She was wishing +that the <i>risotto</i> had been boiled a little; one gathered from the +hardness of the rice that that process had been omitted. Vyvian, who +was talking shop with Hilary, sighed deeply and laid down his fork. He +wondered why he ever came in to lunch. One could get a much better one +nearly as cheap at a restaurant.</p> + +<p>Miss Barnett, with an air of wishing to find out how bad a fool Peter +was, leaned across Mrs. Johnson and said, "What are you to Venice, Mr. +Margerison, and Venice to you? What, I mean, are you going to get out +of her? Which of her aspects do you especially approach? She has so +infinitely many, you know. What, in fact, is your connecting link?" She +waited with some interest for what Peter would say. She had not yet +"placed" him.</p> + +<p>Peter said, "Oh, well ... I look at things, you know ... much the same +as anyone else, I expect. And I go in gondolas; and then there are the +things one would like to buy."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Johnson approved this. "Lovely, ain't they! Only one never has the +money to spend."</p> + +<p>"I watch other people spending theirs," said Peter, "which is the next +best thing, I suppose ... I'm sorry I'm stupid, Miss Barnett—but it's +all so jolly that I don't like to be invidious."</p> + +<p>"Do you write?" she enquired.</p> + +<p>"Sometimes," he admitted. "You're illustrating a book about Venice, +aren't you? That must be awfully interesting."</p> + +<p>"I am trying," she said, "to catch the most elusive thing in the +world—the Spirit of Venice. It breaks my heart, the pursuit. Just +round the corner, always; you know Browning's 'Love in a Life'?</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Heart, fear nothing, for heart, thou shalt find her,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Next time herself!—not the trouble behind her ...<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Still the same chance! she goes out as I enter.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Spend my whole day in the quest;—who cares? ...<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>It's like that with me and my Venice. It hurts rather—but I have to go +on."</p> + +<p>"You shouldn't, my dear," Mrs. Johnson murmured soothingly. "I'm sure you +should be careful. We mustn't play tricks with our constitutions."</p> + +<p>Rhoda kicked Peter under the table in mistake for her mother, and never +discovered the error.</p> + +<p>"Can you tell me," Miss Barnett added abruptly, in her cheerful voice, +"where it hides?"</p> + +<p>Peter looked helpful and intelligent, and endeared himself to her +thereby. She thought him a sympathetic young man, with possibilities, +probably undeveloped.</p> + +<p>Vyvian, who regarded Miss Barnett and "Venice, Her Spirit," with +contemptuous jealousy, thought that Rhoda was paying them too much +attention, and effectually called her away by saying, "If you care to +come with me to the Schiavoni, I can better explain to you what I mean."</p> + +<p>Rhoda kindled and flushed and looked suddenly pretty. Peter heard a +smothered sigh on his left.</p> + +<p>"I don't like it," Mrs. Johnson murmured to him. "No, I don't. If it was +you, now, as offered to take her—But there, I daresay you wouldn't be +clever enough to suit Rhoder; she's so partic'lar. You and me, now—we +get on very well; seems as if we liked to talk on the same subjects, as +it were; but Rhoder's different. When we go about together, it's always, +'Mother, not so loud! Oh, mother, you mustn't! Mother, that ain't really +beautiful at all, and you're givin' of us away. Mother, folks are +listening.' Let 'em listen is what I say. They won't hear anything that +could hurt 'em from me. But Rhoder's so quiet; she hates a bit of notice. +Not that she minds when she's with <i>him</i>; he talks away at the top of his +voice, and folks do turn an' listen—I've seen 'em. But I suppose that's +clever talk, so Rhoder don't mind."</p> + +<p>She raised her voice from the thick and cautious whisper which she +thought suitable for these remarks, and addressed Peggy.</p> + +<p>"Well, we've had a good dinner, my dear—plenty of it, if the rice <i>was</i> +a bit underdone."</p> + +<p>"A grain," Miss Gould was murmuring to the curate, "a single grain would +have had unspeakable effects...."</p> + +<p>Peggy was endeavouring to comb Caterina's exceedingly tangled locks with +the fingers of one hand, while with the other she slapped Silvio's +(Larry's) bare and muddy feet to make him take them off the table-cloth. +Not that they made much difference to the condition of the table-cloth; +but still, there are conventions.</p> + +<p>"It is a disgrace," Hilary remarked mechanically, "that my children can't +behave like civilised beings at a meal ... Peter, what are you going to +do this afternoon?"</p> + +<p>The boarders rose. Mrs. Johnson patted Peter approvingly on the arm, and +said, "I'm glad to of had the pleasure. One day we'll go out together, +you and me. Seem as if we look at things from the same point of view, as +it were. You mayn't be so clever as some, but you suit me. Now, my dear, +I'm goin' to help you about the house a bit. The saloon wants dustin', I +noticed."</p> + +<p>Peggy sighed and said she was sure it did, and Teresina was hopeless, and +Mrs. Johnson was really too kind, but it was a shame to bother her, and +the saloon could go another while yet. She was struggling with the +children's bibs and rather preoccupied.</p> + +<p>The boarders went out to pursue their several avocations; Rhoda and Mr. +Vyvian to the church of San Giorgio degli Schiavoni, that Mr. Vyvian +might the better explain what he meant; Miss Barnett, round-about and +cheerful, sketch-book in hand, to hunt for "Venice, Her Spirit," in the +Pescaria; Miss Gould to lie down on her bed and recover from lunch; the +curate to take the air and photographs for his magic lantern lectures +to be delivered in the parish-room at home; and Mrs. Johnson to find a +feather broom.</p> + +<p>Hilary sat down and lit a cigar, and Illuminato crawled about his legs.</p> + +<p>"I'm going out with Leslie," said Peter. "We're going to call on the +prince and see the goblet and begin the haggling. We must haggle, though +as a matter of fact Leslie means to have it at any price. It must be a +perfectly ripping thing.... Now let me have a number of 'The Gem' to +read. I've not seen it yet, you know."</p> + +<p>"It's very dull, my dear," Peggy murmured, rinsing water over the place +on the table-cloth where Silvio's feet had been.</p> + +<p>Hilary was gazing into the frog-like countenance of his youngest son. It +gave him a disappointment ever new, that Illuminato should be so plain. +"But your mother's handsome, frog," he murmured, "and I'm not worse than +my neighbours to look at." (But he knew he was better than most of them). +"Let's hope you have intellect to make up. Now crawl to your uncle Peter, +since you want to."</p> + +<p>Illuminato did want to. He adored his uncle Peter.</p> + +<p>"The Gem, Peter?" said Hilary. "Bother the Gem. As Peggy remarks, it's +very dull, and you won't like it. I don't know that I want you to read +it, to say the truth."</p> + +<p>Peter was in the act of doing so. He had found three torn pages of it on +the floor. He was reading an article called "Osele." Hilary glanced at +it, with the slight nervous frown frequent with him.</p> + +<p>"What have you got hold of?... Oh, that." His frown seemed to relax +a little. "I really don't recommend the thing for your entertainment, +Peter. It'll bore you. I have to provide two things—food for the +interested visitor, and guidance for Lord Evelyn's mania for purchasing."</p> + +<p>"So I am gathering," Peter said. "I'm reading about <i>osele</i>, marked with +the Mocenigo rose. Signor Antonio Sardi seems to be a man worth a visit. +I must take Leslie there. That's just the sort of thing he likes. And +sixteenth-century visiting cards. Yes, he'd like those too. By all means +we'll go to your friend Sardi. You wrote this, I suppose?"</p> + +<p>Hilary nodded. His white nervous fingers played on the arm of his chair. +It seemed to be something of an ordeal to him, this first introduction of +Peter to the Gem.</p> + +<p>Peggy, assisting Teresina to bundle the crockery off the table, shot a +swift glance at the group—at Hilary lying back smoking, with slightly +knitted forehead, one unsteady hand playing on his chair; at Peter +sitting on the marble floor with the torn fragments of paper in his hands +and Illuminato astride on his knee. Peggy's grey, Irish eyes were at the +moment a little speculative, touched with a dispassionate curiosity and a +good deal of sisterly and wifely and maternal and slightly compassionate +affection. She was so fond of them all, the dear babes.</p> + +<p>Peter had gone on from <i>osele</i> to ivory plaques. He was not quite so much +interested in reading about them because he knew more about them for +himself, but he took down the name of a dealer who had, according to +the Gem, some good specimens, and said he should take Leslie there too.</p> + +<p>Hilary got up rather suddenly, and jerked his cigar away into a corner +(marble floors are useful in some ways) and said, "Is Leslie going to buy +the whole place up? I'm sick of these wealthy Jews. They're ruining +Venice. Buying all the palaces, you know. I suppose Leslie'll be wanting +to do that next. There's altogether too much buying in this forsaken +world. Why can't people admire without wanting to acquire? Lord Evelyn +can't. The squandering old fool; he's ruining himself over things he's +too blind even to look at properly. And this Leslie of yours, who can't +even appreciate, still must get and have, of course; and the more he gets +the more he wants. Can't you stop him, Peter? It's such a monstrous +exhibition of the vice of the age."</p> + +<p>"It's not my profession to stop him," Peter said. "And, after all, why +shouldn't they? If it makes them happy—well—" His finality conveyed his +creed; if it makes them happy, what else is there? To be happy is to have +reached the goal. Peter was a little sad about Hilary, who seemed as far +as ever from that goal. Why? Peter wondered. Couldn't one be happy in +this lovable water-city, which had, after all, green ways of shadow and +gloom between the peeling brick walls of ancient houses, and, beyond, the +broad spaces of the sea? Couldn't one be happy here even if the babies +did poise muddy feet on a table-cloth, not, after all, otherwise clean; +and even if the poor boarders wouldn't pay their rent and the rich Jews +would buy palaces and plaques? Bother the vice of the age, thought Peter, +as he crossed the sun-bathed piazza and suddenly smelt the sea. There +surely never was such a jolly world made as this, which had Venice in it +for laughter and breathless wonder and delight, and her Duomo shining +like a jewel.</p> + +<p>"An' the sun shinin' on the gilt front an' all," murmured Peter. "I call +it just sweet."</p> + +<p>He went in (he was to meet Leslie there), and the soft dusk rippled about +him, and beyond the great pillars stretched the limitless, hazy horizons +of a dream.</p> + +<p>Presently Leslie came. He had an open "Stones of Venice" in his hand, and +said, "Now for those mosaics." Leslie was a business-like person, who +wasted no time. So they started on the mosaics, and did them for an hour. +Leslie said, "Good. Capital," with the sober, painstaking, conscientious +appreciation he was wont to bestow on unpurchasable excellence; and Peter +said, "How jolly," and felt glad that there were some excellences +unpurchasable even by rich Jews.</p> + +<p>They then went to the Accademia and looked at pictures. There Leslie had +a clue to merit. "Anything on hinges, I presume," he remarked, "is worth +inspection. Only why don't they hinge <i>more</i> of the good ones? They ought +to give us a hint; they really ought. How's a man to be sure he's on the +right tack?"</p> + +<p>After an hour of that they went to see the prince who had the goblet. +Half an hour's conversation with him, and the goblet belonged to Leslie. +It was a glorious thing of deep blue glass and translucent enamel and +silver, with the Berovieri signature cut on it. Peter looked at it much +as he had seen a woman in the Duomo look up at her Lady's shrine, much +as Rodney had looked on the illumined reality behind the dreaming silver +world.</p> + +<p>Peter said, "My word, suppose it broke!" It was natural that he should +think of that; things so often broke. Only that morning his gold watch +had broken, in Illuminato's active hands. Only that afternoon his +bootlace had broken, and he had had none to replace it because Caterina +had been sailing his other boots in the canal. Peter sighed over the +lovely and brittle world.</p> + +<p>Then he and Leslie visited Signor Sardi's shop and looked at <i>osele</i> and +sixteenth-century visiting cards. Peter said he knew nothing about either +personally, but quoted Hilary in the Gem, to Leslie's satisfaction.</p> + +<p>"Your brother's a good man," said Leslie. "Knows what's what, doesn't he? +If he says these are good <i>osele</i>, we may take it that they <i>are</i> good +<i>osele</i>, though we don't know one <i>osele</i> from another. That's right, +isn't it?"</p> + +<p>Peter said he supposed it was, if one wanted <i>osele</i> at all, which +personally he didn't care about; but one never knew, of course, what +might come in useful. Anyhow Leslie bought some, and a visiting card +belonging to the Count Amadeo Vasari, which gave him much satisfaction. +Then they visited the person who, the Gem had said, had good plaques, and +inspected them critically. Then they had tea at Sant' Ortes' tearoom, and +then Peter went home.</p> + +<p>Hilary, who was looking worried, said, "Lord Evelyn wants us to dine with +him to-night," and passed Peter a note in delicate, shaky handwriting.</p> + +<p>"Good," said Peter. Hilary wore a bored look and said, "I suppose we must +go," and then proceeded to question Peter concerning Leslie's shopping +adventures. He seemed on the whole more interested in the purchase of +<i>osele</i> than of the Berovieri goblet.</p> + +<p>"But," said Peter presently, "your plaque friend wasn't in form to-day. +He had only shams. Rather bright shams, but still—So we didn't get any, +which, I suppose, will please you to hear. Leslie was disappointed. I +told your friend we would look in on a better day, when he had some of +the real thing. He wasn't pleased. I expect he passes off numbers of +those things on people as antiques. You ought to qualify your remarks +in the Gem, Hilary—add that Signor Leroni has to be cautiously dealt +with—or you'll be letting the uncritical plaque-buyer through rather +badly."</p> + +<p>"I daresay they can look after themselves," Hilary said, easily; and +Peggy added:</p> + +<p>"After all, so long as they <i>are</i> uncritical, it can't matter to them +what sort of a plaque they get!" which of course, was one point of view.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VII" id="CHAPTER_VII"></a>CHAPTER VII</h2> + +<h3>DIANA, ACTÆON, AND LORD EVELYN</h3> + + +<p>Hilary and Peter gondoled to Lord Evelyn Urquhart's residence, a rather +exquisite little old palace called Ca' delle Gemme, and were received +affectionately by the tall, slim, dandified-looking young-old man, with +his white ringed hands and high sweet voice and courtly manner. He had +aged since Peter remembered him; the slim hands were shakier and the +near-sighted eyes weaker and the delicate face more deeply lined with the +premature lines of dissipation and weak health. He put his monocle in his +left eye and smiled at Peter, with the old charming smile that was like +his nephew's, and tilted to and fro on his heels.</p> + +<p>"Not changed at all, as far as I can see," he said to Peter, with the +same mincing, finicking pronunciation that had pleased the boy Peter +eight years ago. "Only my sight isn't what it was. <i>Are</i> you changed at +all? Do you still like Bow rose-bowls better than anything except Denis? +Denis is coming here soon, you know, so I shall be able to discover. Oh, +I beg pardon—Mr. Peter Margerison, Mr. Cheriton."</p> + +<p>Mr. Cheriton was a dark, sturdy young man with an aggressive jaw, who +bowed without a smile and looked one rather hard in the face. Peter was +a little frightened of him—these curt, brisk manners made him nervous +always—and felt a desire to edge behind Hilary. He gathered that Hilary +and Cheriton did not very much like one another. He knew what that slight +nervous contraction of Hilary's forehead meant.</p> + +<p>Dinner was interesting. Lord Evelyn told pleasant and funny stories in +his high, tittering voice, addressing himself to all his guests, but +looking at Peter when he came to his points. (People usually looked at +Peter when they came to the points of their stories.) Hilary talked a +good deal and drank a good deal and ate very little, and was obviously +on very friendly terms with Lord Evelyn and on no terms at all with Mr. +Cheriton. Cheriton looked a good deal at Peter, with very bright and +direct eyes, and flung into the conversation rather curt and spasmodic +utterances in a slightly American accent. He seemed a very decided and +very much alive young man, a little rude, thought Peter, but possibly +that was only his trans-Atlantic way, if, as his voice hinted, he came +from America. Once or twice Peter met the direct and vivid regard fixed +upon him, and nearly was startled into "I beg your pardon," for there +seemed to him an odd element of accusation in the look.</p> + +<p>"But it isn't my fault," he told himself reassuringly. "I've not done +anything, I'm sure I haven't. It's just the way he's made, I expect. Or +else people have done him badly once or twice, and he's always thinking +it's going to happen again. Rough luck on him; poor chap."</p> + +<p>After dinner they went into what Lord Evelyn called the saloon. "Where +I keep my especial treasures," he remarked to Peter. "You'd like to walk +round and look at some of them, I expect. These bronzes, now—," he +indicated two statuettes on brackets by the door.</p> + +<p>Peter looked at them, then swiftly up at Lord Evelyn, who swayed at his +side, his glass screwed into one smiling eye.</p> + +<p>Lord Evelyn touched the near statuette with his light, unsteady, +beautifully-ringed hand.</p> + +<p>"Rather lovely, isn't she," he said, caressing her. "We found her and the +Actæon in a dusty hole of a place in a miserable little <i>calle</i> off the +Campo delle Beccarie, kept by a German Jew. Quite a find, the old sinner. +What an extortioner, though! Eh, Margerison? How much has the old +Schneller got out of my pocket? It was your brother who discovered him +for me, young Peter. He took me there, and we found the Diana together. +Like her? Giacomo Treviso, a pupil of Verrocchio's. Heard of him? The +Actæon's not so good now. Same man, but not so happy."</p> + +<p>He turned the Diana about; he posed her for Peter's edification. Peter +looked from her to the Actæon, from the Actæon to Lord Evelyn's face. He +opened his lips to say something, and closed them on silence. He looked +past Lord Evelyn to Hilary, who stood in the background, leaning a little +against a chair. It seemed to Peter that there was a certain tensity, a +strain, in his face.</p> + +<p>Then Peter met full the bright, hard, vivid gaze of the alert Cheriton. +It had an odd expression at this moment; unmistakably inimical, +observantly curious, distinctly sardonic. A faint ironic smile just +touched the corners of his determined mouth. Peter returned the look +with his puzzled, enquiring eyes that sought to understand.</p> + +<p>This much, anyhow, he seemed to understand: his rôle was silence. If +Cheriton didn't speak (and Cheriton's expression showed that he knew) and +if Hilary didn't speak ... well, he, Peter, couldn't speak either. He +must acquiesce in what appeared to be a conspiracy to keep this pathetic, +worn-out dilettante in a fool's paradise.</p> + +<p>The pathos of it gripped Peter's heart. Lord Evelyn had once known so +well. What havoc was this that one could apparently make of one's +faculties? It wasn't only physical semi-blindness; it was a blindness of +the mind, a paralysis of the powers of discrimination and appreciation, +which, was pitiful. Peter was angry. He thought Hilary and Cheriton so +abominably, unmitigatedly wrong. And yet he himself had said, "If it +makes them happy"—and left that as the indubitable end. Ah, but one +didn't lie to people, even for that.</p> + +<p>Peter was brought up sharply, as he had often been before, against +Hilary's strange Hilaryish, perverted views of the conduct of life's +businesses. Then, as usual when he should have felt furthest from +mirth, he abruptly collapsed into sudden helpless laughter.</p> + +<p>Lord Evelyn turned the eye-glass on him.</p> + +<p>"Eh?" he queried. "Why so? But never mind; you always suffered in that +way, I remember. Get it from your mother, I think; she did, too. Never +explain jokes; they lose so in the telling. Now I want to show you +something over here."</p> + +<p>Peter crossed the room, his laughter dead. After all, funny wasn't what +it really was. Mainly, it was perplexing. Till he could have it out with +Hilary, he couldn't understand it at all.</p> + +<p>He saw more of Lord Evelyn's treasures, and perplexity grew. He did not +laugh again; he was very solemn and very silent and very polite where he +could not admire. Where he could he did; but even here his admiration was +weighed down to soberness by the burden of the things beyond the pale.</p> + +<p>Lord Evelyn found him lukewarm, changed and dulled from the vivid +devotee of old, who had coloured up all over his pale face at the sight +of a Bow rose-bowl. He coloured indeed now, when Lord Evelyn said "Like +it?"—coloured and murmured indistinguishable comments into his collar. +He coloured most when Lord Evelyn said, as he frequently did, "Your +brother's find. A delicious little man in some <i>sotto-portico</i> or +other—quite an admirable person. Eh, Margerison?"</p> + +<p>Hilary in the background would vaguely assent. Peter, who looked at him +no more, felt the indefinable challenge of his tone. It meant either, +"I've as much right to my artistic taste as you have, Peter, and I'm +not ashamed of it," or, "Speak out, if you want to shatter the illusions +that make the happiness of his ridiculous life; if not, be silent."</p> + +<p>And all the time the vivid stare of Jim Cheriton was turned like a +search-light on Peter's face, and his odd smile grew and grew. Cheriton +was watching, observing, taking in something new, trying to solve some +problem.</p> + +<p>At the end of half an hour Lord Evelyn said, "Peter Margerison, you've +lost some of the religious fervour of your youth. The deceitfulness of +riches and the cares of this world—is that it? What's come to you that +you're so tepid about this Siena chalice? Don't be tepid, young Peter; +it's the symptom of a ruined soul."</p> + +<p>He polished his glass, screwed it into his left eye, and looked down on +Peter with his whimsical, kindly scrutiny. Peter did not return the look; +he stood with bent head, looking vaguely down at the Sienese chalice. +That too was one of Hilary's finds. Hilary it seemed, had approved its +seller in an article in the Gem.</p> + +<p>"Damme," said Lord Evelyn suddenly, with unusual explosiveness, "if I +didn't like you better when you were fifteen! Now, you <i>blasé</i> and +soulless generation, I suppose you want to play bridge. Do you play as +badly as ever, Peter? A remarkable player you were, I remember—quite +remarkable. Denis always told you so. Now Cheriton will tell you so, +because he's rude."</p> + +<p>Bridge was a relief to Peter, though he was still a rather remarkable +player. He played with Cheriton, who was not rude, because he was +absolutely silent. It was an absurd game. Cheriton was a brilliant +player, even when he was only giving half his mind to it, as he seemingly +was to-night. Lord Evelyn had been a brilliant player once, and was now +brilliant with alternations of eccentricity; he talked most of the time, +making the game the centre of his remarks, from which he struck out along +innumerable paths of irrelevancy. The Margerisons too were irrelevant; +Hilary thought bridge a bore, and Peter, who thought nothing a bore, was +always a little alarmed by anything so grown-up. But to-night he didn't +much mind what he did, so long as he stopped looking at Lord Evelyn's +things. Peter only wanted to get away; he was ashamed and perplexed and +sorry and angry, and stabbed through with pity. He wanted to get out of +Lord Evelyn's house, out of the range of his kindly, whimsical smile and +Cheriton's curious hostile stare; he wanted to be alone with Hilary, and +to understand.</p> + +<p>The irony of Cheriton's look increased during bridge; it was certainly +justified by the abstraction of Peter's play.</p> + +<p>Lord Evelyn laughed at him. "You need Denis to keep you in order, young +Peter. Lord, how frightened you used to be when Denis was stern. Smiled +and pretended you weren't, but I knew...." He chuckled at the painted +ceiling. "Knew a man at Oxford, Peter ... well, never mind that story +now, you're too young for it.... Anyhow I make it no trumps."</p> + +<p>At eleven o'clock Hilary and Peter went home. Lord Evelyn shook hands +with Peter rather affectionately, and said, "Come and see me again soon, +dear boy. Lunch with me at Florian's to-morrow—you and your wealthy +friend. Busy sight-seeing, are you? How banal of you. Morning in the +Duomo, afternoon on the Lido, and the Accademia to fill the spare hours; +I know the dear old round. Never could be worried with it myself; too +much else to do. But one manages to enjoy life even without it, so don't +overwork. And come and see my toys again by daylight, and try to enthuse +a little more over them next time. You're too young to be <i>blasé</i>. +You'd better read the Gem, to encourage yourself in simple pleasures. +Good-night. Good-night, Margerison."</p> + +<p>He shook hands with them both again, possibly to make up for Cheriton, +who did not shake hands at all, but stood with his own in his pockets, +leaning against the wall, his eyes still on Peter's face.</p> + +<p>"Queer manners you have, dear Jim," was what they heard Lord Evelyn say +as they stepped into the Ca' delle Gemme gondola, that was taking them +back to the Rio delle Beccarie.</p> + +<p>They swung out into the faintly-shining darkness of the water-road, into +which the climbing moon could not look—a darkness crossed and flecked by +the red gleamings of the few gondola and sandolo lights abroad at this +hour in the quiet street. They sent their own red path before them as +they softly travelled; and round it the stars flickered and swam, deep +down. Peter could have sworn he heard their thin, tinkling, submerged, +funny song, somewhere above or beneath the soft and melodious "Chérie +Birri-Bim," that someone (not Lord Evelyn's beautifully trained and +taciturn <i>poppe</i>) was crooning near at hand.</p> + +<p>The velvet darkness of a bridge drowned the stars for a moment; then, +with a musical, abrupt cry of "Sta—i!" they swung round a corner into +a narrow way that was silver and green in the face of the climbing moon.</p> + +<p>The musically lovely night, the peace of the dim water-ways, the +shadowing mystery of the steep, shuttered houses, with here and there a +lit door or window ajar, sending a slant of yellow light across the deep +green lane full of stars and the moon, the faint crooning of music far +off, made a cool marvel of peace for strung nerves. Peter sat by Hilary +in silence, and no longer wanted to ask questions. In the strange, +enveloping wonder of the night, minor wonders died. What did it matter, +anyhow? Hilary and Venice—Venice and Hilary—give them time, and one +would explain the other.</p> + +<p>It was Hilary who began to talk, and he talked about Cheriton, his +nervous voice pitched on a high note of complaint.</p> + +<p>"I do intensely dislike that man. The sort of person I've no use for, you +know. So horribly on the spot; such sharp, unsoftened manners. All the +terrible bright braininess of the Yankee combined with the obstreperous +energy of the Philistine Briton. His mother is a young American, about to +be married for the third time. The sort of exciting career one would +expect from a parent of the delightful Jim. I cannot imagine why Lord +Evelyn, who is a person of refinement, encourages him. Really, you know!"</p> + +<p>He grew very plaintive over it. Peter really did not wonder.</p> + +<p>Peter's subconscious mind registered a dim impression that this was +defensive talk, to fill the silence. Hilary was a nervous person, easily +agitated. Probably the evening had agitated him. But he was no good at +defence. His complaint of Jim Cheriton broke weakly on an unsteady laugh. +Peter nodded assent, and looked up the street of dim water, his chin +propped in his hands, and thought how extraordinarily pleasant was the +red light that slanted across the dark water from green doors ajar in +steep house-walls.</p> + +<p>Hilary tried to light a cigar, and flung broken matches into spluttering +darkness. At last he succeeded; and then, when he had smoked in silence +for two minutes, he turned abruptly on Peter and said, "Well?"</p> + +<p>Peter, dreamily turning towards him, felt the nervous challenge of his +tone, and read it in his pale, tired face.</p> + +<p>Peter pulled himself together and collected his thoughts. After all, one +might as well know.</p> + +<p>"Oh, well ... what? Yes, what about those ghastly statuettes, and all the +rest of them? Why, when, how ... and what on earth for?"</p> + +<p>Hilary, after a moment of silence, said, with a rather elaborate +carelessness, "I saw you didn't like them."</p> + +<p>At that Peter started a little, and the dreaminess of the night fell away +from him.</p> + +<p>"You saw ... oh." For a moment he couldn't think of anything else to say. +Then he laughed a little. "Why, yes, I imagine you did.... But what's the +object of it all? Have you and Cheriton (by the way, why does he glare at +us both so?) come to the conclusion that it's worth while playing that +sort of game? If you have, I can't tell you how utterly wrong I think you +are. Make him happy—oh, I know—but what extraordinary cheek on your +part! I as near as possible gave you away—I did really. Besides, what +did he mean by saying you'd advised him to buy the things—praised them +in the Gem, and all that? You can't have gone so far as that—did you?"</p> + +<p>After a moment of silence, Hilary turned abruptly and looked Peter in the +face, taking the long cigar out of his mouth and holding it between two +white, nervous fingers.</p> + +<p>"Upon my word," said Hilary, speaking rather slowly, "Talk of cheek! +Do you know what you're accusing me of? You and your precious taste! +Leslie and your other fool patrons seem to have given you a fair +opinion of yourself. Because you, in your omniscience, think a thing bad, +which I ... which I obviously consider good, and have stated so in +print ... you don't so much as deign to argue the question, but get upon +your pedestal and ask me why I tell lies. You think one thing and I think +another; of course, you must know best, but I presume I may be allowed to +hold my misguided and ill-informed opinion without being accused blankly +of fraud. Upon my word, Peter ... it's time you took to some other line +of life, I think."</p> + +<p>His high, unsteady voice trailed away into silence. Peter, out of all the +dim beauty of the night, saw only the pale, disturbed, frowning face, the +quivering hand that held the lean cigar. All the strangeness and the +mystery of the mysterious world were here concentrated. Numbly and dully +he heard the soft, rhythmic splashing of the dipping oar, the turning +cry of "Premié!" Then, sharper, "Sciar, Signori, sciar!" as they nearly +jostled another gondola, swinging round sharply into a moonless lane of +ancient palaces.</p> + +<p>Peter presently said, "But ..." and there stopped. What could he say, +beyond "but?"</p> + +<p>Hilary answered him sharply, "Well?" and then, after another pause, +Peter pulled himself together, gave up trying to thread the maze of his +perplexity, and said soberly, "I beg your pardon, Hilary. I'm an ass."</p> + +<p>Hilary let out his breath sharply, and resumed his cigar.</p> + +<p>"It's possible, of course," he said, more quietly, "that you may be right +and I wrong about the things. That's another question altogether. I may +be a fool: I only resent being called a knave. <i>Really</i>, you know!"</p> + +<p>"I never meant that," Peter hopelessly began to explain. And, indeed, now +that Hilary disclaimed it, it did seem a far too abominable thing that he +had implied. He had hurt Hilary; he deserved to be kicked. His anger with +himself rose. To hurt anyone was atrocious; to hurt Hilary unforgivable. +He would have done a great deal now to make amends.</p> + +<p>He stammered over it. "I did think, I'm afraid, that you and Cheriton +were doing it to make him happy or something. I'm awfully sorry; I was +an ass; I ought to have known. But it never occurred to me that you +didn't kn—that you had a different opinion of the things. I say, +Hilary—Cheriton knows! I saw him know. He knew, and he was wondering +what I was going to say."</p> + +<p>"Knew, knew, knew!" Hilary nervously exploded. "There you go again. +You're intolerable, Peter, really. All the spoiling you've had has gone +to your head."</p> + +<p>"I beg your pardon," said Peter again. "I meant, Cheriton agreed with me, +I'm sure.... But, Hilary—those statuettes—you can't really.... They're +mid-Victorian, and positively offensive!" His voice rose shrilly. They +had been so horrible, Diana and Actæon. He couldn't forget them, in their +podgy sentimentality. "And—and that chalice ..." he shuddered over +it—"and—"</p> + +<p>"That'll do, thanks," Hilary broke in. "You can say at once that you +disagree with me about everything I admire, and leave it there. But, if +I may ask you, don't say so to Lord Evelyn, if you can resist the +temptation to show me up before him. It will only bother and disturb him, +whichever of us he ends by agreeing with. He's shown that he trusts my +taste more or less, by giving me his paper to edit, and I should think +we might leave it at that."</p> + +<p>"Yes, the paper"—Peter was reminded of it, and it became a distracting +puzzle. Hilary thought Diana and Actæon and the Siena chalice good +things—and Hilary edited an art paper. What in the name of all that was +horrible did he put in it? A light was shed on Signor Leroni, who was, +said the Gem, a good dealer in plaques, and who was, Peter had thought, +a bare-faced purveyor of shams. Peter began to question the quality of +the <i>osele</i>, that Leslie had purchased from Signor Sardi.</p> + +<p>How curious it was; and rather tragic, too. For Hilary, like Lord Evelyn, +had known once. Had Hilary too, in ruining much else of himself, ruined +his critical faculties? And could one really do that and remain ignorant +of the fact? Or would one rather have a lurking suspicion, and therefore +be all the more defiantly corroborative of one's own judgment? In either +case one was horribly to be pitied; but—but one shouldn't try to edit +art papers. And yet this couldn't be conveyed without a lacerating of +feelings that was unthinkable. There was always this about Hilary—one +simply couldn't bear to hurt him. He was so easily hurt and so often; +life used him so hardly and he felt it so keenly, that it behoved Peter, +at least, to insert as many cushions as possible between him and the +sharp edges of circumstance. Peter was remorseful. He had taken what +he should have seen before was an unforgivable line; he had failed +abominably in comprehension and decent feeling. Poor Hilary. Peter +was moved by the old impulse to be extraordinarily nice to him.</p> + +<p>They turned out of the Rio della Madonnetta into the narrow rio that was +the back approach to the Palazzo Amadeo. It is a dark little canal, a rio +of the poor. The doors that stood open in the peeling brick walls above +the water let out straggling shafts of lamplight and quarrelling voices +and singing and the smell of wine. The steep house walls leant to meet +one another from either side; from upper windows the people who hadn't +gone to bed talked across a space of barely six feet.</p> + +<p>The gondola crept cautiously under two low bridges, then stopped outside +the water-washed back steps of the Palazzo Amadeo.</p> + +<p>One pleasant thing about Lord Evelyn's exquisitely mannered <i>poppe</i> was +that one didn't feel that he was thinking "I am not accustomed to taking +my master's visitors to such low haunts." In the first place, he probably +was. In the second, he was not an English flunkey, and not a snob. He was +no more a snob than the Margerisons were, or Lord Evelyn himself. He +deposited them at the Palace back door, politely saluted, and slipped +away down the shadowy water-street.</p> + +<p>Hilary and Peter stepped up two water-washed steps to the green door, and +Peggy opened it from within. Peggy (Peter occasionally wondered when, if +ever, she went to bed) was in the hall, nursing Illuminato, who couldn't +sleep—a small bundle of scarlet night-shirt and round bullet head, +burrowing under his mother's left arm and staring out from that place of +comfort with very bright and wakeful eyes. When, indeed, it might have +been asked, did any of the Margerison family take their rest? No one of +them ever felt or expressed any surprise at finding any other awake and +active at any hour of the night.</p> + +<p>Peggy looked at her three male infants with her maternal serenity touched +with mirth. There were nearly always those two elements in Peggy's +look—a motherly sympathy and desire to cheer and soothe, and a glint +from some rich and golden store of amusement.</p> + +<p>She patted Peter on the arm, softly.</p> + +<p>"Was it a nice evening, then? No, not very, I think. Dear, dear! You both +look so unutterably tired. I wonder had you better go to bed, quite +straight?"</p> + +<p>It seemed to be suggested as a last resource of the desperate, though the +hour was close on midnight.</p> + +<p>"And the children have been pillow-fighting, till Mr. Vyvian—the +creature—came down with nothing in particular on, to complain to me +that he couldn't sleep. Sleep, you know! It wasn't after ten—but it +seems he had a headache, as usual, because Mrs. Johnson had insisted +on going to look at pictures with him and Rhoda, and her remarks were +such—Nervous prostration, poor Mr. Vyvian. So I've had Illuminato +down here with me since then. He wants to go to you, Peter, as usual."</p> + +<p>Peter took the scarlet bundle, and it burrowed against his shirt-front +with a contented sigh. Peggy watched the two for a moment, then said to +the uncle, "You poor little boy, you're tireder than Hilary even. You +must surely go to bed. But isn't Lord Evelyn rather a dear?"</p> + +<p>"Quite a dear," Peter answered her, his face bent over the round cropped +head. "Altogether charming and delightful. Do you know, though, I'm not +really fond of bridge. Jig-saw is my game—and we didn't have it. That's +why I'm tired I expect. And because there was a Mr. Cheriton, who stared, +and seemed somehow to have taken against us—didn't he, Hilary? Or +perhaps it was only his queer manners, dear Jim. Anyhow, he made me feel +shy. It takes it out of one, not being liked. Nervous prostration, like +poor Mr. Vyvian. So let's go to bed, Hilary, and leave these two to watch +together."</p> + +<p>"Give me the froglet." She took it from his arms, gently, and kissed +first one then the other.</p> + +<p>"Good night, little Peter. You are a darling entirely, and I love you. +And don't worry, not over not being liked or anything else, because it +surely isn't worth it."</p> + +<p>She was always affectionate and maternal to Peter; but to-night she was +more so than usual. Looking at her as she stood in her loose, slatternly +<i>negligé</i>, beneath the extravagantly blazing chandelier, the red bundle +cuddling a round black head into her neck, her grey eyes smiling at him, +lit with love and laughter and a pity that lay deeper than both, Peter +was caught into her atmosphere of debonair and tranquil restfulness, that +said always, "Take life easy; nothing's worth worrying over, not problems +or poverty or even one's sins." How entirely true. Nothing <i>was</i> worth +worrying over; certainly other people's strange points of view weren't. +It was a gospel of ease and <i>laissez-faire</i> well suited to Peter's +temperament. He smiled at Peggy and Hilary and their son, and went up +the marble stairs to bed. He was haunted till he slept by the memory of +Hilary's nervous, tired face as he had seen it in the moonlight in the +gondola, and again in the hall as he said good night. Hilary wasn't +coming to bed yet. He stayed to talk to Peggy. If anything could be good +for Hilary's moods of depression, thought Peter, Peggy would. How jolly +for Hilary to be married to her! She was such a refreshment always. She +was so understanding; and was there a lapse somewhere in that very +understandingness of her that made it the more restful—that made her +a relaxation to strained minds? To those who were breaking their moral +sense over some problem, she would return simply, "There isn't any +problem. Take things as they come and make the best of them, and don't, +don't worry!" "I'm struggling with a temptation to steal a purse," Peter +imagined himself saying to her, "What can I do about it?" And her swift +answer came, with her indulgent, humorous smile, "Dear little boy, if it +makes you any happier—do it!" And then she would so well understand +the ensuing remorse; she would be so sympathetic, so wholly dear and +comforting. She would say anything in the world to help, except "Put it +back." Even that she would say if one's own inclinations were tending in +that direction. But never if they weren't. She would never be so hard, so +unkind. That sort of uncongenial admonition might be left to one's +confessor; wasn't that what confessors were there for?</p> + +<p>But why think of stealing purses so late at night? No doubt merely +because it was late at night. Peter curled himself up and drew the sheet +over his ears and sighed sleepily. He seemed to hear the rich, pleasant +echoes of Peggy's best nursery voice far off, and Hilary's high, +plaintive tones rising above it.</p> + +<p>But above both, dominant and insistent, murmured the lapping voice of the +wonderful city at night. A faint rhythm of snoring beyond a thin wall +somehow suggested Mrs. Johnson, and Peter laughed into his pillow.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VIII" id="CHAPTER_VIII"></a>CHAPTER VIII</h2> + +<h3>PETER UNDERSTANDS</h3> + + +<p>On the shores of the Lido, three days later, Peter and Leslie came upon +Denis Urquhart. He was lying on the sand in the sun on the Adriatic side, +and building St. Mark's, rather well. Peter stood and looked at it +critically.</p> + +<p>"Not bad. But you'd better let us help you. We've been studying the +original exhaustively, Leslie and I."</p> + +<p>"A very fine and remarkable building," said Leslie, ponderously, and +Peter laughed for the sheer pleasure of seeing Urquhart's lazy length +stretched on the warm sand.</p> + +<p>"Cheriton's somewhere about," said Urquhart. "But he wouldn't help me +with St. Mark's. He was all for walking round the island at a great pace +and seeing how long it took him. So superfluously energetic, isn't he? +Fancy being energetic in Venice."</p> + +<p>Peter was thankful that he was. The thought of Cheriton's eyes upon him +made him shudder.</p> + +<p>"He has his good points," Urquhart added; "but he excites himself too +much. Always taking up some violent crusade against something or other. +Can't live and let live. Another dome here, I think."</p> + +<p>Peter wondered if Cheriton's latest crusade was against Hilary's taste +in art, and if so what Urquhart thought on that subject. It was an +uncomfortable thought. He characteristically turned away from it.</p> + +<p>"The intense blue of the sea, contrasted with the fainter blue of the +Euganean Hills," said Leslie suddenly, "is most remarkable and beautiful. +What?"</p> + +<p>He was proud of having noticed that. He was always proud of noticing +beauty unaided. He made his remark with the simple pleasure of a child +in his own appreciation. His glance at Peter said, "I am getting on, I +think?"</p> + +<p>The others agreed that he was correct. He then bent his great mind to the +completion of St. Mark's, and Urquhart discovered what Peter had long +known, that he could really play in earnest. The reverse art—handling +serious issues with a light touch—he was less good at. Grave subjects, +like the blue of the sea or the shape of a goblet, he approached with the +same solidity of earnestness which he brought to bear on sand cathedrals. +It was just this that made him a little tiring.</p> + +<p>But the three together on the sands made a happy and congruous party of +absorbed children, till Cheriton the energetic came swinging back over +the sand-hills. Peter saw him approaching, watched the resolute lunge +of his stride. His mother was about to be married for the third time: one +could well believe it.</p> + +<p>"I hope he is going to be nicer to me to-day," Peter thought. Even as he +hoped it, and before Cheriton saw the party on the sands, Peter saw the +determined face stiffen, and into the vivid eyes came the blank look of +one who is cutting somebody. Peter turned and looked behind him to see +who it was, and saw Mr. Guy Vyvian approaching. It was obvious from his +checked recognition that he thought he knew Cheriton, and that Cheriton +did not share the opinion. Peter saw Vyvian's mortified colour rise; he +was a vain and sensitive person.</p> + +<p>Cheriton came and sat down among them. His words as he did so, audibly +muttered, were, "The most unmitigated cad!" He looked angry. Then he saw +Peter, and seemed a little surprised, but did not cut him; he hardly +could. Peter supposed that he owed this only to the accident of +Urquhart's presence, since this young man seemed to go about the world +ignoring everyone who did not please his fastidious fancy, and Peter +could not hope that he had done that.</p> + +<p>Peter looked after Vyvian's retreating figure. He could detect injured +pride in his back.</p> + +<p>He got up and brushed the sand from him.</p> + +<p>"I must go and talk to that man," he said. "He's lodging with my +brother."</p> + +<p>The situation for a moment was slightly difficult. Leslie and Urquhart +had both heard Cheriton's description of Peter's brother's lodger. +Besides, they had seen him, and that was enough.</p> + +<p>It was unlike Peter to make awkward situations. He ended this one +abruptly by leaving it to itself, and walking away after his brother's +lodger.</p> + +<p>Vyvian greeted him huffily. It needed all Peter's feeling for a hurt man +to make him anything but distantly aloof. Cheriton's description was so +manifestly correct. The man was a cad—an oily bounder with a poisonous +mind. Peter wondered how Hilary could bear to have his help on the Gem.</p> + +<p>Vyvian broke out about Cheriton.</p> + +<p>"Did you see that grand fellow who was too proud to know me? Driven you +away too, has he? We don't know people in boarding-houses—we're in our +private flat ourselves! It makes me sick!"</p> + +<p>But his vulgarity when he was angry was a shade less revolting, because +more excusable, than when he wasn't. So Peter bore it, and even tried to +be comforting, and to talk about pictures. Vyvian really knew something +about art; Peter was a little surprised to find that he knew so much, +remembering certain curious blunders of his in the Gem.</p> + +<p>He did not talk about the Gem to Vyvian; instinctively he avoided it. +Peter had a rather useful power of barring his mind against thoughts that +he did not desire to have there; without reasoning about it, he had +placed the Gem in this category.</p> + +<p>He was absently watching the dim blue of the Euganean Hills against the +clearer blue of the sky when he discovered that Vyvian was talking about +Rhoda Johnson.</p> + +<p>"A dear little gurl, with real possibilities, if one could develop them. +I do my best. She's fond enough of me to let me mould her atrocious +taste. But what can one do to fight the lifelong influence of a home like +that—a mother like that? Oh, frightful! But she <i>is</i> fond of me, and +there's her hope—"</p> + +<p>"Good-bye," said Peter. "I must go." He could not for the life of him +have said any of the other things he was thinking. He would have given +a lot to have been Cheriton for the moment, so that he wouldn't mind +being rude and violent. It was horribly feeble; all he could say was +"Good-bye." Having said it, he went abruptly.</p> + +<p>He sighed as he went back to Urquhart and Leslie. Things were so +difficult to manage. One left one's friends to comfort a hurt bounder; +that was all very well, but what if the bounder comforted was much more +offensive than the bounder hurt? However, it was no good reasoning about +these things. Peter knew that one had to try and cheer up the hurt, in +the face of all reason, simply because one felt so uncomfortable +oneself if one didn't.</p> + +<p>But it was almost worth while to have a few rather revolting people +about; they threw the others into such glorious relief. As long as there +were the nice people, who laughed at life and themselves, playing about +the world, nothing else in particular mattered. And it was really +extraordinarily good luck that Urquhart should happen to be playing about +Venice at the same time as Peter. In spite of Cheriton, they would have +a good time together. And Cheriton would perhaps become friendly in +time—dear Jim, with his queer manners. People mostly did become +friendly, in quite a short time, according to Peter's experience.</p> + +<p>That the time, as far as Cheriton was concerned, had not yet arrived, was +rather obvious, however. His manners to Peter on the sands were still +quite queer—so queer that Peter and Leslie only stayed a few minutes +more. Peter refused Urquhart's suggestion that they should have tea +together on the island, and they crossed over to the lagoon side and got +into their waiting gondola.</p> + +<p>The lagoon waters were smooth like glass, and pale, and unflushed as yet +with the coming sunset. Dark lines of stakes marked the blue ship-ways +that ran out to open sea, and down them plied the ships, spreading +painted wings to the evening breeze.</p> + +<p>Leslie said, "I see in the Gem that there is a good old well-head to be +had from a man on the Riva Ca' di Dio. I want well-heads, as you know. +We'll go and see, shall we?"</p> + +<p>The crystal peace of the lagoon was shattered for Peter. He had been +getting into a curious mood of late; he almost disliked well-heads, and +other purchasable forms of beauty. After all, when one had this limpid +loveliness of smooth water and men walking on its surface like St. Peter, +why want anything more? Because, Leslie would say, one wants to possess, +to call beauty one's own. Bother, said Peter, the vice of the age, which +was certainly acquisitiveness. He was coming to the conclusion that he +hated buying things. And it was so awkward to explain to Leslie about +Hilary and the Gem. He had spent the last few days in trying, without too +much giving Hilary away, to restrain Leslie from following his advice. He +said now, "All right; we'll go and see. But, to say the truth, I'm not +sure that Hilary is a very good authority on well-heads." He blushed a +little as he said it; it seemed to him that he had been saying that sort +of thing very often of late. Leslie was so persistent, so incorrigibly +intent on his purpose.</p> + +<p>Leslie looked at him now over his large cigar a little speculatively.</p> + +<p>"According to you," he remarked placidly after a moment, "your brother +is uncommonly little of an authority on anything he mentions. Fraternal +scepticism developed to its highest point."</p> + +<p>Peter nodded. "Our family way," he said; and added, "Besides, that Vyvian +man does as much of the Gem as Hilary. There's a young man, Leslie! My +word, what a dog! Talks about gurls. So I left him. I turned upon him and +said, 'Sir, this is no talk for a gentleman to listen to.' I said it +because I knew it was what he would expect. Then I turned on my heel +and left him without a word. He ground his teeth and hissed, 'A time will +come.' But Cheriton seems rather a rude man, all the same. He hurts my +feelings too, whenever I meet him. I too hiss, 'A time will come.' But +I don't believe it ever will. Do you suppose the water is shallow over +there, or that the men walking on it are doing miracles? It must be fun, +either way. Let's do it instead of buying well-heads, Leslie. The fact +is, buying so many things is rather demoralising, I think. Let's decide +to buy no more. I'm beginning to believe in the simple life, like Rodney. +Rodney hates men like you and Urquhart—rolling plutocrats. He wanted me +to leave you and the other plutocrats and be a travelling pedlar. I'm not +sure that I shan't, before long."</p> + +<p>"Can't spare you," Leslie grunted.</p> + +<p>Peter flattered himself that he had successfully turned the conversation +from well-heads.</p> + +<p>When, after having tea with Leslie at Florian's, he returned to the +Palazzo Amadeo, Teresina told him that someone had called to see the +Signore, and the Signore, being out, was waiting in the saloon. Peter +went to the saloon to see if he would do instead of the Signore, and +found a stout gentleman with a black moustache and up-brushed hair, +spitting on the saloon floor. A revolting habit, as Hilary was wont +wearily to remark; but Peter always accepted it with anyhow outward +equanimity.</p> + +<p>"My brother is unfortunately away from the house," he explained, with +his polite smile and atrocious Italian. "But perhaps I can give him a +message?"</p> + +<p>The visitor gave him a sharp look, bowed ceremoniously, and said, "Ah! +The Signore is the brother of Signor Margerison? Truly the brother?"</p> + +<p>Peter assured him, not even halving the relationship; and indeed, he +seldom did that, even in his thoughts.</p> + +<p>The visitor gave him a card, bearing the name of Signor Giacomo Stefani, +sat down, at Peter's request, spat between his feet, and said, "I have +had various affairs with your Signor brother before. I am come to solicit +his patronage in the matter of a pair of vases. If he would recommend +them for me in his paper, as before. They are good; they might easily be +antiques."</p> + +<p>"You wish my brother to mention them in his paper?" Peter gathered. He +was correct.</p> + +<p>"Exactly so," Signor Stefani told him. "Of course, on the same terms as +before, if the Signor would be satisfied with them."</p> + +<p>"Terms?" Peter repeated after him.</p> + +<p>Signor Stefani became more explicit. He named the terms.</p> + +<p>"That was what I paid Signor Margerison before, for an article on a +pseudo-Sienese chalice. But the vases are better; they are good; they +might deceive an expert. Truly, they might be antiques!"</p> + +<p>He continued to talk, while Peter listened. He was taking it in rather +slowly. But at last, not being stupid, he no longer thought Hilary so. He +understood.</p> + +<p>He stood up presently, looking a little dazed.</p> + +<p>"It appears," he said slowly, in his broken Italian, to Signor Stefani, +"that you are making a rather bad mistake, which is a pity. I think you +had better go home."</p> + +<p>Signor Stefani gave a startled upward twist to his moustache, and stood +up too.</p> + +<p>"Excuse me," he said rather angrily, "there is no mistake. Your brother +and I have very frequently had affairs together."</p> + +<p>Peter looked at him, frowning doubtfully as he collected his words.</p> + +<p>"I am right, I think," he said slowly, "that you are offering my brother +a bribe to publish a fraudulent article on fraudulent goods of yours? +That is so? Then, as I said, you are making a very serious mistake, +and ... and you had better go home. Will you come this way, please?"</p> + +<p>Signor Stefani continued to talk, but so rapidly and loudly now that +Peter couldn't follow him. He merely shook his head and opened the door, +saying, "This way, please. I can't understand you when you talk so fast."</p> + +<p>Signor Stefani, with a final angry shrug and expectoration, permitted +himself to be ushered out of the room.</p> + +<p>On the stairs outside they met Vyvian coming up, who nodded affably to +both of them. Signor Stefani, as he passed, shrugged his shoulders up to +his ears and spread his two hands wide, with a look of resigned despair +over his shoulder at Peter, and Vyvian's brows went up at the gesture. +Peter ushered his guest out at the street entrance. Signor Stefani's last +words were, "I shall return shortly and see your brother in person. I +have made a foolish mistake in thinking that you were in his confidence. +Good evening."</p> + +<p>So they parted, more in sorrow than in anger.</p> + +<p>Peter met Vyvian again on the stairs. He was passing on, but Vyvian +stopped and said, "What have you been doing to Stefani to put him out +so?"</p> + +<p>Peter stopped and looked at him for a moment. He felt rather dazed, as +if someone had hit him a blow on the head. He had to remember what was +this funny bounder's place in the newly-revealed scheme of things. Not +merely a funny bounder after all, it seemed, but just what Cheriton had +called him. But one couldn't let him know that one thought so; one was +ostensibly on Hilary's side, against honesty, against decency, against +all the world.</p> + +<p>So Peter, having located Vyvian and himself in this matter, said nothing +at all, but went on upstairs.</p> + +<p>Vyvian, staring after him in astonishment (none of Hilary's boarders had +seen Peter discourteous before), raised his eyebrows again, and whistled +beneath his breath.</p> + +<p>"So we're too fine for our brother's dirty jobs! I'm dashed if I don't +believe it's that!"</p> + +<p>Peter went upstairs rather too quickly for his heart. He returned to the +saloon and collapsed suddenly into a chair, feeling giddy. Mrs. Johnson +came in a moment later and found him leaning back with closed eyes. She +was disturbed about his complexion.</p> + +<p>"The colour of putty, poor Mr. Peter! You've bin excitin' yourself, +tearin' about sight-seein', <i>I</i> know. Tell me now just how you feel. I'm +blest if I don't believe you've a-bin in the Cathedral, smellin' at that +there choky incense! It takes me like that, always; and Miss Gould says +she's just the same. Funny feelin's within, haven't you now?"</p> + +<p>"Yes," said Peter, "just exactly that"; and they so overcame him that he +began to laugh helplessly.</p> + +<p>"I'm sorry, Mrs. Johnson," he said presently. "I'm an ass. But I'm all +right now. I came upstairs in a hurry, that's all. And before that a man +talked so loud and so fast that it took my breath away. It may be silly, +but I <i>am</i> like that, as Miss Barnett says. My brother and sister-in-law +are both out, aren't they?"</p> + +<p>Mrs. Johnson, sitting down opposite him and studying the returning tints +of his complexion, nodded.</p> + +<p>"That's it," she said, more cheerfully. "You're gettin' a wholesome white +again now. I didn't like that unhealthy greeny-grey. But you've none of +you any colour, you gentlemen—not you nor your brother nor that pasty +Vyvian. None of you but the little curate; he had a nice little pink +face. I'm sure I wish some gals cared more for looks, and then they +wouldn't go after some as are as well let alone." This cryptic remark was +illuminated by a sigh. Mrs. Johnson, now that she saw Peter improving in +complexion, reverted to her own troubles.</p> + +<p>Peter replied vaguely, "No, I suppose they wouldn't. People ought to +care for looks, of course. They matter so much more than anything else, +really."</p> + +<p>"Without goin' all that way with you, Mr. Peter," said Mrs. Johnson, "and +with all due respect to Great Minds (which I haven't got and never shall +have, and nor had my poor dear that's gone, so I'm sure I don't know +where Rhoder got her leanin's from), I will say I do like to see a young +man smart and well-kept. It means a respect for himself, not to mention +for those he takes out, that is a stand-by, at least for a mother. And +the young fellows affect the gals, too. Rhoder, now—she'd take some +pains with herself if she went out with a smart fellow, that was nicely +turned out himself and expected her to be the same. But as it is—hair +dragged and parted like a queer picture, and a string of green beads for +a collar, as if she was a Roman with prayers to say—and her waist, Mr. +Peter! But there, I oughtn't to talk like this to a gentleman, as Miss +Gould would say; (I do keep on shockin' Miss Gould, you know!) But I find +it hard to rec'lect that about you, Mr. Peter; you're so sympathetic, you +might be a young lady. An' I feel it's all safe with you, an' I do +believe you'd help me if you could."</p> + +<p>"I should be glad to," said Peter, wondering whether it was for the +improvement of Rhoda's hair, waist, or collar that his assistance might +be acceptable.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Johnson was looking at him very earnestly; it was obvious that +something was seriously amiss, and that she was wondering how much she +could venture to say to this sympathetic young man who might be a +young lady. She made a sudden gesture with her stout hands, as if +flinging reticence to the winds, and leant forward towards him.</p> + +<p>"Mr. Peter ... I don't hardly like to say it ... but could you take my +gal out sometimes? It does sound a funny thing to ask—but I can't abide +it that she should be for ever with that there Vyvian. I don't like him, +and there it is. And Rhoder does ... And he's just amusin' himself, and +I can't bear it for my little gal, that's where it is.... Mr. Peter, I +hate the fellow, though you may say I'm no Christian for it, and of +course one is bidden not to judge but to love all men. But he fair gives +me the creeps, like a toad.... Do you know that feelin'?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes," said Peter readily. "And of course, I should like immensely to +go out with Miss Rhoda sometimes, if she'll let me. But do you think she +will? I'm afraid she would be dreadfully bored with me. I haven't a Great +Mind, you know."</p> + +<p>"Rhoder likes you," said Mrs. Johnson, a smile of relief overspreading +her jolly face. "She was sayin' so only the other day. She has a great +respect for your knowledge of art, too. 'You wouldn't think it just to +talk with him,' she said, 'but he knows the most surprisin' things. Knows +them for himself'—that was how she put it—'without needin' to depend on +any books, or what anyone else says. I wish I was like that, mother,' she +says, and sighs. And of course, I knew why she wished that, and I said to +her, 'Rhoder, my dear, never you mind about knowin' things; gals don't +need to bother their heads about that. You look after the <i>outside</i> of +your head,' I said, chaffing her about her hair, you know, 'and leave the +inside to look after itself.' I made her cross, of course; I'm for ever +makin' Rhoder cross without meanin' it. But that just shows what she +feels towards you, you see. And you'd talk healthy-like to her, which +is more than some does, if I know anythin'. One feels that of you, Mr. +Peter, if you'll excuse my sayin' it, that your talk is as innocent as +a baby's prattle, though it mayn't always mean much."</p> + +<p>"Thank you very much," said Peter. "I will certainly prattle to Miss +Rhoda whenever she will let me. I should enjoy it, of course."</p> + +<p>"Then that's settled." Mrs. Johnson rose, and shook out her skirts with +relief. "And a weight off my mind it will be.... You could make a third +with Rhoder and that Vyvian to-morrow afternoon, if you were so good and +not otherwise employed. They're off together somewhere, I know."</p> + +<p>"Making a third" was a little beyond even Peter's readiness to be +helpful, and he looked dubious.</p> + +<p>"I wonder if Mr. Vyvian would let me do that. You see, he doesn't much +like me. I expect I give him the creeps, like a toad...." Then, seeing +Mrs. Johnson's relieved face cloud, he added, "Oh, well, I'll ask them to +take me," and she smiled at him as at a good child. "I knew you would!"</p> + +<p>Hilary didn't come in to dinner. That was as well; it gave Peter more +time. Perhaps it would be easier late at night to speak of the hopeless, +weary, impossible things that had suddenly risen in the way; easier to +think of things to say about them that wouldn't too much hurt Hilary or +himself.</p> + +<p>At dinner Peter was very quiet and polite to everyone. Vyvian's demeanour +towards him was touched with irony; his smile was a continual reference +to the fellowship of secrecy that bound them. Rhoda was very silent; +Peter supposed that Vyvian had been snubbing her.</p> + +<p>Hilary came home late. Peter and Peggy and Vyvian were sitting in the +dimly-lighted saloon, and the ubiquitous Illuminato was curled up, a +sleepy ball, on the marble top of a book-case. Peggy had a habit of +leaving him lying about in convenient corners, as a little girl her doll.</p> + +<p>"You look tired to death, my dear," she commented, as Hilary came in. Her +kindly grey eyes turned from him to Peter, who had looked up from the +book he was reading with a nervous movement. Peter's sweet-tempered +companionableness had been oddly obscured this evening. Perhaps he too +was tired to death. And poor little Rhoda had been so unmercifully +snubbed all the evening that at last she had crept up to bed all but in +tears. Peggy felt very sorry for everyone to-night; they all seemed to +need it so much.</p> + +<p>Vyvian, as usual, had a headache. When Hilary came in, he rose and said +he was going upstairs to try and get some sleep—an endeavour seldom +successful in this noisy and jarring world, one gathered. Before he +embarked on it he said to Peter, squirting soda into a large tumbler +of whisky, "Stefani want anything particular to-day?"</p> + +<p>He had waited to say it till Hilary came in. Peter supposed that he said +it merely out of his general desire to be unpleasant, and perhaps to +revenge himself for that unanswered enquiry on the stairs. Or possibly he +merely wished to indicate to Peter how entirely he was privy to Stefani's +business with Hilary, and that it might just as well be discussed in his +presence. Or again, he might be desirous of finding out how far Peter +himself was in the know.</p> + +<p>Peter said, "Nothing very particular," and bent over Illuminato, that +he might not meet Hilary's eyes or Peggy's. He knew that Hilary was +violently startled, and he heard Peggy's softly let out breath, that +might have been a sigh or a gentle whistle, and that conveyed in either +case dismay touched with a laugh.</p> + +<p>Vyvian, who had been watching the three with a covert smile, drained his +glass and said, "Well, it's supposed to be partly my business, you know. +But since you don't think so, I'll say good-night."</p> + +<p>He included the three in a supercilious nod, and left the room.</p> + +<p>He left a queer silence behind him. When it had lasted for a moment, +Peter looked up from his inspection of Illuminato's screwed-up face, with +an effort, and met Hilary's eyes searching his own. Peggy was in the +background; later she would be a comforting, easing presence; but for the +moment the situation held only these two, and Peter's eyes pleaded to +Hilary's, "Forgive me; I am horribly sorry," and in Hilary's strained +face shame intolerably grew, so that Peter looked away from it, bending +over Illuminato in his arms.</p> + +<p>It was Peggy who broke the silence with a tearful laugh.</p> + +<p>"Oh, don't look like that, you poor darling boys! Peter, little dear +Peter ... you must try and understand! You're good at understanding, you +know. Oh, take it easy, my dear! Take it easy, and see how it's nothing +to matter, how it's all one great joke after all!" Her arm was round his +shoulders as he sat on the table's edge; she was comforting him like a +child. To her he was always about Illuminato's age, a most beloved +infant.</p> + +<p>Peter smiled a little at her. "Why, yes, of course it's a joke. +Everything is, isn't it. But ... but...."</p> + +<p>He was more than ever a child, stammering unwordable protest, blindly +reaching out for help.</p> + +<p>Hilary stood before him now, with his hands in his pockets, nervous, +irritable, weary, shame now masked by self-defence. That was better; but +still Peter kept his eyes for the curled-up child.</p> + +<p>"My dear boy," said Hilary, in his sweet, plaintive tones, edged with +irritation, "if people like to be taken in, is it my business?"</p> + +<p>And Peggy echoed, "Yes, Peter darling, <i>is</i> it Hilary's business?"</p> + +<p>Then Peter laughed suddenly. After all, it was all too hopeless, and too +absurd, for anything else.</p> + +<p>"You can't go on, you know," he said then. "You've got to resign." And +Peggy looked at him in surprise, for he spoke now like a man instead of +a child, with a man's finality. He wasn't giving a command, but stating +an obvious fact.</p> + +<p>"Darling—we've got to live!" Peggy murmured.</p> + +<p>"You mayn't see the necessity," Hilary ironically put the approved answer +into Peter's mouth, "but we, unfortunately, do."</p> + +<p>"Oh, don't be silly," said Peter unusually. "You <i>are</i> being silly, you +know; merely absurd. Because, of course, it's simply a question between +resigning and being chucked out before long. You can't go on with this +sort of thing indefinitely. You see," he explained, apologetic now, "it +isn't even as if you did it well. You really don't. And it's an awfully +easy thing to see through, if once anyone gets on the track. All that +rubbish you've saddled Lord Evelyn with—anyone who isn't as blind as +a bat can spot it in a minute. I did; Cheriton has (that's why he's so +queer-mannered, by the way, I suppose); probably Denis has. Well, with +everyone knowing about it like that, someone is bound before long to +ferret out the real facts. Cheriton won't be long, I fancy, before he +gets hold of it all. And then—and then it will be so frightfully +awkward. Oh, you can't go on, Hilary; you've got to drop it."</p> + +<p>"You're talking very lightly," said Hilary, "of throwing up one's entire +income."</p> + +<p>Peter sighed. "Not lightly; I'm really not. I know what a bore it will +be—but not such a bore as the other thing.... Well, then, don't throw it +up: simply chuck Stefani and the rest, and run the thing on different +lines. I'd help, if you'd let me. I'd chuck Leslie and stay on here and +write for you. I would love to. I made a start to-day, you see; I told +Stefani he was out of his reckonings, so he'll be prepared. We'll tell +all the rest the same.... I suppose Vyvian's in it, too? Can't you get +rid of the man? I do so dislike him, you know. Well, never mind; anyhow, +we'll tell him he's got to run on new lines now. Oh, we'll make a decent +thing of the Gem after all; Hilary, do let's. Peggy, don't you think that +would be jolly?"</p> + +<p>He looked up into his sister-in-law's face, and met smiling eyes suddenly +tear-dimmed. She smiled down at him.</p> + +<p>"Very jolly, you beloved child.... So you'll chuck your Mr. Leslie and +your own profession and help to run the Gem? I don't think we can let him +do that, Hilary, can we?"</p> + +<p>Hilary's strained face had softened and relaxed.</p> + +<p>"I confess," he said, "that it would be in many ways a great relief to me +to drop that side of the business, if I could see my way to it. But it +won't be easy now, Peter. It will mean a certain amount of going back on +former statements, for one thing."</p> + +<p>"Oh, that'll be all right. Papers are always doing that. We'll manage all +right and put a good face on it. And we'll make the thing sell—make it +funny and interesting and nice. Of course, if Leslie is willing for me to +give part of my time to it, there's no reason why I should leave him, as +long as he stays in Venice. It will be all in his interests really, +because he can get tips from the Gem. I've warned him off it lately +because I thought you were such an awful muddler, Hilary. By the way, +it's rather a relief that you aren't quite so wanting as I was beginning +to fear; seriously, I was wondering how on earth you were going to get +through this difficult world. There's no remedy for a muddler; he can't +mend."</p> + +<p>But a swindler can; a swindler certainly must, that was conveyed by the +appeal in Peter's tired face. So tired it was that Peggy gently took +Illuminato from his uncle's arms and said, "And now we'll all go to bed. +My beloved little brother—you're an angel in the house, and we'll all do +just as you say, if it's only to make you smile again. Won't we, Hilary?"</p> + +<p>She leant a soft cheek against Hilary's shoulder, smiling at Peter; but +Peter waited for Hilary's reply before he smiled back.</p> + +<p>Hilary's reply came after a moment.</p> + +<p>"Of course, if Peter can contrive a way of keeping our heads above water +without having recourse to these detestable methods, I shall be only too +relieved. I loathe having to traffic with these dirty swindlers; it's +too insufferably wearying and degrading.... By the way, Peter, what did +Stefani want to-day?"</p> + +<p>Peter said, "Oh, bother Stefani. I'm tired of him. Really, I can't +remember—oh, yes, it was antique vases, that might deceive an expert. +But let's stop thinking about Stefani and go to bed. I'm so awfully +sleepy; do let's go upstairs and try to get a little rest, as Vyvian +puts it."</p> + +<p>Peggy patted him softly on the cheek as he passed her, and her smile for +him was curiously pitiful.</p> + +<p>"We'll do our best to mend, my dear; we'll do our best," was what she +soothingly murmured; and then, to Illuminato, "There, my froglet; cuddle +up and sleep," and to Hilary, "You poor old dear, will we let the little +brother have his way, because he's a darling entirely, and quite +altogether in the right?"</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IX" id="CHAPTER_IX"></a>CHAPTER IX</h2> + +<h3>THE FAT IN THE FIRE</h3> + + +<p>Peter, self-appointed sub-editor to the Gem, was revising a dissertation +of Vyvian's on lace. It was a difficult business, this. Vyvian, in +Peter's opinion, needed so much expurgation; and yet one couldn't be +unkind. Peter wished very much that Hilary would get rid of Vyvian. +Vyvian often wrote such tosh; though he was clever, too. Came of being a +bounder, perhaps. Peter had often noticed that bounders were apt to write +tosh, even clever bounders. Such a sensitive bounder, too; that made it +extraordinarily difficult to edit him satisfactorily. Decidedly Hilary +ought to get rid of him, gently but finally. That would have the added +advantage of freeing Peter from the obligation of "making a third" with +him and Rhoda Johnson. Also, one would feel safer; one didn't really +trust Vyvian not to be doing little private deals of his own; so little, +in fact, did one trust him that the names of dealers were rigorously +taboo now on the Gem.</p> + +<p>Peter sighed over this rather tiresome article on lace. He wanted to be +finishing one of his own on well-heads; and then he wanted to go out with +Leslie and look for stone lions for Leslie's gate-posts; and then he and +Leslie were going to dine with Lord Evelyn Urquhart. There were a lot of +jolly things to be done, when he had finished with Vyvian's lace.</p> + +<p>Peter was quite enjoying life just now; it was interesting trying to set +the Gem on its legs; there were immense potentialities in the Gem now +that toshery with dealers had been put an end to. And to be allowed to +write <i>ad infinitum</i> about well-heads or anything else was simply +splendid.</p> + +<p>Peter heard, with a small, abstracted part of his mind, someone talking +to Hilary in the hall. The low-toned conversation vaguely worried his +subconscious self; he wished people would converse more audibly. But +probably it was private.... Peter suddenly frowned irritably and sat +upright, biting at his pen. He was annoyed with himself. It was so +impertinent, so much the sort of thing he most disliked, to be +speculating, as he had suddenly found himself doing, on the nature of +another person's private business. Had he come to that? It must be some +emanation from that silly, syrupy article of Vyvian's; Vyvian, Peter felt +sure, would have towards a private conversation just such an attitude +that he had detected in himself. He settled himself to his job again, +and made a rather savage excision of two long sentences.</p> + +<p>The outer door shut. Peter heard Hilary's steps crossing the hall alone, +rather slowly, till they stopped at the door of the saloon. Hilary came +in; his head was thoughtfully bent, and he didn't at first see Peter at +the table in a corner. When he did see him, he started violently. Hilary +had such weak nerves; he was always starting for no reason.</p> + +<p>Peter said, "Things going on all right?" and Hilary said, "Yes, quite," +and stood silent for a moment, his mobile face flickering nervously, as +it did when he was tired or embarrassed.</p> + +<p>"I was looking for Peggy," he added, and went out. He had forgotten, +apparently, that Peggy had told them an hour ago that she was going +shopping and would be out all the afternoon.</p> + +<p>Peter sat quite still in his chair and bit his pen. From his expression, +Mrs. Johnson might have inferred that he had been in the Cathedral again, +smelling at the choky incense, and had got "funny feelin's" within. They +were like the nauseating reminiscence of an old sickness. He tried to +ignore them. He said to himself, "I'm an ass. I'm a suspicious, +low-minded ass."</p> + +<p>But he was somehow revolted by the thought of going on with the work for +"The Gem" just then. He was glad when Leslie called to fetch him out.</p> + +<p>Leslie said, "What's the matter, my son?"</p> + +<p>Leslie had, with all his inapprehensiveness of things, an extraordinary +amount of discernment of people; he could discern feelings that had no +existence. Or, if they had any existence in this case, they must have +been called into it by Vyvian's sugary periods. Peter conceded that to +that extent he ailed.</p> + +<p>"A surfeit of Vyvian. Let's come out and take the air and look for little +stone lions."</p> + +<p>Leslie was restful and refreshing, with his direct purposes and solid +immobility. You could be of use to Leslie, because he had a single eye; +he knew what he wanted, and requested you to obtain it for him. That +was simple; he didn't make your task impossible by suddenly deciding that +after all he didn't really want what you were getting for him. He was a +stable man, and perhaps it is only the stable who are really susceptible +of help, thought Peter vaguely.</p> + +<p>At seven o'clock Peter and Leslie went to the Ca' delle Gemme. They +found Cheriton there. Cheriton was talking when they arrived, in his +efficient, decisive, composed business tones. Lord Evelyn was pacing up +and down the room, his fine, ringed hands clasped behind his back. He +looked extraordinarily agitated; his delicate face was flushed crimson. +Denis was lying back in a low chair, characteristically at ease.</p> + +<p>When Leslie and Peter came in, Cheriton stopped speaking, and Lord Evelyn +stopped pacing, and absolute silence momentarily fell.</p> + +<p>Then Denis gave his pleasant, casual "Hullo."</p> + +<p>Cheriton's silence continued. But Lord Evelyn's did not. Lord Evelyn, +very tall and thin, and swaying to and fro on his heels, looked at Peter, +turning redder than before; and Peter turned red too, and gave a little +apprehensive, unhappy sigh, because he knew that the fat was at last in +the fire.</p> + +<p>There ensued an uncomfortable scene, such as may readily be imagined.</p> + +<p>Lord Evelyn said, and his sweet voice quavered distressingly up and down, +"I suppose it's been a good joke. But I wouldn't have thought it of you, +Peter Margerison; I wouldn't have thought it of you. Of your brother I +say nothing; it's a dishonest world, and he's like the rest, and I can't +say he ever gave me any reason to trust him, so I've myself to blame. But +you—I did trust you. I thought you were a nice boy, and cared too much +for nice things to lie about them." He broke off, and looked round the +room—at the Diana and Actæon, at the Siena chalice, at all the monstrous +collection. They weren't nearly all monstrous, either—not even most—but +he didn't know that; they might be for all he could tell. He looked at +them all with the same bewildered, hurt, inimical eyes, and it was that +which gave Peter his deepest stab of pitiful pain.</p> + +<p>"You've made a fool of me between you," said Lord Evelyn, and suddenly +sat down, as if very tired. Leslie sat down too, ponderous and silent +in the shadowed background. But Peter remained standing before them all, +his head a little bent, his eyes on Denis Urquhart's profile. He was +wondering vaguely if Denis would say anything, and if so what it would +be.</p> + +<p>Still looking at Denis, he made foolish apologies because he was always +polite.</p> + +<p>"I'm frightfully sorry.... I've been frightfully sorry all along...."</p> + +<p>Lord Evelyn lifted a white hand, waving his absurdities contemptuously +aside.</p> + +<p>"All along! Oh, I see. At least you're honest now; you don't attempt to +deny that you've known all about it, then." There was perhaps a fresh +ring of bitterness in his voice, as if some last faint hope had been +killed by Peter's words.</p> + +<p>Cheriton, whose eyes were studying the floor, lifted them sharply for +a moment, and glanced at Denis, who was lighting a cigarette and didn't +look at him.</p> + +<p>"You knew that first evening, when you looked at the things," said Lord +Evelyn, half a question still in his querulous voice. "You saw through +them at once, of course. Anyone but a blind fool would have, I've no +manner of doubt. Cheriton here says he saw you see through them."</p> + +<p>Peter stammered over it. "I—I—knew they weren't much."</p> + +<p>Lord Evelyn turned to Cheriton whose face was still bent down as if he +didn't much like the scene now he had brought it about.</p> + +<p>"You were right, as usual, Jim. And Denis was wrong. Denis, you know," he +added to Peter, "was inclined to put your morals above your intelligence. +He said you couldn't have known. Cheriton told him he was sure you had. +It seems Cheriton was right."</p> + +<p>It seemed that he was. Peter imagined that Cheriton would always be +right.</p> + +<p>After a moment's silence Peter gathered that they were all waiting to +hear if he had anything to say about it. He hadn't much, but he might +as well say it, such as it was.</p> + +<p>"It won't make much difference, of course," he began, and his voice +sounded odd and small and tired in the great room, "but I think I +should like you to know that all this stopped three weeks ago. +Hilary—we—decided then to—to give it up, and run 'The Gem' on +different lines in future. We couldn't easily undo the past—but—but +there's been nothing of the sort since then, and we didn't mean there to +be again. Oh, I know that doesn't make much difference, of course...."</p> + +<p>The only difference that mattered was that Denis frowned. +Incidentally—only that didn't matter—Cheriton laughed curtly, and Lord +Evelyn wearily said, "Oh, stop lying, stop lying. I'm so unutterably +tired of your lies.... You think we don't know that your brother accepted +a bribe this very afternoon.... Tell him, Jim."</p> + +<p>So Jim told him. He told him shortly, and in plain words, and not as if +he was pleased with his triumph in skilful detection, which he no doubt +was.</p> + +<p>"I rather wanted to sift this business, Margerison, as I had suspected +for a good while more than I could prove. So to-day I sent a man to your +brother, commissioning him to pretend to be an art-dealer and offer a sum +of money for the insertion in 'The Gem' of an appreciative notice of some +spurious objects. As perhaps you are aware, the offer was accepted.... It +may seem to you an underhand way of getting evidence—but the case was +peculiar."</p> + +<p>He didn't look at Peter; his manner, though distant, was not now +unfriendly; perhaps, having gained his object and sifted the business, +there was room for compassion. It was a pity that Peter had made things +worse by that last lie, though.</p> + +<p>"I see," said Peter. "It's all very complete."</p> + +<p>And then he laughed, as he always did when disasters were so very +complete as to leave no crevice of escape to creep through.</p> + +<p>"You laugh," said Lord Evelyn, and rose from his chair, trembling a +little. "You laugh. It's been an admirable joke, hasn't it? And you +always had plenty of sense of humour."</p> + +<p>Peter didn't hear him. He wasn't laughing any more; he was looking at +Denis, who had never looked at him once, but sat smoking with averted +face.</p> + +<p>"Shall I go now?" said Peter. "There isn't much more to say, is there? +And what there is, perhaps you will tell us to-morrow.... It seems so +silly to say one is sorry about a thing like this—but I am, you know, +horribly. I have been all along, ever since I found out. You think +that must be a lie, because I didn't tell. But things are so mixed and +difficult—and it's not a lie." He was looking at Lord Evelyn now, at +the delicate, working face that stabbed at his pity and shame. After all, +it was Lord Evelyn, not Denis, whom they had injured and swindled and +fooled; one must remember that. To Lord Evelyn he made his further +feeble self-exculpation. "And, you know, I did really think Hilary had +dropped it weeks ago; he said he would. And that's not a lie, either." +But he believed they all thought it was, and a silly one at that.</p> + +<p>It was Lord Evelyn who laughed now, with his high, scornful titter.</p> + +<p>"You and your sorrow! I've no doubt your brother will be sorry too, when +he hears the news. I may tell you that he'll have very good reason to +be.... Yes, by all means go now—unless you'd like to stay and dine, +which I fancy would be carrying the joke too far even for you.... Will +you stay one moment, though? There's a little ceremony to be performed."</p> + +<p>He crossed the room, and took the Sienese chalice between his hands, +holding it gingerly for a moment as if it had been some unclean thing; +then he dashed it on to the marble floor and it lay in splinters about +his feet. He took up the pair of vases next it, one in each hand (they +happened to be of great value), and threw them too among the splinters; +he had cleared the shelf of all its brittle objects before Leslie, who +had sat motionless in the background until now, rose and laid a heavy +hand on his arm.</p> + +<p>"My dear sir," said Leslie tranquilly, "don't be melodramatic. And don't +give the servants so much trouble and possible injury when they do the +room to-morrow. If you want to part with your goods, may I ask to be +allowed to inspect them with a view to purchase? Some of them, as you +are no doubt aware, are of considerable intrinsic value, and I should be +happy to be allowed to buy."</p> + +<p>Lord Evelyn looked at the man of commerce with distant contempt.</p> + +<p>"As you please, sir. I've no doubt that Mr. Peter Margerison will be +equally happy to give you his valuable advice in the business. He is your +counsellor in these matters, isn't he. An excellent adviser, of sound +judgment and most disinterested honesty!"</p> + +<p>He bowed to Peter, who took it as a dismissal, and said "Good night."</p> + +<p>Denis, at the opposite side of the room, nodded in his casual way, +neither hostile nor friendly, but gentle and indifferent. You couldn't +make Denis seem angry, or hurt, or agitated in any way whatever. He had +always the air of reserving his opinion; and he extremely disliked +scenes. To be present at this one must have been painful to him. Peter, +who knew him so well, knew that. He liked things to go easily and +smoothly always. He had winced at the crash of glass on marble; it seemed +to him in such bad taste. This, no doubt, was his attitude towards the +whole business; towards the Magerisons' behaviour, Cheriton's exposure +of it, and this final naked, shameful scene of accusation and confession.</p> + +<p>Peter was realising this as he put on his coat in the hall, when the door +he had shut behind him was opened, and steps followed him. He started and +faced round, a hope leaping in his face. The swift dying of it left him +rather pale.</p> + +<p>Leslie said, "I'm coming too."</p> + +<p>It was good of Leslie, thought Peter dully, and not caring in the least. +He said, "No, stay and dine. Really, I'd like you to.... We'll talk +to-morrow."</p> + +<p>Leslie put on his overcoat and said to the footman, "Call a gondola," +and the footman stood on the steps and cried "<i>Poppe</i>" till a <i>poppe</i> +came; then they swung away down a rose-flushed water-street with the +after-glow in their eyes.</p> + +<p>Leslie was restful; he didn't bother one. He merely said, "We'll dine +to-night at Luigi's."</p> + +<p>It was not until they had done so, and were having coffee outside, that +Peter said, "We'll have to leave Venice, of course, directly we can."</p> + +<p>"You too?" said Leslie. "You go with them?"</p> + +<p>"I go with them," said Peter. "Well, I can't well stay here, can I. And +we may as well stick together—a family party..... You see, I haven't a +notion what Hilary will do to live now. I can go into business of sorts. +Hilary can't; he'd hate it so. Hilary's not business-like, you know. Nor +is Peggy. I couldn't trust them by themselves; they'd tumble into +something and get broken. They need my common sense to sustain them."</p> + +<p>Leslie said, "What's the matter with your own line of life, that you want +to chuck it?"</p> + +<p>Peter looked at him in surprise.</p> + +<p>"It's chucked me," he said. "Violently—with a smash. You don't suppose +anyone will hire me again to buy their things for them? There'll be +something of a crab on the Margerison family in future. It's going to +be made very public, you know, this business; I gathered that. We shall +be—rather notorious, in a very few days."</p> + +<p>Leslie said, after a moment, "I've hired you to buy my things for me. Are +you going to chuck me?"</p> + +<p>And Peter, leaning his forehead on his hand as if tired, returned +beneath his breath, "Don't be good to me, please, just now. And you +must see I've got to chuck it all—all that side of things. We must do +something quite new, Hilary and I. We—we've spoiled this."</p> + +<p>After a pause, Leslie said gently, afraid of blundering, "You stick +together, you and your brother? You go through it together—all the way?"</p> + +<p>Peter answered hopelessly, "All the way. We're in it together, and we +must get out together, as best we can," and Leslie accepted that, and +asked no further question.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_X" id="CHAPTER_X"></a>CHAPTER X</h2> + +<h3>THE LOSS OF A PROFESSION</h3> + + +<p>Peter went back to the Palazzo Amadeo and said to Hilary, who was writing +an article for "The Gem" in the saloon, "I wouldn't go on with that, +Hilary. It's no use."</p> + +<p>The flatness of his voice, the pallor of his face, startled Hilary and +Peggy.</p> + +<p>Peggy said, "You're tired to death, child. Take the big chair."</p> + +<p>Hilary said, "How do you mean, no use?"</p> + +<p>And Peter told him. While he did so, he stood at the window, looking down +at the canal between the green shutters that swung ajar, and did not look +at Hilary's face.</p> + +<p>It was an impossible position for Hilary, so utterly impossible that it +was no use trying to make the best of it; one could only look away, and +get through it quickly.</p> + +<p>Peter didn't say much. He only said, "We've been found out. That man who +came to you this afternoon was a spy sent by Cheriton. He reported the +result of his interview with you, and Lord Evelyn knows all about +everything. Cheriton suspected from the first, you see.... From what Lord +Evelyn said, I gather he means to prosecute.... He is ... very angry +indeed.... They all are...."</p> + +<p>On the last statement Peter's voice sank a little in pitch, so that they +hardly heard it. But the last statement mattered to no one but Peter.</p> + +<p>Hilary had got up sharply at the first words, and stood very still to +listen, letting out one long breath of weary despair. Peggy came and +stood close to him, and took one slim white hand in her large kind ones, +and gently held it. The fat was indeed in the fire. Poor old Hilary! How +he would feel it! Peggy divined that what stung Hilary most deeply at the +moment was Peter's discovery of his faithlessness.</p> + +<p>It was of that that his first shamed, incoherent words were.</p> + +<p>"What was I to do? How could I break abruptly with the old methods, as +you suggested? It had to come gradually. You know nothing of business, +Peter—nothing." His voice ran up the scale of protesting self-defence.</p> + +<p>"Nothing," Peter admitted drearily. Hilary's shame before him could +hardly now add to the badness of the situation, as it had once done; the +badness of situations has a limit, and this one had reached its limit +some three hours since, just before he had laughed in Lord Evelyn's +drawing-room.</p> + +<p>"Oh," said Peter, very tired suddenly, "never mind me; what does that +matter? The point is ... well, you see the point, naturally."</p> + +<p>Yes, Hilary saw the point. With a faint groan he ran his fingers through +his hair and began to pace up and down the room in agitation.</p> + +<p>He said, "That brute Cheriton.... An execrable bounder; I always knew it. +What <i>right</i> had he?... It's too horrible, too abominable.... Just when +we were doing our best to get the thing onto straight lines...." He +wheeled about and paced back again, with quick, uneven steps. Between him +and the motionless Peter, Peggy stood, looking from one to the other. Her +merry eyes were quite grave now. The situation was certainly appalling.</p> + +<p>"We must leave Venice," said Peggy, on a sigh. That seemed, certainly, +the only thing to be done.</p> + +<p>Hilary groaned again.</p> + +<p>"Oh, Lord, what are we let in for? What will be the result, if he +prosecutes? It may be utter ruin.... I know nothing of these things. +Of course, in justice nothing could be done to us—for, after all, what +harm have we done? Anyone may insert advertisements for pay, and it only +amounted to that.... But justice isn't taken into much account in the +law-courts.... It is a horrible, cast-iron system—the relic of a +barbarous age.... I don't know what we mayn't be in for, or how we +shall come out of it. You don't know either, Peter; you know nothing +of law—nothing. It mustn't come into court; that is unthinkable. We will +make full apologies—any restitution within our power that Lord Evelyn +demands.... I shall go there; I shall see him about it, and appeal to his +better feelings. He has been a friend of mine. He has always been good to +you, Peter. The memory of your mother.... Appeal to that. You must go to +him and see what can be done. Yes, it had better be you; he has a kinder +feeling for you, I believe, than for me."</p> + +<p>"He has no kind feeling for me," said Peter dully. "He is more annoyed +with me than with you."</p> + +<p>Hilary jerked his head impatiently.</p> + +<p>"Nonsense. You want to shirk; you want to leave me to get out of the mess +for myself. Oh, of course, you're not legally involved; I am aware of +that; you can leave the sinking ship if you choose, and save yourself."</p> + +<p>Peggy said, "Don't be ridiculous, darling. Peter's doing his best for us, +as he always has," and came and stood at her brother-in-law's side, kind +and big and comforting, with a hand on his arm.</p> + +<p>Hilary went on querulously, "I'm asking Peter to do a simple thing—to +use his friendship with the Urquharts to help me out of this mess. If you +don't want to see Lord Evelyn, Peter, you can go to Denis. He's a friend +of yours; he's—he's your kind of step-brother. You can easily persuade +him to get the thing hushed up. You've always pretended that he was a +friend of yours. Go and see him, then, for heaven's sake, and help us all +out of this miserable predicament."</p> + +<p>Peter was still silent, staring down at the dark ribbon of shining water +that lapped against two old brick walls, a shut lane full of stars.</p> + +<p>Peggy, her hand on his arm, said gently, "Oh, Peter'll do his best for +us, of course he will, won't you, Peter."</p> + +<p>Peter sighed very faintly into the dark night.</p> + +<p>"I will do anything I can, naturally. It won't be much, you know."</p> + +<p>"You will go to the Urquharts to-morrow morning, and appeal to them?" +said Hilary.</p> + +<p>"Yes," said Peter. "I will do that."</p> + +<p>Hilary breathed a sigh of relief, and flung himself into a chair.</p> + +<p>"Thanks, Peter. I believe that is the best we can do. You will +persuade them at least to be just, not to push the matter to unfair +extremes.... <i>Oh, my God, what a life!</i>" His beautiful, unhappy face +was hidden in his hands; he shuddered from head to foot, feeling horribly +sick. The Margerison organism was sensitive.</p> + +<p>Peggy, bending over him, drew caressing fingers through his dark hair and +said, "Go to bed, you poor old dear, and don't worry any more to-night. +Worry won't help now, will it?"</p> + +<p>"Bed?" said Hilary. "Bed? What's the use of that? I shouldn't sleep a +wink. I have a frightful head, and I must go and find Vyvian and tell +him."</p> + +<p>Peggy sniffed. "Much Vyvian'll care! He's been in bad odour all his life, +I should fancy. One more row won't bother <i>him</i> much. I wish it would; it +would be almost worth while to be upset if Guy Vyvian was going to be +upset too—the waster. Well, I wonder anyhow will this show that silly +little Rhoda what sort of a creature she's been making a golden calf +of.... Well, go and wake Vyvian, then, darling, and then come and tell me +what he said to it. Peter, you're dropping to sleep as you stand."</p> + +<p>Peter went to bed. There didn't seem to be anything to stay up for, and +bed is a comforting friend on these occasions. Hilary had a perverse +tendency to sit up all night when the worst had happened and he had a +frightful head; Peter's way with life was more amenable; he always took +what comfort was offered him. Bed is a good place; it folds protecting, +consoling arms about you, and gives at best oblivion, at worst a blessed +immunity from action.</p> + +<p>In the morning, about eleven o'clock, Peter went to the Ca' delle Gemme. +That had to be done, so it was no use delaying. He asked for Lord Evelyn +Urquhart, and supposed that the servant who showed him in was astonished +at his impudence. However, he was permitted to wait in the reception-room +while the servant went to acquaint Lord Evelyn with his presence. He +waited some time, standing in the middle of the big room, looking at some +splinters of glass and china which had been left on the marble floor, +forming on his tongue what he was going to say. He could form nothing +that was easy to say; honestly he didn't know whether, when the door +should open and that tall, elegant, fastidious figure should walk in, he +would find himself able to say anything at all. He feared he might only +grow hot, and stammer, and slink out. But he pulled himself together; he +must do his best; it was quite necessary. He would try to say, "Lord +Evelyn, I know it is abominably impertinent of me to come into your house +like this. Will you forgive me this once? I have come to ask you, is +there any consideration whatever, any sort of reparation my brother and +I can make, which will be of any use as amends for what we did? If so, of +course we should be grateful for the chance...."</p> + +<p>That was what he would try to say. And what he would mean was: "Will you +let Hilary off? Will you let him just go away into obscurity, without +further disgrace? Isn't he disgraced enough already? Because you are +kind, and because you have been fond of me, and because I ask you, will +you do this much?"</p> + +<p>And what the answer would be, Peter had not the faintest idea. To him +personally the answer was indifferent. From his point of view, the worst +had already happened, and no further disgrace could affect him much. But +Hilary desperately cared, so he must do his best; he must walk into the +fire and wrest out of it what he could.</p> + +<p>And at last the door opened, and Denis Urquhart came in.</p> + +<p>He was just as usual, leisurely and fair and tranquil, only usually he +smiled at Peter, and to-day he did not smile. One might have fancied +under his tranquillity a restrained nervousness. He did not shake +hands; but then Peter and he never did shake hands when they met.</p> + +<p>He said, "Sit down, won't you. My uncle isn't available just now, so +I have come instead.... You have something to say to him, haven't you?"</p> + +<p>He sat down himself, and waited, looking at the splinters of glass on the +floor.</p> + +<p>Peter stood, and his breath came shortly. Yes, he had something to say to +Lord Evelyn, but nothing to Lord Evelyn's nephew. He grew hot and cold, +and stammered something, he did not know what.</p> + +<p>"Yes?" said Denis, in his soft, casual voice, politely expectant.</p> + +<p>Peter, who did not, after all, lack a certain desperate courage, walked +into the fire, with braced will. It was bad that Denis should be brought +into the business; but it had to be gone through, all the same.</p> + +<p>"I only wanted to know ... to know ... what Lord Evelyn is going to do +about this matter." He jerked out the words like stones from a catapult.</p> + +<p>Denis was silent for a moment. He disliked being dragged into this +revolting affair; but he had had to come and see Peter, since his uncle +refused and he could not let Peter go unseen away. He didn't want to see +him ever again, since he had behaved as he had behaved, but neither did +he want to violate the laws of courtesy and hospitality.</p> + +<p>"I don't quite know," he said, after a moment.</p> + +<p>"Is he ... does he intend to prosecute?" Peter asked, blushing.</p> + +<p>Denis answered to that at once: "I shall certainly do my best to prevent +anything of the sort. I don't think he will. At present he is still very +angry; but I think when he cools down he will see reason. To prosecute +would be to make himself absurd; he will see that, no doubt. He values +his reputation as an art connoisseur, you see." At the faint, cool irony +in the words, Peter winced.</p> + +<p>"Of course," went on Denis, lighting a cigarette, "your brother will +leave Venice at once, I suppose?" He passed Peter his cigarette box; +Peter refused it.</p> + +<p>"Naturally. We mean to leave as soon as we can.... Thank you, that is all +I had to say.... Good-bye."</p> + +<p>Denis got up, and Peter saw relief through the mask of politeness.</p> + +<p>"Good-bye.... I needn't say how sorry I am about all this. It was hard +lines on you being brought into it."</p> + +<p>He was making a transparent effort after friendliness; Peter almost +smiled at it. Poor Denis; what a relief it would be to him when the +disreputable Margerisons were off the scenes.</p> + +<p>Peter paused at the door and said, in a low, embarrassed voice, "Would +you mind telling Lord Evelyn what I told him myself last night—that +I'm horribly sorry about it—sorrier than I have ever been for +anything.... It won't make any difference to him, I know—but if you will +just tell him.... And I'm sorry it happened while you were here, too. +You've been dragged in.... Good-bye."</p> + +<p>"Good-bye, Margerison." Denis was grave, embarrassed, restrained, and not +unkind. It was obvious that he had nothing to say about it all.</p> + +<p>Peter left the Ca' delle Gemme.</p> + +<p>That afternoon Hilary received a note from Lord Evelyn. It was to the +effect that Lord Evelyn had decided not to bring an action, on the +understanding that Hilary and his brother and Vyvian left Venice at once +and discontinued for ever the profession of artistic advisers. If any of +the three was discovered engaging again in that business, those who +employed them should promptly be advised of their antecedents. They were, +in fact, to consider themselves warned off the turf. There was also to be +a paragraph about them in the English art papers.</p> + +<p>"Well," was Peggy's comment, "it hasn't been such a grand trade that we +need mind much. We'll all come back to England and keep a boarding-house +there instead, and you shall paint the great pictures, darling, and have +ever so much more fun. And we'll never need to see that Vyvian again; +there's fine news for the babies, anyhow. And I will be relieved to get +them away from the canals; one of them would have been surely drowned +before long. In London they'll have only gutters."</p> + +<p>Hilary, who was looking tired and limp after a distressing night and day, +said, "What shall you do, Peter?"</p> + +<p>"I don't know," said Peter. "I must find something, I suppose. Some sort +of work, you know." He pronounced the word gingerly, distastefully, as +if it were a curious, unwonted one. "Perhaps I shall be able to get a +post as door-keeper somewhere; in some museum, you know, or perhaps a +theatre, or the White City. I've always thought that might be amusing."</p> + +<p>"You wouldn't earn much that way," Hilary said hopelessly.</p> + +<p>"Need one earn much?" Peter wondered; then remembered how exceedingly +little Hilary would be earning, and that perhaps one need, because of the +babies.</p> + +<p>"Or perhaps I can get taken on as a clerk in some business," he amended. +"Or in a bank; only I don't believe my sums or manners are good enough +for a bank, really.... Oh, well, I must see what I can squeeze into. +Perhaps Leslie can think of something. And perhaps the Robinsons will +interest themselves in me, though they'll be even more disgusted at our +downfall than they were when I took up my profession, and they thought +that perfectly idiotic. They always do think we're perfectly idiotic, and +now they'll know we're something worse. But they may help me to a job, if +I bother them enough.... Anyhow, I'll be one of your boarders, if I may."</p> + +<p>"You darling," said Peggy, beaming at him. "It'll give the house quite a +different feeling if you're in it. And how delighted the babies will be. +I believe we're going to have the fine time, after all, in spite of +this bothersome business. Hurrah for London and no mosquitoes! And we'll +be quite near a Catholic church, the way the children'll be able to run +in and out as they do here, and not pick up heathen customs. Why, Hilary, +I'm really pleased!"</p> + +<p>Peggy was splendid. She was nearly always really pleased.</p> + +<p>They started for England a week later. In the course of that week two +things happened. One was that Leslie gave Peter the Berovieri goblet for +his own.</p> + +<p>"You've got to take it," he said. "If you don't, I shall give it back to +the prince. I've no right to it; I can't appreciate it properly. Since I +first saw you look at the thing I knew it was really yours. Take it and +keep it. You won't let me do anything else for you, but you shall let me +do that."</p> + +<p>Peter looked at it with wistful love. His fingers lingered about its +exquisiteness.</p> + +<p>"It will break," he said. "My things do break. Break and get lost, and go +with the dust. Or thieves will break in and steal it. I shan't be able to +keep it, I know; I'm such a bad hand at keeping things."</p> + +<p>"Well, well, have a try," said Leslie. So Peter took it and was glad. It +was his one link with the world of exquisiteness and new-burnished joys +out of which he was being thrust; he would keep it if he could.</p> + +<p>Leslie also said that he could get him a place in a business, if he +really wanted one.</p> + +<p>"I shall be extremely little use," said Peter.</p> + +<p>"Extremely little," Leslie agreed. "You'd much better not try. But if you +must you must."</p> + +<p>"I'm afraid I must," said Peter.</p> + +<p>So Leslie wrote letters about him, and secured him a humble post in a +warehouse. Leslie was not going to return to England at present. He was +going a tour round the world. Since Peter refused to accompany him, he +went alone.</p> + +<p>"There's no one else I can fancy hanging round me day and night," he +said. "I wanted you, Margery"—the nickname fell from him with a clumsy +pathos—"but if you won't you won't. I shall acquire an abominable +collection of objects without you to guide me; but that can't be helped."</p> + +<p>The other thing that happened was that Mrs. Johnson fell suddenly ill and +died. Before she died, she talked to Peter about Rhoda.</p> + +<p>"It's leaving of her as I can't bear," she whispered. "All alone and +unprotected like. I can't leave her by herself in this heathen country. +I want to get her back to England. But she's got no relatives there as'll +do for her; none, you know, as I should care to trust her to, or as 'ud +be really good to her. And I'm afraid of what'll come to the child +without me; I'm <i>afraid</i>, Mr. Peter. That man—it gives me the creeps +of nights to think of him comin' after Rhoder when I'm gone. I'm just +frightened as he'll get her; you know what Rhoder is, like a soft wax +candle that gets droopy and gives before his bold look; he can do +anythin' with her. And if he gets her, he won't be good to her, I know +that. He'll just break her and toss her away, my little gal. Oh, what +can I do, Mr. Peter, to save that?"</p> + +<p>She was in great pain; drops of sweat kept gathering on her forehead and +rolling on to the pillow. Peter took her hand that picked at the blanket.</p> + +<p>"May we try to take care of her?" he gently asked. "If she will come +and stay with us, in London, it would be better than being alone among +strangers, wouldn't it? She could get work near, and live with us. Peggy +is fond of her, you know; we all are. We would try to make her as happy +as we could."</p> + +<p>She smiled at him, between laboured breaths.</p> + +<p>"God bless you, dear Mr. Peter. I somehow thought as how you'd be good +to my little gal.... You are so sympathetic to everyone always.... Yes, +Rhoder shall do that; I'll have her promise. And that man—you'll keep +him off of her?"</p> + +<p>"I will try," said Peter. "I will do my very best."</p> + +<p>"Oh, Lord, oh, dear Lord," said Mrs. Johnson, "the pain!"</p> + +<p>But it didn't last long, for she died that night.</p> + +<p>And four days later the boarding-house was broken up, and the Margerison +family and Rhoda Johnson left Italy together.</p> + +<p>Rhoda was very quiet and still and white. She was terribly alone, for her +mother was gone, and the man she loved was gone, hurriedly, without a +word to her. There remained the Margerisons; Peter, with his friendly +smile and gentle companionableness; Hilary, worried and weary and hardly +noticing her unobtrusive presence; Silvio, Caterina, and Illuminato +sucking gingerbread and tumbling off the rack, and Peggy, on whose broad +shoulder Rhoda suddenly laid her head and wept, all through the Mont +Cenis tunnel.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XI" id="CHAPTER_XI"></a>CHAPTER XI</h2> + +<h3>THE LOSS OF AN IDEA</h3> + + +<p>Peter's room was the smallest and highest in the boarding-house. It was +extremely small and high, and just above the bed was a ceiling that got +hot through and through like a warming-pan, so that the room in summer +was like a little oven below. What air there was came in came through a +small skylight above the wash-stand; through this also came the rain when +it rained; the dirtiest rain Peter had ever seen.</p> + +<p>It was not raining this morning, when Peter, after passing a very warm +night, heard the bells beginning. A great many bells begin on Sunday +mornings in this part of London, no doubt in any part of London, but +here they seem particularly loud. The boarding-house was in a small +street close to a large English church and a small Roman church; and the +English church had its first Mass at seven, and the Roman church at six, +and each had another an hour later, and bells rang for all. So Peter lay +and listened.</p> + +<p>Sometimes he went with Hilary and Peggy to the Roman Mass. That pleased +Peggy, who had hopes of some day converting him. And occasionally he went +alone to the English Mass, and he liked that better, on the whole, +because the little Roman church was rather ugly. Peter didn't think he +would ever join the Roman church, even to please Peggy. It certainly +seemed to him in some ways the most finely expressive of the churches; +but equally certainly it often expressed the wrong things, and (like +all other churches) left whole worlds unexpressed. And so much of its +expression had a crudity.... It kept saying too little and too much, +and jarring.</p> + +<p>Anyhow, this morning Peter, who had a headache after his warm night, +lay and heard the bells and thought what a nice day Sunday was, with +no office to go to. Instead, he would take Rhoda on the river in the +morning, and go and see Lucy in the afternoon, and probably have tea +there. When Peter went to see Lucy he always had a faint hope that +Urquhart would perhaps walk in, and that they would all be friendly +and happy together in the old way, for one afternoon. It hadn't happened +yet. Peter hadn't seen Urquhart since they had left Venice, two months +ago. Sunday was his day for going to see Lucy, and it wasn't Urquhart's +day, perhaps because Urquhart was so often away for week-ends; though +last Sunday, indeed, he had just left the Hopes' house when Peter +arrived.</p> + +<p>Lucy, when Peter had told her his tale of dishonour two months ago, had +said, half laughing at him, "How <i>stupid</i> of all of you!" She hadn't +realised quite how much it mattered. Lucy judged everything by a queer, +withdrawn standard of her own.</p> + +<p>Peter had agreed that it had been exceedingly stupid of all of them. +Once, since then, when he heard that Urquhart had returned and had seen +Lucy, he had asked her, "Does he dislike us all very much? Is he quite +too disgusted to want to see me again?"</p> + +<p>Lucy had wrinkled her forehead over it.</p> + +<p>"He's not angry," she had said. "You can fancy, can't you? +Merely—merely ..."</p> + +<p>"Detached," said Peter, who had more words, and always expressed what +Lucy meant; and she nodded. "Just that, you know." She had looked at him +wistfully, hoping he wasn't minding too horribly much.</p> + +<p>"It's <i>stupid</i> of him," she had said, using her favourite adjective, and +had added, dubiously, "Come and meet him sometime. You can't go on like +this; it's too silly."</p> + +<p>Peter had shaken his head. "I won't till he wants to. I don't want to +bother him, you see."</p> + +<p>"He does want to," Lucy had told him. "Of course he does. Only he thinks +<i>you</i> don't. That's what's so silly."</p> + +<p>They had left it there for the present. Some day Peter meant to walk into +Denis's rooms and say, "Don't be stupid. This can't go on." But the day +hadn't come yet. If it had been Denis who had done the shady thing and +was in penury and dishonour thereby, it would have been so simple. But +that was inconceivable; such things didn't happen to Denis; and as it was +it was not simple.</p> + +<p>Peter got out of his hot bed on to his hot floor, and made for the +bathroom. There was only one bathroom in the boarding-house, but there +was no great competition for it, so Peter had his bath in peace, and +sang a tune in it as was his custom, and came back to his hot room and +put on his hot clothes (his less tidy clothes, because it was the day of +joy), and came down to breakfast at 9:25.</p> + +<p>Most of the other boarders had got there before him. It was a mixed +boarding-house, and contained at the moment two gentlemen besides Hilary +and Peter, and five ladies besides Peggy and Rhoda. They were on +the whole a happy and even gay society, and particularly on Sundays.</p> + +<p>Peggy, looking up from the tea-cups, gave Peter a broad smile, and Rhoda +gave him a little subdued one, and Peter looked pleased to see everyone; +he always did, even on Mondays.</p> + +<p>"I'm sure your brother hasn't a care in the world," an envious lady +boarder had once said to Peggy; "he's always so happy-looking."</p> + +<p>This was the lady who was saying, as Peter entered, "And my mother's last +words were, 'Find Elizabeth Dean's grave.' Elizabeth Dean was an author, +you know—oh, very well known, I believe. She treated my mother and me +none too well; didn't stand by us when she should have—but we won't say +anything about that now. Anyhow, it was a costly funeral—forty pounds +and eight horses—and my mother hadn't an idea where she was laid. So she +said, 'Find Elizabeth Dean's grave,' just like that. And the strange +thing was that in the first churchyard I walked into, in a little village +down in Sussex, there was a tombstone, 'Elizabeth Dean, 65. The Lord gave +and the Lord hath taken away.' Wasn't that queer, now? So I went straight +and...."</p> + +<p>"The woman's a fool," muttered the gentleman next Peter, a cynical-faced +commercial traveller. Peter had heard the remark from him frequently +before, and did not feel called upon to reply to it.</p> + +<p>But the tale of Elizabeth Dean was interrupted by a lady of a speculative +habit of mind.</p> + +<p>"Now I want to ask you all, <i>should</i> one put up a tombstone to the +departed? I've been having quite a kick-up with my sisters about it +lately. Hadn't one better spend the money on the living? What do <i>you</i> +think, Miss Matthews?"</p> + +<p>Miss Matthews said she liked to see a handsome headstone.</p> + +<p>"After all, one honours them that way. It's all one can do for them, +isn't it."</p> + +<p>"Oh, Miss Matthews, <i>all</i>?" Several ladies were shocked. "What about +one's prayers for the dead?"</p> + +<p>"I don't pray for the dead," said Miss Matthews, who was a protestant, +and did not attend the large church in the next street. "I do not belong +to the Romish religion. I'm not saying anything against those who do, but +I consider that those who do <i>not</i> should confine their prayers to those +who may require them in this troubled world, and not waste them upon +those whose fate we have every reason to believe is settled once and for +all."</p> + +<p>The lady who always quarrelled with her on this subject rose to +the occasion. Peggy, soothing them down, said mechanically, "There +now.... Three lumps, Peter?... Micky, one doesn't suck napkin rings; +naughty."</p> + +<p>Peter was appealed to by his neighbour, who knew that he occasionally +attended St. Austin's church. People were always drawing him into +theological discussions, which he knew nothing at all about.</p> + +<p>"Mr. Peter, isn't that against all reason, to stop praying for our +friends merely because they've passed through the veil?"</p> + +<p>"Yes," Peter agreed. "I should have thought so." But all he really +thought was that beyond the veil was such darkness that he never looked +into it, and that it was a pity people should argue on a holiday.</p> + +<p>"Now," said someone else, wishing to be a peace-maker, "I'm afraid you'll +all say I'm very naughty, but <i>I</i> attend the early Mass at St. Austin's, +high Mass at the Roman church"—she nodded at Peggy—"and the City Temple +in the evening"—she smiled at the commercial traveller, who was believed +to be a New Theologian. "Aren't I naughty, now?"</p> + +<p>Mademoiselle, the French governess, came down at this point, saying she +had had a dream about a hat with pink roses. The peace-making lady said, +"Bad little thing, she's quite frisky this morning." Hilary, to whom +Mademoiselle was the last straw, left the room.</p> + +<p>Rhoda followed his example. She had sat very silent, as usual, over +breakfast, eating little. Peter came out with her, and followed her into +the sitting-room, where she stood listlessly playing with the tassel of +the blind. Rhoda was thinner than ever, and floppier, and took even less +pains to be neat. She had left off her beads, but had not replaced them +by a collar.</p> + +<p>Peter said, "Are you coming out with me this morning?"</p> + +<p>She replied, listless and uncaring, "If you like."</p> + +<p>"We might go," said Peter, "and see if the New English Art Club is open +on Sunday mornings. And then we'll go on the river. Shall we?"</p> + +<p>She assented again. "Very well."</p> + +<p>A moment later she sighed, and said wearily, "How it does go on, day +after day, doesn't it!"</p> + +<p>Peter said it did.</p> + +<p>"On and on," said Rhoda. "Same stupid people saying the same stupid old +things. I do wonder they don't get tired. They don't <i>know</i> anything, do +they?"</p> + +<p>Rhoda's hankering was still after Great Minds.</p> + +<p>"They're funny sometimes," suggested Peter tentatively; but she was blind +to that.</p> + +<p>"They don't know a thing. And they talk and talk, so stupidly. About +religion—as if one religion was different from another. And about dead +people, as if they knew all about them and what they were doing. They +seem to make sure souls go on—Miss Matthews and Miss Baker were both +sure of that. But how can they tell? Some people that know lots more +than them don't think so, but say ... say it's nothingness."</p> + +<p>Peter recognised Guy Vyvian's word. Rhoda would have said "nothing to +follow."</p> + +<p>"People say," he agreed, "quite different things, and none of them know +anything about it, of course. One needn't worry, though."</p> + +<p>"<i>You</i> never worry," she accused him, half fretfully. "But," she added, +"you don't preach, either. You don't say things are so when you can't +know.... Do you <i>think</i> anything about that, Peter—about going on? I +don't believe you do."</p> + +<p>Peter reflected. "No," he said. "I don't believe I do. I can't look +beyond what I can see and touch; I don't try. I expect I'm a materialist. +The colours and shapes of things matter so awfully much; I can't imagine +anything of them going on when those are dead. I rather wish I could. +Some people that know lots more than me do, and I think it's splendid +of them and for them. They're very likely right, too, you know."</p> + +<p>Rhoda shook her head. "<i>I</i> believe it's nothingness."</p> + +<p>Peter felt it a dreary subject, and changed it.</p> + +<p>"Well, let's come and look at pictures. And I can't imagine nothingness, +can you? We might have lunch out somewhere, if you don't mind."</p> + +<p>So they went out and looked at pictures, and went up the river in a +steamer, and had lunch out somewhere, and Rhoda grew very gentle and more +cheerful, and said, "I didn't mean to be cross to <i>you</i>, Peter. You're +ever so good to me," and winked away tears, and the gentle Peter, who +hated no one, wished that some catastrophe would wipe Guy Vyvian off the +face of the earth and choke his memory with dust. Whenever one thought +Rhoda was getting rather better, the image of Vyvian, who knew such a lot +more than most people, came up between her and the world she ought to +have been enjoying, and she had a relapse.</p> + +<p>Peter and Rhoda came home together, and Rhoda said, "Thank you ever so +much for taking me. I've liked it ever so," and went up to her room to +read poetry. Rhoda read a good deal of the work of our lesser +contemporary poets; Vyvian had instilled that taste into her.</p> + +<p>Peter, about tea-time, went to see Lucy. He went by the Piccadilly tube, +from Holborn to South Kensington—(he was being recklessly extravagant +to-day, but it was a holiday after all, and very hot).</p> + +<p>Peter climbed the stairs to the Hopes' drawing-room and opened the door, +and what he had often dreamed of had come about, for Denis was there, +only in a strange, undreamed-of way that made him giddy, so he stood +quite still for a moment and looked.</p> + +<p>He would have turned away and gone before they saw him; but they had seen +him, and Lucy said, "Oh, Peter—come in," and Denis said, "Oh ... hullo," +and held out his hand.</p> + +<p>Peter, who was dizzily readjusting certain rather deeply-rooted ideas, +said, "How do you do? I've come ... I've come to tea, you know."</p> + +<p>"'Course you have," said Lucy. Then she looked up into Peter's face and +smiled, and slipped her hand into his. "How nice; we're three again."</p> + +<p>"Yes," said Peter.</p> + +<p>"But I must go," said Urquhart. "I'm awfully sorry, but I've got to meet +a man.... I shall see you some time, shan't I, Margery? Why don't you +ever come and see me, you slacker? Well, good-bye. Good-bye, Lucy. Lunch +to-morrow; don't forget."</p> + +<p>He was gone.</p> + +<p>Peter sat on the coal-scuttle, and Lucy gave him tea, with three lumps in +it.</p> + +<p>"Thank you," said Peter.</p> + +<p>Lucy looked at him. "You <i>did</i> know, didn't you? All this time, I mean? +I didn't tell you, because I never tell you things, of course. You always +know them. And this particularly. You <i>did</i> know it, Peter? But when you +came in you looked ... you looked as if you didn't."</p> + +<p>"I was stupid," said Peter. "I ought to have known."</p> + +<p>Looking back, he saw that he certainly ought. He certainly must have, +only that his vision had been blocked by a certain deeply-rooted idea, +that was as old as his growth. He had assumed, without words. He had +thought that she too had assumed; neither had ever required words to +elucidate their ideas one to the other; they had kept words for the other +things, the jolly, delightful things of the foreground.</p> + +<p>"How long?" asked Peter, drinking his tea to warm him, for, though it was +so hot outside, he felt very cold in here.</p> + +<p>She told him. "Oh, since the beginning, I think. I thought you knew, +Peter.... We didn't say anything about it till quite lately. Only we both +knew."</p> + +<p>She came and sat on the rug by his side, and slipped her hand into his. +"Are you glad, Peter? Please, Peter, be glad."</p> + +<p>"I will presently," said Peter, with one of his fainter smiles. "Let me +just get used to it, and I will."</p> + +<p>She whispered, stroking his hand, "We've always had such fun, Peter, we +three. Haven't we? Let's go on having it."</p> + +<p>"Yes," said Peter. "Let's."</p> + +<p>He was vague still, and a little dizzy, but he could smile at her now. +After all, wasn't it splendid? Denis and Lucy—the two people he loved +best in the world; so immeasurably best that beside them everyone else +was no class at all.</p> + +<p>He sat very still on the coal-scuttle, making a fresh discovery about +himself. He had known before that he had a selfish disposition, though he +had never thought about it particularly; but he hadn't known that it was +in him to grudge Denis anything—Denis, who was consciously more to him +than anyone else in the world. Lucy was different; she was rooted in the +very fibre of his being; it wasn't so much that he consciously loved her +as that she was his other self. Well, hadn't he long since given to +Denis, to use as he would, all the self he had?</p> + +<p>But the wrench made him wince, and left him chilly and grown old.</p> + +<p>"It's perfectly splendid for both of you," said Peter, himself again +at last. "And it was extraordinarily stupid of me not to see it +before.... Do you think Denis really meant I could go and see him? +I think I will."</p> + +<p>"'Course he did. 'Course you will. Go to-morrow. But now it's going to +be just you and me and tea. And honey sandwiches—oh, Peter!" Her eyes +danced at him, because it was such a nice world. He came off the +coal-scuttle and made himself comfortable in a low chair near the +honey sandwiches.</p> + +<p>"Will you and Denis try always to have them when I come to tea with you? +I do love them so. Have you arranged when it is to be, by the way?"</p> + +<p>"No. Father won't want it to be for ages—he won't like it to be at all, +of course, because Denis isn't poor or miserable or revolutionary. But +Felicity has done so nicely for him in that way (Lawrence is getting into +horrid rows in Poland, you know) that I think I've a <i>right</i> to someone +happy and clean, don't you?... And Denis wants it to be soon. So I +suppose it will be soon."</p> + +<p>"Sure to be," Peter agreed.</p> + +<p>The room was full of roses; their sweetness was exuberant, intoxicating; +not like Lucy, who usually had small, pale, faint flowers.</p> + +<p>"Isn't it funny," she said, "how one thinks one can't be any happier, and +then suddenly something happens inside one, and one sees everything new. +I used to think things couldn't be brighter and shine more—but now they +glitter like the sun, all new."</p> + +<p>"I expect so," said Peter.</p> + +<p>Then she had a little stab of remorse; for Peter had been turned out of +the place of glittering things, and moved in a grey and dusty world among +things no one could like.</p> + +<p>"'Tis so <i>stupid</i> that your work is like that," she said, with puckered +forehead. "I wish you could find something nice to do, Peter dear."</p> + +<p>"Oh, I'm all right," said Peter. "And there are all the nice things which +aren't work, just the same. Rhoda and I went a ride in a steamer this +morning. And the sun was shining on the water—rather nice, it was. Even +Rhoda grew a little brighter to see it. Poor Rhoda; the boarders do worry +her so. I'm sorry about it; they don't worry me; I rather like them. +Some day soon I want you to come and see Rhoda; it would cheer her up. +I wish she liked things more. She's left off her bead necklace, you know. +And she gets worried because people discuss the condition of 'the +departed' (that's what we call them in the boarding-house). Rhoda is sure +they are in nothingness. I told her it was impossible for me to speculate +on such things. How can one, you know? People have so much imagination. +Mine always sticks at a certain point and won't move on. Could you do it +if someone asked you to imagine Denis, say, without his body?"</p> + +<p>She wrinkled her forehead, trying to.</p> + +<p>"Denis's body matters a lot," was her conclusion. "I suppose it's because +it's such a nice one."</p> + +<p>"Exactly," said Peter. "People's bodies are nice. And when they're not I +don't believe their minds are very nice either, so I'd rather not think +about them. Now I must go home."</p> + +<p>It was very hot going home. London was a baked place, full of used +air—Peter's bedroom on a large scale. Peter tried walking back, but +found he was rather giddy, so got into a bus that took him the wrong +way, a thing he often did. Riding across London on the top of a bus is, +of course, the greatest fun, even if it is the wrong bus. It makes up for +almost any misfortune.</p> + +<p>A few days later, after office hours, Peter took Urquhart at his word +and went to his rooms. Urquhart wasn't there, but would be in some time, +he was told, so he sat and waited for him. It was a pleasant change after +the boarding-house rooms. Urquhart's things were nice to look at, without +being particularly artistic. There was nothing dingy, or messy, or +second-rate, or cheap. A graceful, careless expensiveness was the +dominant note. An aroma of good tobacco hung about. Peter liked to smell +good tobacco, though he smoked none, good or bad.</p> + +<p>Urquhart came in at seven o'clock. He was going to dine somewhere at +eight, so he hadn't much time.</p> + +<p>"Glad to see you, Margery. Quite time you came."</p> + +<p>Peter thought it nice of him to speak so pleasantly, seeming to ignore +the last time Peter had come to see him. He had been restrained and +embarrassed then; now he was friendly, in the old casual, unemphasised +way.</p> + +<p>"How splendid about you and Lucy," said Peter. "A very suitable alliance, +I call it."</p> + +<p>"So do I," said Denis, lighting a cigarette. "She's so much the nicest +person I know. I perceived that the day you introduced us."</p> + +<p>"Of course," said Peter. "You would."</p> + +<p>"Do you mind," said Denis, "if I dress? We can talk meanwhile. Rotten +luck that I'm booked for dinner, or we could have had it together. You +must come another day."</p> + +<p>While he dressed he told Peter that he was going to stand at the next +elections. Peter had known before that Denis was ultimately destined to +assist in the government of his country, and now it appeared that the +moment had arrived.</p> + +<p>"Do you <i>really</i> take a side?" Peter enquired. "Or is it just a funny +game?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, of course it's a game too; most things are. But, of course, one's +a Conservative and all that, if one's a person of sense. It's the only +thing to be, you know."</p> + +<p>"I rather like both sides," said Peter. "They're both so keen, and so +sure they're right. But I expect Conservatives are the rightest, because +they want to keep things. I hate people who want to make a mess and break +things up and throw them away. Besides, I suppose one couldn't really be +on the same side as what's his name—that man everyone dislikes so—could +one? or any of those violent people."</p> + +<p>Urquhart said one certainly couldn't. Besides, there were Free Trade +and Home Rule, and dozens of other things to be considered. Obviously +Conservatives were right.</p> + +<p>"I ought to get in," he said, "unless anything upsets it. The Unionist +majority last time was two hundred and fifty."</p> + +<p>Peter laughed. It was rather nice to hear Denis talking like a real +candidate.</p> + +<p>When Denis was ready, he said, "I'm dining in Norfolk Street. Can you +walk with me part of the way?"</p> + +<p>Peter said it was on the way to Brook Street, where he lived. Denis +displayed no interest in Brook Street. As far as he intended to cultivate +Peter's acquaintance, it was to be as a unit, detached from his +disgraceful relatives. Peter understood that. As he hadn't much expected +to be cultivated again at all, he was in good spirits as he walked with +Denis to Norfolk Street. No word passed between them as to Peter's past +disgrace or present employment; Denis had an easy way of sliding lightly +over embarrassing subjects.</p> + +<p>They parted, and Denis dined in Norfolk Street with a parliamentary +secretary, and Peter supped in Brook Street with the other boarders.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XII" id="CHAPTER_XII"></a>CHAPTER XII</h2> + +<h3>THE LOSS OF A GOBLET AND OTHER THINGS</h3> + + +<p>Denis and Lucy were married at the end of September. They went motoring +in Italy for a month, and by the beginning of November were settled at +Astleys. Astleys was in Berkshire, and was Urquhart's home. It was rather +beautiful, as homes go, with a careless, prosperous grace about it at +which Lucy laughed because it was so Urquhartesque.</p> + +<p>Almost at once they asked some people to stay there to help with the +elections and the pheasant shooting. The elections were hoped for in +December. Urquhart did not propose to bother much about them; he was a +good deal more interested in the pheasants; but he had, of course, every +intention of doing the usual and suitable things, and carrying the +business through well. Lucy only laughed; to want to get into Parliament +was so funny, looked at from the point of view she had always been used +to. Denis, being used by inheritance and upbringing to another point of +view, did not see that it was so funny; to him it was a very natural +profession for a man to go into; his family had always provided a supply +of members for both houses. Lucy and Peter, socially more obscure, +laughed childishly together over it. "Fancy being a Liberal or a +Conservative out of all the things there are in the world to be!" as +Peter had once commented.</p> + +<p>But it was delightfully Urquhart-like, this lordly assumption of a share +in the government of a country. No doubt it was worth having, because all +the things Urquhart wanted and obtained were that; he had an eye for good +things, like Peter, only he gained possession of them, and Peter could +only admire from afar.</p> + +<p>They were talking about the election prospects at dinner on the evening +of the fifteenth of November. They were a young and merry party. At one +end of the table was Denis, looking rather pale after a hard day's +hunting, and very much amused with life; at the other Lucy, in a white +frock, small and open-eyed like a flower, and very much amused too; and +between them were the people, young mostly, and gay, who were staying +with them. Lucy, who had been brought up in a secluded Bohemianism, found +it very funny and nice having a house-party, and so many servants to see +after them all that one needn't bother to run round and make sure +everyone had soap, and so on.</p> + +<p>One person, not young, who was staying there, was Lord Evelyn Urquhart. +Lucy loved him. He loved her, and told funny stories. Sometimes, between +the stories, she would catch his near-sighted, screwed up eyes scanning +her face with a queer expression that might have been wistfulness; he +seemed at times to be looking for something in her face, and finding it. +Particularly when she laughed, in her chuckling, gurgling way, he looked +like this, and would grow grave suddenly. They had talked together about +all manner of things, being excellent friends, but only once so far about +Lucy's cousin Peter. Once had been too much, Lucy had found. The +Margerisons were a tabooed subject with Lord Evelyn Urquhart.</p> + +<p>Denis shrugged his shoulders over it. "They did him brown, you see," he +explained, in his light, casual way. "Uncle Evelyn can't forgive that. +And it's because he was so awfully fond of Peter that he's so bitter +against him now. I never mention him; it's best not.... You know, you +keep giving the poor dear shocks by looking like Peter, and laughing like +him, and using his words. You <i>are</i> rather like, you know."</p> + +<p>"I know," said Lucy. "It's not only looking and laughing and words; we +think alike too. So perhaps if he gets fond of me he'll forgive Peter +sometime."</p> + +<p>"He's an implacable old beggar," Denis said. "It's stupid of him. It +never seems to me worth while to get huffy; it's so uncomfortable. He +expects too much of people, and when they disappoint him he—"</p> + +<p>"Takes umbradge," Lucy filled in for him. That was another of Peter's +expressions; they shared together a number of such stilted, high-sounding +phrases, mostly culled either out of Adelphi melodrama or the fiction of +a by-gone age.</p> + +<p>To-night, when the cloth had been removed that they might eat fruit, +Denis was informed that there was a gentleman waiting to see him. The +gentleman had not vouchsafed either his name or business, so he could +obviously wait a little longer, till Denis had finished his own business. +In twenty minutes Denis went to the library, and there found Hilary +Margerison, sitting by the fire in a great coat and muffler and looking +cold. When he rose and faced him, Denis saw that he also looked paler +than of old, and thinner, and less perfectly shaved, and his hair was +longer. He might have been called seedy-looking; he might have been +Sidney Carton in "The Only Way"; he had always that touch of the dramatic +about him that suggested a stage character. He had a bad cough.</p> + +<p>"Oh," said Urquhart, polite and feeling embarrassed; "how do you do? I'm +sorry to have kept you waiting; they didn't tell me who it was. Sit down, +won't you?"</p> + +<p>Hilary said thanks, he thought not. He had a keen sense of the fit. So +he refused the cigarette Urquhart offered him, and stood by the fire, +looking at the floor. Urquhart stood opposite him, and thought how ill +and how little reputable he looked.</p> + +<p>Hilary said, in his high, sweet, husky voice, "It is no use beating about +the bush. I want help. We are in need; we are horribly hard up, to put it +baldly. That has passed between your family and mine which makes you the +last person I should wish to appeal to as a beggar. I propose a business +transaction." He paused to cough.</p> + +<p>Urquhart, feeling impatient at the prospect of a provoking interview when +he wanted to be playing bridge, said "Yes?" politely.</p> + +<p>"You," said Hilary, "are intending to stand as a candidate for this +constituency. You require for that, I fancy, a reputation wholly +untarnished; the least breath dimming it would be for you a disastrous +calamity. I have some information which, if sent to the local Liberal +paper, would seriously tell against you in the public mind. It is here."</p> + +<p>He took it out of his breast pocket and handed it to Urquhart—a +type-written sheet of paper. He must certainly have been to a provincial +theatre lately; he had hit its manners and methods to a nicety, the silly +ass.</p> + +<p>Urquhart took the paper gingerly and did not look at it.</p> + +<p>"Thanks; but ... I don't know that I am interested, do you know. Isn't +this all rather silly, Mr. Margerison?"</p> + +<p>"If you will oblige me by reading it," said Mr. Margerison.</p> + +<p>So Urquhart obliged him. It was all about him, as was to be expected; +enough to make a column of the Berkshire Press.</p> + +<p>"Well?" said Hilary, when he had done.</p> + +<p>"Well," said Urquhart, folding up the paper and returning it, "thank +you for showing it me. But again I must say that I am not particularly +interested. Of course you will send anything you like to any paper you +like; it is no business of mine. There's the libel law, as of course +you know; newspapers are as a rule rather careful about that. No +respectable paper, I needn't say, would care to use such copy as this +of yours.... Well, good night.... Oh, by the way, I suppose your brother +told you all that?"</p> + +<p>Hilary said, "I had it from various reliable sources." He stood +uncertain, with wavering eyes, despair killing hope. "You will do +nothing at all to save your reputation, then?"</p> + +<p>Urquhart laughed, unamused, with hard eyes. He was intensely irritated.</p> + +<p>"Do you think it likely? I don't care what you get printed in any dirty +rag about me, man. Why on earth should I?"</p> + +<p>The gulf between them yawned; it was unbridgeable. From Hilary's world +insults might be shrieked and howled, dirt thrown with all the strength +of hate, and neither shrieks nor dirt would reach across the gulf to +Urquhart's. They simply didn't matter. Hilary, realising this, grew +slowly, dully red, with the bitterness of mortified expectation. +Urquhart's look at him, supercilious, contemptuous, aloof, slightly +disgusted, hurt his vanity. He caught at the only weapon he had which +could hurt back.</p> + +<p>"I must go and tell Peter, then, that his information has been of no +use."</p> + +<p>Urquhart said merely, "Peter won't be surprised. It's no good your trying +to make me think that Peter is joining in this absurdity. He has too much +sense of the ridiculous. He seems to have talked to you pretty freely of +my concerns, which I certainly fancied he would keep to himself; I +suppose he did that by way of providing entertaining conversation; Peter +was always a chatterbox"—it was as well that Peter was not there to hear +the edge in the soft, indifferent voice—"but he isn't quite such a fool +as to have countenanced this rather stagey proceeding of yours. He knows +me—used to know me—pretty well, you see.... Good night. You have plenty +of time to catch your train, I think."</p> + +<p>Hilary stopped to say, "Is that all you have to say? You won't let your +connexion with our family—with Peter—induce you to help us in our +need?... I've done an unpleasant thing to-night, you know; I've put +my pride in my pocket and stooped to the methods of the cad, for the sake +of my wife and little children. I admit I have made a mistake, both of +taste and judgment; I have behaved unworthily; you may say like a fool. +But are you prepared to see us go under—to drive by and leave us lying +in the road, as you did to that old Tuscan peasant? Does it in no way +affect your feelings towards us that you are now Peter's cousin by +marriage—besides being practically, his half-brother?"</p> + +<p>"I am not practically, or in any other way, Peter's half-brother," said +Urquhart casually. "But that is neither here nor there. Peter and I +are—have been—friends, as you know. I should naturally give him help if +he asked me for it. He has not done so; all that has happened is that you +have tried to blackmail me.... I really see no use in prolonging this +interview, Mr. Margerison. Good night." Urquhart was bored and impatient +with the absurd scene.</p> + +<p>Into the middle of it walked Peter, pale and breathless. He stood by the +door and looked at them, dazed and blinking at the light; looked at +Urquhart, who stood leaning his shoulder against the chimney-piece, +his hands in his pockets, the light full on his fair, tranquil, bored +face, and at Hilary, pale and tragic, with wavering, unhappy eyes. So +they stood for a type and a symbol and a sign that never, as long as the +world endures, shall Margerisons get the better of Urquharts.</p> + +<p>They both looked at Peter, and Urquhart's brows rose a little, as if to +say, "More Margerisons yet?"</p> + +<p>Hilary said, "What's the matter, Peter? Why have <i>you</i> come?"</p> + +<p>Peter said, rather faintly, "I meant to stop you before you saw Denis. I +suppose I'm too late.... I made Peggy tell me. I found a paper, you see; +and I asked Peggy, and she said you'd come down here to use it. <i>Have</i> +you?"</p> + +<p>"He has already done his worst," Denis's ironic voice answered for him. +"Sprung the awful threat upon me."</p> + +<p>Peter leant back against the door, feeling rather sick. He had run all +the way from the station; and, as always, he was too late.</p> + +<p>Then he laughed a little. The contrast of Hilary's tragedian air and +Urquhart's tranquil boredom was upsetting to him.</p> + +<p>Urquhart didn't laugh, but looked at him enquiringly.</p> + +<p>"It's certainly funny rather," he said quietly. "You must have got a good +deal of quiet fun out of compiling that column."</p> + +<p>"Oh," said Peter. "But I didn't, you know."</p> + +<p>"I gather you helped—supplied much of the information. That story of +the old man I brutally slew and then callously left uncared for on the +road—you seem to have coloured that rather highly in passing it +on.... I suppose it was stupid of me to fancy that you weren't intending +to make that public property. Not that I particularly mind: there was +nothing to be ashamed of in that business; but it somehow never happened +to occur to me that you were relating it."</p> + +<p>"I didn't," said Peter. "I have never told anyone."</p> + +<p>Urquhart said nothing; his silence was expressive.</p> + +<p>Peter stammered into speech incoherently.</p> + +<p>"At least—at least—yes, I believe I did tell Peggy the story, months +ago, in Venice—but I didn't say it was you. I merely said, if someone +had done that ... what would she think? I wanted to know if she thought +we ought to have found the old man's people and told them."</p> + +<p>"I see," said Urquhart. "And did she?"</p> + +<p>"No. She thought it was all right." Peter had known beforehand that Peggy +would think it was all right; that was why he had asked her, to be +reassured, to have the vague trouble in his mind quieted.</p> + +<p>And she, apparently, had seen through his futile pretence, had known it +was Urquhart he spoke of, needed reassuring about (Peter didn't realise +that even less shrewd observers than Peggy might easily know when it was +Urquhart he spoke of) and had gone and told Hilary. And Hilary, in his +need, had twisted it into this disgusting story, and had typed it and +brought it down to Astleys to-night, with other twisted stories.</p> + +<p>"I suppose the rest too," said Urquhart, "you related to your +sister-in-law to see what she would think."</p> + +<p>Peter stammered, "I don't think so. No, I don't believe anything else +came from me. Did it, Hilary?"</p> + +<p>Hilary shrugged his shoulders, and made no other answer.</p> + +<p>"It really doesn't particularly matter," said Urquhart, "whether the +informant was you or some other of my acquaintances. I daresay my gyp is +responsible for the story of the actresses I brought down to the St. +Gabriel's dance; he knew about it at the time, I believe. I am not in the +least ashamed of that either; the 'Berkshire Press' is extremely welcome +to it, if it can find space for it.... Well, now, will you both stay the +night with me, or must you get back? The last good train goes at 10.5, I +think."</p> + +<p>Peter said, "Come along, Hilary."</p> + +<p>Urquhart stood and watched them go.</p> + +<p>As they turned away, he said, in his gentle, inexpressive voice, that +hadn't been raised in anger once, "Can I lend you any money, Peter?"</p> + +<p>Peter shook his head, though he felt Hilary start.</p> + +<p>"No, thank you. It is very good of you.... Good night."</p> + +<p>"Good night."</p> + +<p>Going out of the room, they came face to face with Lord Evelyn Urquhart +coming in. He saw them; he stiffened a little, repressing a start; he +stood elaborately aside to let them pass, bowing slightly.</p> + +<p>Neither Margerison said anything. Hilary's bow was the stage copy of his +own; Peter didn't look at him at all, but hurried by.</p> + +<p>The servant let them out, and shut the hall door behind them.</p> + +<p>Lord Evelyn said to his nephew in the library, swinging his eye-glass +restlessly to and fro, "Why do you let those people into your house, +Denis? I thought we had done with them."</p> + +<p>"They came to call," said Denis, who did not seem disposed to be +communicative. "I can't say why they chose this particular hour."</p> + +<p>Lord Evelyn paced up the room, restless, nervous, petulant.</p> + +<p>"It's monstrous," he said querulously. "Perfectly monstrous. Shameless. +How dare they show their faces in this house?... I suppose they wanted +something out of you, did they?"</p> + +<p>Denis merely said, "After all, Peter is my cousin by marriage, you must +remember. And I have never broken with him."</p> + +<p>Lord Evelyn returned, "The more shame to you. He's as great a swindler as +his precious brother; they're a pair, you can't deny that."</p> + +<p>Denis didn't attempt to deny it; probably he was feeling a little tired +of the Margerisons to-night.</p> + +<p>"I'm not defending Peter, or his brother either. I only said that he's +Lucy's cousin, and she's very fond of him, and I'm not keen on actually +breaking with him. As to the brother, he's so much more of an ass than +anything else that to call him a swindler is more than he deserves. He +simply came here to-night to play the fool; he's no more sense than a +silly ass out of a play."</p> + +<p>That was what Peter was telling Hilary on the way to the station. Hilary +defended himself rather feebly.</p> + +<p>"My good Peter, we must have money. We are in positive want. Of course, I +never meant to proceed to extremities; I thought the mere mention of such +a threat would be enough to make him see that we really were desperately +hard up, and that he might as well help us. But he doesn't care. Like all +rich people, he is utterly callous and selfish.... Do you think Lucy +would possibly give us any help, if you asked her?"</p> + +<p>"I shan't ask her," said Peter. "Don't, please, Hilary," he added +miserably. "Can't you <i>see</i>...."</p> + +<p>"See what? I see that we get a little more destitute every day: that +the boarders are melting away; that I am reduced to unthinkably sordid +hackwork, and you to the grind of uncongenial toil; that Peggy can't +afford to keep a cook who can boil a potato respectably (they were like +walnuts to-day) that she and the children go about with their clothes +dropping off them. I see that; and I see these Urquharts, closely +connected with our family, rolling in unearned riches, spending and +squandering and wasting and never giving away. I see the Robinsons, our +own relations, fattening on the money that ought to have come to us, and +now and then throwing us a loan as you throw a dog a bone. I see your +friend Leslie taking himself off to the antipodes to spend his millions, +that he may be out of the reach of disturbing appeals. I see a world +constituted so that you would think the devils in hell must cry shame on +it." His cough, made worse by the fog, choked his relation of his vision.</p> + +<p>Peter had nothing to say to it: he could only sigh over it. The Haves and +the Have-Nots—there they are, and there is no getting round the ugly +fact.</p> + +<p>"Denis," said Peter, "would lend me money if I asked him. You heard him +offer. But I am not going to ask him. We are none of us going to ask him. +If I find that you have, and that he has given it you, I shall pay it +straight back.... You know, Hilary, we're really not so badly off as all +that; we get along pretty well, I think; better than most other people." +The other Have-Nots; they made no difference, in Hilary's eyes, to the +fact that of course the Margerisons should have been among the Haves.</p> + +<p>Hilary said, "You are absolutely impervious, Peter, to other people's +troubles," and turned up his coat-collar and sank down on a seat in the +waiting-room. (Of course, they had missed the 10.5, the last good train, +and were now waiting for the 11.2, the slow one.)</p> + +<p>Peter walked up and down the platform, feeling very cold. He had come +away, in his excitement, without his overcoat. The chill of the foggy +night seemed to sink deep into his innermost being.</p> + +<p>Hilary's words rang in his ears. "I see that we get a little more +destitute every day." It was true. Every day the Margerisons seemed to +lose something more. To-night Peter had lost something he could ill +afford to part with—another degree of Denis Urquhart's regard. That +seemed to be falling from him bit by bit; perhaps that was why he felt so +cold. However desperately he clung to the remnants, as he had clung since +that last interview in Venice, he could not think to keep them much +longer at this rate.</p> + +<p>As he walked up and down the platform, his cold hands thrust deep into +his pockets, he was contemplating another loss—one that would hurt +absurdly much.</p> + +<p>If Hilary felt that he needed more money so badly, he must have it. There +were certain things Peter declined to do. He wouldn't borrow from the +Urquharts; but he would sell his last treasured possession to soothe +Hilary for a little while. The Berovieri goblet had been bought for a +lot of money, and could at any moment be sold for a lot of money. The +Berovieri goblet must go.</p> + +<p>That evening, in the tiny attic room, Peter took the adorable thing out +of the box where it lay hid, and set it on the chest of drawers, in front +of the candle, so that the flame shone through the blue transparency like +the setting sun through a stained-glass window.</p> + +<p>It was very, very beautiful. Peter sat on the bed and looked at it, as +a devotee before a shrine. In itself it was very beautiful, a magic thing +of blue colour and deep light and pure shadow and clear, lovely form. +Peter loved it for itself, and for its symbolic character. For it was a +symbol of the world of great loveliness that did, he knew, exist. When he +had been turned out of that world into a grey and dusty place, he had +kept that one thing, to link him with loveliness and light. Peter was +a materialist: he loved things, their shapes and colours, with a passion +that blinded him to the beauty of the colourless, the formless, the +super-sensuous.</p> + +<p>He slipped his fingers up the chalice's slim stem and round its cool +bowl, and smiled for pleasure that such a thing existed—had existed for +four hundred years—to gladden the world.</p> + +<p>"Well, anyone would have thought I should have smashed you before now," +he remarked, apostrophising it proudly. "But I haven't. I shall take you +to Christie's myself to-morrow, as whole as you were the day Leslie gave +you me."</p> + +<p>It was fortunate that Leslie was out of reach, and would not hear of the +transaction. If he had been in England, Peter would have felt bound to +offer him the goblet, and he would have paid for it too enormous a price +to be endured. Leslie's generosity was sometimes rather overwhelming.</p> + +<p>When Peter took Hilary and Peggy the cheque he had received, and told +them what he had received it for, Hilary said, "I suppose these things +must be. It was fortunate you did not ask my advice, Peter; I should have +hesitated what to say. It is uncommonly like bartering one's soul for +guineas. To what we are reduced!"</p> + +<p>He was an artist, and cared for beautiful goblets. He would much rather +have borrowed the money, or had it given him.</p> + +<p>Peggy, who was not an artist, said, "Oh, Peter darling, how sweet of you! +Now I really <i>can</i> pay the butcher; I've had to hide from him the last +few mornings, in the coal-hole. You dear child, I hope you won't miss +that nice cup too much. When our ship comes in you shall have another."</p> + +<p>"<i>When</i>," sighed Hilary, who was feeling over-worked that evening. (He +did advertisement pictures for a weekly paper; a sordid and degrading +pursuit.)</p> + +<p>"Well," said Peggy hopefully, "the boarders we have now really do pay +their rent the way they never did in Venice. That's such a comfort. If +only Larry's cough gets off his chest without turning to bronchitis, +I will be quite happy. But these loathsome fogs! And that odious man +coming round wanting to know why aren't the children attending school! +'I'm sure,' I said to him, 'I wish they were; the house would be the +quieter missing them; but their father insists on educating them himself, +because he won't let them mix up with the common children in the school; +they're by way of being little gentry, do you see,' I said, 'though +indeed you mightn't think it to look at them.' Oh dear me, he was so +impolite; he wouldn't believe that Hilary was doing his duty by them, +though I assured him that he read them all the 'Ancient Mariner' +yesterday morning while they watched him dress, and that I was teaching +them the alphabet whenever I had a spare minute. But nothing would +satisfy him; and off the two eldest must go to the Catholic school next +week to be destroyed by the fog and to pick up with all the ragamuffins +in the district."</p> + +<p>"An abominable, cast-iron system," Hilary murmured mechanically. "Of a +piece with all the other institutions of an iniquitous state."</p> + +<p>"And what do you think," added Peggy, who was busy putting a patch in +Silvio's knickerbockers, "Guy Vyvian turned up out of nowhere and called +this afternoon, bad manners to him for a waster. When he found you were +out, Hilary, he asked where was Rhoda; he'd no notion of sitting down to +listen to <i>me</i> talking. Rhoda was out at work too, of course; I told him +it wasn't most of us could afford to play round in the afternoons the way +he did. I suppose he'll come again, bothering and upsetting the child +just when she's settling down a bit. I've thought her seeming brighter +lately; she likes going about with you, Peter. But there'll be pretty +doings again when that man comes exciting her."</p> + +<p>"Vyvian is a cad and a low fellow," Hilary said, "and I always regretted +being forced into partnership with him; but I suppose one can't kick +one's past acquaintances from the door. I, at least, cannot. Some people +can and do; they may reconcile it with their standards of decency if they +choose; but I cannot. Vyvian must come if he likes, and we must be +hospitable to him. We must ask him to dinner if he comes again."</p> + +<p>"Yes," sniffed Peggy, "I can see him! Sticking his fork into the potatoes +and pretending he can't get it through! Oh, have him to dinner if you +like; he must just make the best of what he gets if he comes. He'll be +awfully rude to the rest, too, but I'll apologise for him beforehand."</p> + +<p>"Though a cad," Hilary observed, "Vyvian is less of a vacuous fool than +most of the members of our present delightful house-party. He at least +knows <i>something</i> of art and literature, and can converse without jarring +one's taste violently by his every word. He is not, after all, a Miss +Matthews or a Mr. Bridger. Apologies, therefore, are scarcely called for, +perhaps."</p> + +<p>Peggy said, "What a solemn face, Peter. Is it the Vyvian man, or the +beautiful cup, that we've never half thanked you for getting rid of yet?"</p> + +<p>Peter said, "It's the Vyvian man. He makes me feel solemn. You see, I +promised Mrs. Johnson faithfully to keep Rhoda out of his clutches, if +I could."</p> + +<p>"Darling, what a silly promise. Oh, of course, we'll all do our best; but +if he wants to clutch her, the silly little bird, he'll surely do it. Not +that I'm saying he does want to; I daresay he only wants to upset her and +make her his slave and then run away again to his own place, the Judas."</p> + +<p>"But I don't want him to do that. Rhoda will be unhappier than ever +again."</p> + +<p>"Oh, well, I wouldn't wonder if, when Rhoda sees him again now, she sees +what a poor creature it is, after all. It may be a turning-point with +her, and who knows will she perhaps settle down afterwards and be a +reasonable girl and darn her stockings and wear a collar?"</p> + +<p>"If one <i>is</i> to talk of stockings," began Hilary, "I noticed Caterina's +to-day, and really, you know...."</p> + +<p>Peggy bit off her cotton and murmured, "Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear, what's +to become of us all?"</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIII" id="CHAPTER_XIII"></a>CHAPTER XIII</h2> + +<h3>THE LOSS OF THE SINGLE STATE</h3> + + +<p>The man Vyvian came. He came again and again, but not to dinner. Perhaps +he suspected about the potatoes, and thought that they would not even be +compensated for by the pleasure of sneering at the boarders. He came in +the evenings and sat in the sitting-room and drank coffee (the only thing +that was well cooked in Peggy's household), and talked to Hilary, and +looked at Rhoda. Rhoda, embroidering apple-boughs on a green dress-front, +shivered and trembled under his eyes.</p> + +<p>"Now I know," thought Peter, seeing Vyvian look, "what villains in books +are really like. Vyvian is just like one; specially about the eyes." He +was sitting near Rhoda, playing that sort of patience called calcul, +distinguished from other patiences by the fact that it comes out; that +was why Peter liked it. He had refused to-night to join in the game the +others were playing, which was animal grab, though usually he enjoyed +it very much. Peter liked games, though he seldom won them. But this +evening he played patience by himself and sat by Rhoda and consulted her +at crucial moments, and babbled of many things and knew whenever Vyvian +looked and Rhoda shook. At half-past nine Vyvian stopped talking to +Hilary and crossed the room and took the arm-chair on Rhoda's other side.</p> + +<p>"Enthralling evenings you spend here," he remarked, including in his +glance Rhoda's embroidery, Peter's patience, and the animal grab table, +from which cheerfully matter-of-fact farmyard and jungle cries proceeded +with spirit.</p> + +<p>Rhoda said nothing. Her head was bent over her work. The next moment she +pricked her finger violently, and started. Before she could get her +handkerchief out, Vyvian had his, and was enveloping her small hand in +it.</p> + +<p>"Too bad," he said, in a voice so low that the farmyard cries drowned it +as far as Peter was concerned. "Poor little finger." He held it and the +handkerchief closely in his two hands.</p> + +<p>Rhoda, her colour flooding and ebbing over her thin face and thin neck +down to the insertion yoke of her evening blouse, trembled like a +captured bird. Her eyes fell from his look; a bold, bad look Peter +thought, finding literary terminology appropriate.</p> + +<p>The next moment the little table on which Peter was playing toppled over +onto the floor with a small crash, and all his cards were scattered on +the carpet.</p> + +<p>Rhoda started and looked round, pulling her hand away as if a spell was +broken.</p> + +<p>"Dear me," said Peter regretfully, "it was just on coming out, too. I +shan't try again to-night; it's not my night, obviously." He was picking +up the cards. Rhoda watched him silently.</p> + +<p>"Do you know calcul, Mr. Vyvian?" Peter enquired, collecting scattered +portions of the pack from under the arm-chair.</p> + +<p>Mr. Vyvian stared at Peter's back, which was the part of him most visible +at the moment.</p> + +<p>"I really can't say I have the pleasure; no." (That, Peter felt certain, +was an insolent drawl.)</p> + +<p>"Would you like to learn it?" said Peter politely. "Are you fond of +patience?"</p> + +<p>"I can't say I am," said Mr. Vyvian.</p> + +<p>"Oh! Then you <i>would</i> like calcul. People who are really fond of other +patiences don't; they despise it because it comes out. I don't like any +other sort of patience; I'm not clever enough; so I like this. Let me +teach you, may I?"</p> + +<p>Vyvian got up.</p> + +<p>"Thanks; you're quite too kind. On the whole, I think I can conduct my +life without any form of patience, even one which comes out."</p> + +<p>"You have a turn, then, Miss Johnson," said Peter, arranging the cards. +"Perhaps it'll come out for you, though it won't for me to-night."</p> + +<p>"Since you are all so profitably occupied," said Vyvian, "I think I will +say good night."</p> + +<p>Peter said, "Oh, must you?... Good night, then. We play calcul most +nights, so you can learn it some other time if you'd like to."</p> + +<p>"A delightful prospect," Vyvian murmured, his glance again +comprehensively wandering round the room. "A happy family party you seem +here.... Good night." He bent over Rhoda with his ironic politeness.</p> + +<p>"I was going to ask you if you would come out with me to-morrow evening +to a theatre.... But since your evenings seem to be so pleasantly filled +otherwise...."</p> + +<p>She looked up at him a moment, wavered, met his dark eyes, was caught by +the old domination, and swept off her feet as of old.</p> + +<p>"Oh, ... I should like to come...." She was a little breathless.</p> + +<p>"Good! I will call for you then, at seven, and we will dine together. Au +revoir."</p> + +<p>"He swept her a mocking bow and was gone," Peter murmured to himself.</p> + +<p>Then he looked at Rhoda, and found her eyes upon his face, wide, +frightened, bewildered, and knew in a flash that she had never meant +to consent to go out with Vyvian, that she had been caught by the old +power he had over her and swept off her feet. That knowledge gave him +confidence, and he could say, "You don't want to go, do you? Let me go +after him and tell him."</p> + +<p>"Oh," she pressed her hands together in front of her. "But I must go—I +said I would."</p> + +<p>Peter was on his feet and out of the door in a second. He saw Vyvian in +the passage downstairs, putting on his coat. He spoke from half-way down +the stairs:</p> + +<p>"Oh, Miss Johnson asks me to say she is sorry she can't go with you +to-morrow night after all; she finds she has another engagement."</p> + +<p>Vyvian turned and looked up at him, a slight smile lifting his lip.</p> + +<p>"Really?" was all he said. "All the same, I think I will call at seven +and try to persuade her to change her mind again. Good night."</p> + +<p>As plainly as possible he had said to Peter, "I believe you to be lying." +Peter had no particular objection to his believing that; he was not +proud; but he did object to his calling at seven and trying to persuade +Rhoda to change her mind again, for he believed that that would be a task +easy of achievement.</p> + +<p>He went back into the sitting-room. Rhoda was sitting still, her hands +twisted together on the green serge on her lap. Peter sat down by her and +said, "Will you come out with me instead to-morrow evening?" and she +looked at him, her teeth clenched over her lower lip as if to steady it, +and said after a moment, forlornly, "If you like."</p> + +<p>It was so much less exciting than going with Vyvian would have been, that +Peter felt compunction.</p> + +<p>"You shall choose the play," he said. "'Peter Pan,' do you think? Or +something funny—'The Sins of Society,' or something?"</p> + +<p>Rhoda whispered "Anything," nearly on the edge of tears. A vividness had +flashed again into her grey life, and she was trying to quench it. She +had heroically, though as an afterthought, flung an extinguishing douche +of water at it; but now that she had done so she was melting into +unheroic self-pity.</p> + +<p>"I want to go to bed," she said shakily, and did so, feeling for her +pocket-handkerchief as she crossed the room.</p> + +<p>At a quarter to seven the next evening Peter looked for Rhoda, thinking +it well that they should be out of the house by seven o'clock, but +couldn't find her, till Miss Clegson said she had met her "going into +church" as she herself came out. Peter went to the church to find her. +Rhoda didn't as a rule frequent churches, not believing in the creeds +they taught; but even to the unbelieving a church is often a refuge.</p> + +<p>Peter, coming into the great dim place out of the wet fog, found it +again, as he had long since known it to be, a refuge from fogs and other +ills of living. Far up, the seven lamps that never go out burned dimly +through the blurred air. It was a gaudy place, no doubt; over-decorated; +a church for the poor, who love gaudiness. Perhaps Peter too loved +gaudiness. Anyhow, he loved this place and its seven lamps and its +shrines and statued saints.</p> + +<p>Surely, whatever one believed of the mysterious world and of all the +other mysterious worlds that might be floating behind the veils, surely +here was a very present help in trouble, a luminous brightness shining in +a fog-choked world.</p> + +<p>Peter, sitting by the door, sank into a great peace. Half-way up the +church he saw Rhoda sitting very still. She too was looking up the church +towards the lamps and the altar beyond them.</p> + +<p>Presently a cassocked sacristan came and lit the vesper lights, for +evensong was to be at seven, and the altar blazed out, an unearthly +brilliance in the dim place. The low murmur of voices (a patient priest +had been hearing confessions for an hour) ceased, and people began coming +in one by one for service. Rhoda shivered a little, and got up and came +down the church. Peter joined her at the door, and they passed shivering +into the fog together.</p> + +<p>"I was looking for you," said Peter, when they were out in the alley that +led to the church door.</p> + +<p>"It's time we went, isn't it," she said apathetically.</p> + +<p>Then she added, inconsequently, "The church seems the only place where +one can find a bit of peace. I can't think why, when probably it's all +a fairy-tale."</p> + +<p>"I suppose that's why," said Peter. "Fairyland is the most peaceful +country there is."</p> + +<p>"You can't get peace out of what's not true," Rhoda insisted querulously.</p> + +<p>"Oh, I don't know.... Besides, fairy-tales aren't necessarily untrue, +do you think? I don't mean that, when I call what churches teach a +fairy-tale. I mean it's beautiful and romantic and full of light and +colour and wonderful things happening. And it's probably the truer for +that."</p> + +<p>"D'you <i>believe</i> it all?" queried Rhoda; but he couldn't answer her as to +that.</p> + +<p>"I don't know. I never do know exactly what I believe. I can't think how +anyone does. But yes, I think I like to believe in those things; they're +too beautiful not to be true."</p> + +<p>"It's the ugly things that are true," she said, coughing in the fog.</p> + +<p>"Why, yes, the ugly things and the beautiful; God and the devil, if one +puts it like that. Oh, yes, I believe very much in the devil; I can't +believe that any street of houses could look quite like this without the +help of someone utterly given over to evil thinking. <i>We</i> aren't, you +see; none of us are ugly enough in our minds to have thought out some +of the things one sees; so there must be a devil."</p> + +<p>Rhoda was silent. He thought she was crying. He said gently, "I say, +would you like to come out to-night, or would you rather be quiet at +home?" It would be safe to return home by half-past seven, he thought.</p> + +<p>She said, in a small muffled voice, that she didn't care.</p> + +<p>A tall figure passed by them in the narrow alley, looming through the +fog. Rhoda started, and shrank back against the brick wall, clutching +Peter's arm. The next moment the figure passed into the circle of light +thrown down by a high lamp that glimmered over a Robbia-esque plaque +shrine let into the wall, and they saw that it was a cassocked priest +from the clergy-house going into church. Rhoda let out her breath faintly +in a sigh, and her fingers fell from Peter's coat-sleeve.</p> + +<p>"Oh," she whispered, "I'm frightened.... Let's stay close to the church; +just outside the door, where we can see the light and hear the music. I +don't want to go out into the streets to-night, Peter, I want to stay +here. I'm ... so frightened."</p> + +<p>"Come inside," suggested Peter, as they turned back to the church. "It +would be warmer."</p> + +<p>But she shook her head. "No. I'd rather be outside. I don't belong in +there."</p> + +<p>Peter said, "Why not?" and she told him, "Because for me it's the ugly +things that are true."</p> + +<p>So together they stood in the porch, outside the great oak door, and +heard the sound of singing stealing out, fog-softened, and smelt the +smell of incense (it was the festal service of some saint) that pierced +the thick air with its pungent sweetness.</p> + +<p>They sat down on the seat in the porch, and Rhoda shivered, not with +cold, and Peter waited by her very patiently, knowing that she needed him +as she had never needed him before.</p> + +<p>She told him so. "You don't <i>mind</i> staying, Peter? I feel safer with you +than with anyone else.... You see, I'm afraid.... Oh, I can't tell you +how it is I feel. When he looks at me it's as if he was drawing me and +dragging me, and I feel I must get up and follow him wherever he goes. +It's always been like that, since first I met him, more than a year ago. +He made me care; he made me worship the ground he walked on; if he'd +thrown me down and kicked me, I'd have let him. But he never cared +himself; I know that now. I've known it a long time. And I've vowed to +myself, and I vowed to mother when she lay dying, that I wouldn't let him +have anything more to do with me. He frightens me, because he can twist +me round his finger and make me care so ... and it hurts.... And he's +just playing; he'll never really care. But for all I know that, I know +he can get me whenever he wants me. And he's come back again to amuse +himself seeing me worship him ... and he'll make me follow him about, +and all the time he'll be thinking me a little fool, and I shall know +it ... but I can't help it, Peter, I can't help it.... I've nothing to +hold on to, to save me. If I could be religious, if I could pray, like +the people in there ... but he says there's nothing in that; he's made me +believe like him, and I sometimes think he only believes in himself, and +that's why I can only believe in him too. So I've got nothing in the +world to hold on to, and I shall be carried away and drowned...."</p> + +<p>She was crying with strangled sobbings, her face in her thin hands.</p> + +<p>Peter's arm was put gently about her shoulders, comforting her.</p> + +<p>"No, you won't, Rhoda. Rhoda dear, you won't be carried away, because +I shall be here, holding you. Is that any help at all?"</p> + +<p>He felt her relax beneath his arm and lean back against him; he heard +her whisper, "Yes; oh, yes. If I can hold onto you, Peter, I shall feel +safe."</p> + +<p>"Hold on, then," said Peter, "as tight as you like."</p> + +<p>She looked up at him with wet eyes and he felt the claim and the appeal +of her piercing straight into his heart.</p> + +<p>"I could care ..." she whispered. "Are you sure, Peter?"</p> + +<p>His arm tightened about her. He hadn't meant precisely what she had +understood him to mean; at least, he hadn't translated his purpose to +help her to the uttermost into a specified relation, as she was doing; +but if the purpose, to be fulfilled, had to be so translated, he was +ready for that too. So he said, "Quite sure, Rhoda. I want to be the most +to you that you'll let me be," and her face was hidden against his coat, +and her tension relaxed utterly, and she murmured, "Oh, I can be safe +like that."</p> + +<p>So they sat in silence together, between the lit sanctuary and the +desolate night, and heard, as from a long way off, the sound of +chanting:—</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace: according to thy +word;</p> + +<p>"For mine eyes have seen ..."</p></div> + +<p>Later on, Rhoda said, quiet and happy now, "I've thought you cared, +Peter, for some time. And last night, when I saw you hated Guy to be near +me, I felt sure. But I feel I've so little to give you. So much of me is +burnt away and spoilt. But it'll come back, Peter, I think, if you love +me. I do love you, very much; you've been such a dear to me always, from +the very first night at the Palazzo, when you spoke to me and smiled. +Only I couldn't think of anyone but Guy then. But lately I've been +thinking, 'Peter's worth a hundred Guys, and if only I could care for +him, I should feel safe.' And I do care, ever so much; and if it's a +different sort of caring from what I've felt for Guy, it's a better sort. +That's a bad, black sort, that hurts; I never want any more of that. +Caring for you will keep me from that, Peter."</p> + +<p>"It's dear of you to care for me at all," said Peter. "And we won't let +Guy come near us, now or ever."</p> + +<p>"You hate him, don't you?" said Rhoda. "I know you do."</p> + +<p>"Oh, well, I don't know that it's as bad as all that. He's more funny +than anything else, it seems to me. He might have walked straight out of +a novel; he does all the things they do in books, you know, and that one +never thinks people really do outside them. He sneers insolently. I watch +him sometimes, to see how it's done. He curls his upper lip, too, when +he's feeling contemptuous; that's another nice trick that I should like +to acquire. Oh, he's quite an interesting study really. You've taken him +wrong, you know. You've taken him seriously. He's not meant for that."</p> + +<p>"Oh," said Rhoda, vaguely uncomprehending. "You <i>are</i> a funny boy, Peter. +You do talk so.... I never know if you mean half you say."</p> + +<p>"About two-thirds, I think," said Peter. "The rest is lies. We all lie +in my family, and not well either, because we're rather weak in the +intellect.... Now do you feel like supper, because I do? Let's come home +and have it, shall we?"</p> + +<p>They went home through the fog, Rhoda clinging to Peter's arm as to an +anchor in a sweeping sea. A great peace and security possessed her; she +no longer started at the tall figures that loomed by.</p> + +<p>They let themselves into 51 Brook Street, and blinked at one another +in the lamp-lit, linoleumed little hall. Rhoda looked at herself in +the glass, and said, "What a fright I am!" seeing her tear-stained +countenance and straggling fog-wet locks. The dinner-bell rang, and she +ran upstairs to tidy herself. Peter and she came into the dining-room +together, during the soup.</p> + +<p>"Let's tell them at once, Peter," whispered Rhoda; so Peter obediently +said, as he sat down by Peggy, "Rhoda and I have just settled to marry."</p> + +<p>"<i>Marry</i>?" Hilary queried, from the end of the table. "Marry whom?" And +Rhoda, blushing, laughed for the first time for some days.</p> + +<p>Peggy said, "Don't be silly, Hilary. Each other, of course, the darlings +mean. Well, well, and to think I never guessed that all this time!"</p> + +<p>"Oh," said Miss Clegson, "I did, Mrs. Margerison; I had a very shrewd +suspicion, I assure you. And this evening, when Mr. Peter asked me where +Miss Johnson was gone, and I told him into church, and he followed her +straight away, I said to myself, 'Well, <i>that</i> looks like something we +all know about very well!' I didn't say it to anyone else; I wouldn't +breathe a word till all was settled; I knew you asked me in confidence, +Mr. Peter; but I thought the more. I was always one to see things; they +used to tell me I could see through a stone wall. Well, I'm sure I offer +my congratulations to both of you."</p> + +<p>"And I too, with all my heart," said Miss Matthews, the lady who did not +attend ritualistic churches. "Do I understand that the happy arrangement +was made <i>in church</i>, Miss Johnson? I gather from Miss Clegson that Mr. +Peter followed you there."</p> + +<p>"Oh, not inside, Miss Matthews," said Rhoda, blushing again, and looking +rather pretty. "In the porch, we were."</p> + +<p>Miss Matthews sniffed faintly. Such goings-on might, she conveyed, be +expected in the porch of St. Austin's, with all that incense coming +through the door, and all that confessing going on inside.</p> + +<p>"Well," said Mr. Bridger, "we ought to have some champagne to drink +success to the happy event. Short of that, let us fill the festive +bumpers with the flowing lemonade. Pass the jug down. Here's <i>to</i> you, +Miss Rhoda; here's <i>to</i> you, Mr. Peter Margerison. May you both be as +happy as you deserve. No one will want me to wish you anything better +than that, I'm sure."</p> + +<p>"Here's luck, you dears," said Peggy, drinking. Engagements in general +delighted her, and Peter's in particular. And poor little Rhoda was +looking so bright and happy at last. Peggy wouldn't have taken it upon +herself to call it a remarkably suitable alliance had she been asked; but +then she hadn't been asked, and Peter was such a sweet-natured, loving, +lovable dear that he would get on with anyone, and Rhoda, though +sometimes a silly and sometimes fractious, was a dear little girl too. +The two facts that would have occurred to some sisters-in-law, that they +had extremely few pennies between them, and that Rhoda wasn't precisely +of Peter's gentle extraction, didn't bother Peggy at all.</p> + +<p>They occurred, however, to Hilary. It occurred to him that Peter would +now require all his slender earnings for himself and wife, which was +awkward; also that Peter really needn't have looked down to the lower +middle classes for a wife. Hilary believed in gentle birth; through all +his vicissitudes a pathetic pride of breeding clung to him. One might be +down at heels; one might be reduced to sordid means of livelihood, even +to shady schemes for enlarging one's income; but once a gentleman always +so, and one was not to be ranked with the bounders, the Vyvians, the +wealthy Leslies even.</p> + +<p>Hilary looked resigned and weary. Why should Peter want to marry a +commonplace and penniless little nobody, and not so very pretty either, +though she looked nice and bright when she was animated, as now.</p> + +<p>"Well," he said, "when is it to be?"</p> + +<p>Peter looked across at Rhoda.</p> + +<p>"I should hope very soon," he said. It was obviously safer, and safety +was the object, to have it very soon.</p> + +<p>"How soon can one get married? There have to be banns and so on, don't +there? The third time of asking—that brings it to the eighteenth of +December. What about the nineteenth, Rhoda? That's a Monday."</p> + +<p>"Really, Peter ..." Rhoda blushed more than ever. "That seems awfully +soon."</p> + +<p>"Well," said Peter, blind to the unusualness of such a discussion at the +dinner-table, "the sooner the better, don't you think? There's nothing to +wait for. I don't suppose we shall ever have more money to do it on than +we have now. I know of a man who waited years and years because he +thought he hadn't got quite enough, and he got a little more each year, +and at the end of six years he thought to double his fortune by putting +it all on a winner, because he was getting so impatient. And the horse +came in last. So the girl broke it off and married someone else, and the +man's heart broke and he took to drink."</p> + +<p>"Well?" enquired Miss Matthews, who thought Peter habitually irrelevant +in his remarks.</p> + +<p>"Well—so let's be married on December the nineteenth."</p> + +<p>"I'm sure," said Rhoda, "we're quite embarrassing everybody, being so +public. Let's settle it afterwards, Peter, when we're alone."</p> + +<p>But she too meant to have it as soon as might be after the third time of +asking; it was safer, much safer, so.</p> + +<p>"Well," said Miss Clegson, as the ladies rose from the table, "now we're +going to carry Miss Johnson away to tell us all about it; and we'll leave +Mr. Peter to tell you gentlemen <i>his</i> secrets. And after that we'll have +a good round game; but two of the present company can be left out if they +like better to sit in the window-seat!"</p> + +<p>But when the other gentlemen repaired to the drawing-room for the good +round game, Peter stayed behind, with Hilary. He didn't want to talk or +be talked to, only to stay where he was and not to have to sit in the +window-seat.</p> + +<p>"The insufferable vulgarity of this class of person on this subject is +really the limit," Hilary remarked plaintively, as if it had jarred him +beyond endurance.</p> + +<p>"They're awfully kind, aren't they," said Peter, who looked tired. Then +he laughed to himself. Hilary looked at him enquiringly.</p> + +<p>"I suppose you know your own business, Peter. But I must confess I am +surprised. I had literally no idea you had such a step in mind."</p> + +<p>"I hadn't any idea either," Peter admitted frankly. "I thought of it +quite suddenly. But I think it is a good plan, you know. Of course," he +added, wording what he read in Hilary's face, "I know my life will cost +me more. But I think it is worth while."</p> + +<p>"It's quite entirely your own business," Hilary said again, throwing +responsibility from him with a gesture of the hands. Then he leant back +and shut his eyes.</p> + +<p>Peter looked at him as he lay in the arm-chair and smoked; his eyes +rested on the jaded, still beautiful face, the dark lock of hair falling +a little over the tired forehead, the brown velvet smoking coat and large +red silk tie. He knew that he had hurt and puzzled Hilary. And he knew +that Hilary wouldn't understand if he were to explain what he couldn't +ever explain. At the most he would say, "It is Peter all over," and +shrug his shoulders at Peter and Peter's vagaries.</p> + +<p>A great desire to smooth Hilary's difficult road, as far as might be, +caught and held Peter. Poor old Hilary! He was so frightfully tired of +life and its struggles; tired of being a Have-Not.</p> + +<p>To help the other Have-Nots, to put pleasant things into their hands as +far as might be, seemed to Peter at this moment the thing for which one +existed. It is obviously the business of the Have-Nots to do that for one +another; for the Haves do not know or understand. It is the Have-Nots who +must give and give and give, with emptying hands; for from him that hath +not shall be taken away even that which he hath.</p> + +<p>Peter went upstairs to the drawing-room to play animal grab.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIV" id="CHAPTER_XIV"></a>CHAPTER XIV</h2> + +<h3>PETER, RHODA, AND LUCY</h3> + + +<p>When Mr. Vyvian called at 51 Brook Street one evening and was informed +by the assembled company that Miss Johnson had got engaged to Mr. Peter +Margerison, he sneered a little and wished them both joy, and said +good-night rather markedly early.</p> + +<p>"He won't come back," said Rhoda in Peter's ear when he had gone. "He's +gone for good." She sat very still, realising it, and shivered a little. +Then, casting off that old chain of the past, she turned on Peter eyes +full of tears and affection.</p> + +<p>"Now I'm going to forget all about him and be happy," she whispered. +"He's not going to be part of my life any more at all. How queer that +seems!"</p> + +<p>If in her heart she wished a little that Peter had had Guy Vyvian's +handsome face and person (Peter had no presence: one might overlook him; +the only vivid note about him, except when he smiled, was the blue of his +eyes), she stifled the wish with firm pressure. What were looks, after +all? And that bold, handsome stare of Guy's had burnt and hurt; in the +blue of Peter's she found healing and coolness, as one finds it in a +summer sea.</p> + +<p>So, after the third time of asking, they were married, in St. Austin's +Church, and Rhoda, coming out of it, whispered to Peter, "Some of the +beautiful things are true after all, I do believe;" and he smiled at her +and said, "Of course they are."</p> + +<p>They left the boarding-house, because Rhoda was tired of the boarders +and wanted a little place to themselves. Peter, who didn't really care, +but who would have rather liked to stay and be with Peggy and Hilary, +pretended that he too wanted a little place to themselves. So they took +lodgings in Greville Street, which runs out of Brook Street. Rhoda gave +up her work and settled down to keep house and do needlework. They kept +a canary in the sitting-room, and a kitten with a blue bow, and Rhoda +took to wearing blue bows in her own hair, and sewed all the buttons on +her frocks and darned her gloves and stockings and Peter's socks, and +devoted herself to household economy, a subject in which her mother had +always tried to interest her without success. Rhoda thought it a great +relief to have escaped from the tiresome boarders who chattered so about +things they knew nothing about, and from her own daily drudgery, that had +tired her back. (She had been a typist.) It was nice to be able to sit at +peace with one's needlework and one's own reflections, and have Peter, +who was always kind and friendly and cheerful, to brighten breakfast and +leave her in peace during the day and come in again to brighten the +evening. Peter's chatter didn't worry her, though she often thought it +childish and singularly inconsequent; Peter, of course, was only a boy, +though such a dear, kind, affectionate boy. He would spend his evenings +teasing the kitten and retying the blue bow, or lying on the rug before +the fire, talking nonsense which made Rhoda laugh even when she was +feeling low. Sometimes they would go to Brook Street and spend the +evening there; and often Hilary would drop in and smoke with Peter; +only Rhoda didn't much care for these evenings, for she never felt at +ease with Hilary, who wasn't at ease with her either. The uncultured +young creatures of either sex never quite knew where they were with the +æsthetic Hilary; at any moment they might tread heavily on his sensitive +susceptibilities and make him wince visibly, and no one likes being +winced at. Rhoda in particular was very sensitive; she thought Hilary +ill-mannered and conceited, and vaguely resented his attitude towards her +without understanding it, for (now that she was removed from the crushing +influence of a person who had always ruthlessly shown her her limitations +and follies) she didn't think of herself as uncultured, she with her +poetical and artistic tastes, sharpened and refined by contact with the +culture of Guy Vyvian and broadened by acquaintance with the art of +foreign cities. On the contrary, she felt in herself yearnings for a +fuller and freer life of beauty and grace. She wasn't sure that Peter +ever felt such yearnings; he seemed quite contented with the ugly rooms +in the ugly street, and the dingy lace curtains and impossible pictures; +he could make a joke of it all; and things one could make a joke of +couldn't really hurt, thought Rhoda.</p> + +<p>But anyhow, cramped and squalid and dingy though 9 Greville Street might +be, it held security and peace.</p> + +<p>"The Snuggery, that's what we call it at fifty-one," said Miss Clegson, +who sometimes looked in to rally them.</p> + +<p>Fifty-one was getting less of a snuggery than ever. Fifty-one, Peter +feared, was going down the hill. The Berovieri goblet had made a little +piece of level road for it, but that was soon over, and the descent began +again. Peggy, try as she would, could not make both ends meet. Hilary, +despise his job as he might, found it slipping from him more and more. +Week by week he seemed to earn a little less; week by week they seemed to +spend a little more. Peggy, as Hilary had frequently remarked, was <i>not</i> +a good manager. One or two of the boarders left, to seek more commodious +quarters elsewhere. More frequently, as the winter advanced, Peggy +wailed, "Whatever is to become of us, dear only knows! What with Larry +drinking pints of cough-syrup, and Micky rolling in the gutter in his +best suit, and Norah, the creature, letting the crockery fly about as if +it was alive, and Hilary insisting on the table cloth being cleaner than +it ever is, and the boarders having to have food they can eat, and now +Lent's coming on and half of them don't take any notice of it but eat +their joints just the same, bad manners to them for heretics. Oh, <i>dear</i>, +oh dear, oh dear!"</p> + +<p>Whenever Peter could spare any money he gave it to Peggy. But his own +fortunes were not exactly on the make. He was not proving good at his +job. Recommended to his employers by Leslie, he had begun, of course, on +a very small salary, to learn his trade; he hadn't so far learnt enough +of it to justify his promotion. Every day he went through the same +drudgery, with the same lack of intelligence,—(it is odd how discernment +and talent in one trade serve so little for another)—and every week came +home with the same meagre sum.</p> + +<p>As far as he hated anything, he hated this work of his; long ago, had he +been alone concerned, he would have dropped it, and taken to tramping the +roads with boot-laces to sell, or some other equally unstrenuous and +unlucrative avocation. But he had not, from the first, been alone +concerned; first he had had to help Hilary and Peggy, and now he had +to keep a wife too. Eventually there would probably be also children to +keep; Peter didn't know how much these cost, but vaguely believed them to +be expensive luxuries. So there seemed no prospect of his being able to +renounce his trade, though there was a considerable prospect of its +renouncing him, as he was from time to time informed.</p> + +<p>The winter dragged quietly through, and the spring came; the queer +London ghost of spring, with its bitter winds and black buds and evasive +hints of what is going on in the real world, where things change. Peter +dreamt of green things coming up and hawthorn hedges growing edible. +Rhoda's cough grew softer and her eyes more restless, as if she too +had her dreams. She developed a new petulance with Peter and with the +maid-of-all-work, and left off tying the kitten's neck-ribbon. It was +really a cat now, and cats are tiresome. She said she was dull all day +with so little to do. Peter, full of compunction, suggested asking people +to the house more, and she assented, rather listlessly. So Peter hinted +to Peggy, who had a cheering presence, that Rhoda would be glad to see +her more often, and Peggy made what time she could to come round. Their +circle of friends was limited; they chiefly consisted of the inhabitants +of fifty-one, and a few relatives of Rhoda's, who amused and pleased +Peter but vexed Rhoda by being common.</p> + +<p>"But I like them," said Peter.</p> + +<p>"You like to see me put to shame, I suppose," said Rhoda, with tears in +her eyes. "As if it was <i>my</i> fault that my parents came of common people. +I've cried myself sick over it sometimes, when I was younger, and now I +just want to forget it."</p> + +<p>Peter said no more. It was one of the sides of Rhoda with which he felt +he had no connexion; it was best let alone, as Peter always let alone the +things he could not like. But he was sorry she felt like that, for her +nice, common, friendly relations might have been company for her.</p> + +<p>Peter sometimes brought friends home from his office; Peter could not +have been in an office without collecting friends, having the social +instinct strongly developed. But Rhoda didn't much care about seeing +his fellow-clerks; they hadn't, she was sure, great minds, and they made +silly jokes.</p> + +<p>Another person who came to see Peter sometimes was Rodney. Ever since the +Margerisons' abrupt fall into ignominy, Rodney had cultivated Peter's +acquaintance. Peter perceived that he had at last slipped into the ranks +of those unfortunates who were qualified for Rodney's regard; it was +enough for that, Urquhart had long since told him, to be cut by society +or to produce a yesterday's handkerchief. Peter, driven from the faces of +the rich, found Rodney waiting to receive him cheerfully among the ranks +of the poor. Rodney was a much occupied person; but when he found time +from his other pursuits he walked up from his Westminster slum to Holborn +and visited 9 Greville Street. He hadn't known quite what to make of +Peter's marriage; though when he got to know Rhoda a little he began to +understand rather more. She, being very manifestly among the Have-Nots, +and a small, weak, and pitiable thing, also entered in a manner into the +circle of his tolerance. He was gentle with her always, though not +expansive. She was a little in awe of the gaunt young man, with his +strange eyes that seemed to see so much further than anyone else's. She +pronounced him "queer."</p> + +<p>"I suppose he's very clever," she said to Peter.</p> + +<p>"Yes," Peter agreed.</p> + +<p>But even that didn't further him in Rhoda's regard. She thought him rude, +as indeed he was, though he tried to conceal it. He seldom spoke to her, +and when he did it was with an unadorned brevity that offended her. +Mostly he let her alone, and saw Peter when he could outside his home. +Rodney, himself a celibate, thought matrimony a mistake, though certainly +a necessary mistake if the human race was to continue to adorn the +earth—a doubtful ornament to it, in Rodney's opinion.</p> + +<p>Rhoda said one evening to Peter, "You don't see anything of your friends +the Urquharts now, do you?"</p> + +<p>"No," said Peter, who was stroking the kitten's fur the wrong way, to +bring sparks out of it before the gas was lit. "They've been in the +country all the winter."</p> + +<p>"Mr. Urquhart got elected a member, didn't he?" said Rhoda, without much +interest.</p> + +<p>"Yes," said Peter.</p> + +<p>"I suppose they'll be coming up to town soon, then, for him to attend +Parliament."</p> + +<p>Peter supposed they would.</p> + +<p>"When last Lucy wrote, she said they were coming up this month."</p> + +<p>"Have you heard from her again, since Monday week?" enquired Rhoda.</p> + +<p>"No. We write alternate Sundays, you know. We always have. Last Sunday it +was my turn."</p> + +<p>"Fancy going on all these years so regular," said Rhoda. "I couldn't, not +to any of my cousins. I should use up all there was to say."</p> + +<p>"Oh, but there are quite new things every fortnight," Peter explained.</p> + +<p>Certainly it wasn't easy to picture Rhoda corresponding with any of the +Johnson relatives once a fortnight.</p> + +<p>"I expect you and she have heaps to tell each other always when you +meet," said Rhoda, a little plaintive note in her weak voice.</p> + +<p>Peter considered.</p> + +<p>"Not so much to tell exactly as to talk about. Yes, there's lots to +say.... She's coming to see you, Rhoda, directly they come up to town. +It's so funny to think you and she have never met."</p> + +<p>"Is it? Well, I don't know. I've not met any of your cousins really, +have I?"</p> + +<p>Rhoda was in one of her slightly pettish moods this evening. Peter didn't +better matters by saying, "Oh, well, none of the others count. Lucy and I +have always been different from most cousins, I suppose; more like +brother and sister, I daresay."</p> + +<p>Rhoda looked at him sharply. She was in a fault-finding mood.</p> + +<p>"You think more of her than you do of anyone else. Of course, I know +that."</p> + +<p>Peter was startled. He stopped stroking the kitten and looked at her +through the dim firelight. The suspicion of a vulgar scene was in the +air, and frightened him. Then he remembered that Rhoda was in frail +health, and said very gently, "Oh, Rhoda darling, don't say silly things, +like a young gurl in a novelette," and slithered along the floor and laid +his arm across her lap and laughed up into her face.</p> + +<p>She sniffed a little, and dabbed her handkerchief at her eyes.</p> + +<p>"It's all very well, Peter, but you do care for her a lot, you know you +do."</p> + +<p>"But of course I do," said Peter, laying his cheek against her knee. "You +don't <i>mind</i>, Rhoda, do you?"</p> + +<p>"You care for her," said Rhoda, but softening under his caresses, "and +you care for her husband. You care for him awfully, Peter; more than for +her really, I believe; more than for anyone in the world, don't you?"</p> + +<p>"Don't," said Peter, his voice muffled against her dress. "I can't +compare one thing with another like that, and I don't want to. Isn't +one's caring for each of the people one knows quite different from every +other? Isn't yours? Can you say which you love best, the sun rising over +the river, or St. Mark's, or a Bellini Madonna? Of course you can't, and +it's immoral to try. So I'm not going to place Lucy and Denis and you and +Rodney and Peggy and the kitten in a horrid class-list. I won't. Do you +hear?"</p> + +<p>He drew one of her small thin hands down to his lips, then moved it up +and placed it on his head, and drew it gently to and fro, ruffling his +hair.</p> + +<p>"You're a silly, Peter," said Rhoda, and there was peace.</p> + +<p>Very soon after that Lucy came. She came in the afternoon before Peter +got home, and Rhoda looked with listless interest at the small, wide-eyed +person in a grey frock and big grey hat that made her small, pale face +look like a white flower. Pretty? Rhoda wasn't sure. Very like Peter; so +perhaps not pretty; only one liked to look at her. Clever? It didn't +transpire that she was. Witty? Well, much more amused than amusing; and +when she was amused she came out with Peter's laugh, which Rhoda wasn't +sure was in good taste on her part. Absurdly like Peter she was, to +look at and to listen to, and in some inner essence which was beyond +definition. The thought flashed through Rhoda's mind that it was no +wonder these two found things to tell each other every other Sunday; +they would be interested in all the same things, so it must be easy.</p> + +<p>Remotely, dully, Rhoda thought these things, as things which didn't +concern her particularly. Less and less each day she had grown to care +whether Peter found his cousin Lucy a kindred spirit or not. She could +work herself up into a fit of petulant jealousy about it at times; but +it didn't touch her inmost being; it was a very surface grievance.</p> + +<p>So she looked at Lucy dispassionately, and let herself, without a +struggle, be caught and held by that ingenuous charm, a charm as of a +small woodland flower set dancing by the winds of spring. She noticed +that when the kitten that was now nearly a cat sprang on to Lucy's lap, +she stroked its fur backwards with her flat hand and spread fingers +precisely as Peter always did.</p> + +<p>Then Peter came in, and he and Lucy laughed the same laugh at one +another, and then they had tea. After all, Rhoda didn't see now that they +were so like. Peter talked much more; he said twenty words to Lucy's +one; Lucy wasn't a great talker at all. Peter was a chatterbox; there was +no denying that. And their features and eyes and all weren't so like, +either. But when one had said all this, there was something... something +inner, essential, indefinable, of the spirit, that was not of like +substance but the same. So it is sometimes with twins. Rhoda, her +intuitive faculties oddly sharpened, took in this. Peter might care +most for Denis Urquhart; he might love Rhoda as a wife; but Lucy, less +consciously loved than either, was intimately one with himself.</p> + +<p>Peter asked "How is Denis?" and Lucy answered "Very well, of course. And +very busy playing at being a real member. Isn't it fun? Oh, he sent you +his love. And you're to come and see us soon."</p> + +<p>That last wasn't a message from Denis; Peter knew that. He knew that +there would be no more such messages from Denis; the Margerisons had gone +a little too far in their latest enterprise; they had strained the cord +to breaking-point, and it had broken. In future Denis might be kind and +friendly to Peter when they met, but he wouldn't bring about meetings; +they would embarrass him. But Lucy knew nothing of that. Denis hadn't +mentioned to her what had happened at Astleys last November; he never +dwelt on unpleasant subjects or made a talk about them. So Lucy said to +Peter and Rhoda, "You must come and see us soon," and Peter said, "You're +so far away, you know," evading her, and she gave him a sudden wide clear +look, taking in all he didn't say, which was the way they had with one +another, so that no deceits could ever stand between them.</p> + +<p>"Don't be <i>silly</i>, Peter," she told him; then, "'<i>Course</i> you must come"; +but he only smiled at her and said, "Some day, perhaps."</p> + +<p>"Honey sandwiches, if you come at tea-time," she reminded him. "D'<i>you</i> +like them, Rhoda?" She used the name prettily, half shyly, with one of +her luminous, friendly looks. "They're Peter's favourite food, you know."</p> + +<p>But Rhoda didn't know; Peter had never told her; perhaps because it would +be extravagant to have them, perhaps because he never put even foods into +class-lists. Only Lucy knew without being told, probably because it was +her favourite food too.</p> + +<p>When Lucy went, it was as if a ray of early spring sunshine had stolen +into the room and gone. A luminous person: that was the thing Rhoda felt +her to be; a study in clear pale lights; one would not have been +surprised if she had crept in on a wind from a strange fairy world with +her arms full of cold wet primroses, and danced out, taking with her the +souls of those who dwelt within. Rhoda wasn't jealous now, if she had +ever had a touch of that.</p> + +<p>Neither Peter nor Rhoda went to the Urquharts' house, which was a long +way off. But Lucy came again, many times, to Greville Street, through +that spring and summer, stroking the cat's fur backwards, laughing at +Peter, shyly friendly to Rhoda.</p> + +<p>And then for a time her laughter was sad and her eyes wistful, because +her father died. She said once, "I feel so stranded now, Peter; cut off +from what was my life; from what really is my life, you know. Father and +Felicity and I were so disreputable always, and as long as I had father +I could be disreputable too, whenever I felt I couldn't bear being +prosperous. I had only to go inside the house and there I was—you know, +Peter?—it was all round me, and I was part of it.... Now I'm cut off +from all that sort of thing. Denis and I <i>are</i> so well off, d'you know. +Everything goes right. Denis's friends are all so happy and successful +and beautifully dressed. I <i>like</i> them to be, of course; they are joys, +like the sun shining; only..."</p> + +<p>"The poor are always with you," suggested Peter. "You can always come to +Greville Street, if you can't find them nearer at hand. And when you come +we'll take Algernon's blue neck-ribbon off, that none of us may appear +beautifully dressed."</p> + +<p>"But I <i>like</i> Algernon's blue bow," Lucy protested. "I love people to be +bright and beautiful.... That's why I like Denis so much, you know. Only +I'm not sure I properly belong, that's all."</p> + +<p>Obviously the remedy was to come to Greville Street. Lucy came more and +more as the months went by.</p> + +<p>Rhoda said once, "Doesn't it bother you to come all this way, into these +ugly streets?" and she shook her head.</p> + +<p>"Oh, I <i>like</i> it. I like these streets better than the ones round us. And +I like your house better than ours too; it's smaller."</p> + +<p>Rhoda could have thought she looked wistful, this fortunate person who +was in love with her splendid husband and lived in the dwellings of the +prosperous.</p> + +<p>"Don't you like large houses?" she asked, without much caring; for she +was absorbed in her own thoughts in these days.</p> + +<p>Lucy puckered her wide forehead.</p> + +<p>"Why, no. No, I don't believe I do," she said, as if she was finding it +out with a little surprise.</p> + +<p>Rhoda saw her one day in July. In a few weeks, she told Rhoda (Peter was +out that afternoon), she and Denis were going up to Scotland, to stay +with people.</p> + +<p>"We shall miss you," said Rhoda dully.</p> + +<p>"And me you," said Lucy, with a more acute sense of it.</p> + +<p>"Peter'll miss you dreadfully," said Rhoda. She was lying on the sofa, +pale and tired in the heat.</p> + +<p>"Only," said Lucy, "next month you'll both be feeling too interested to +miss anyone."</p> + +<p>"Peter," said Rhoda, "cares more about the baby coming than I do."</p> + +<p>Lucy said, "Peter loves little weak funny things like that." She was a +little sad that Rhoda didn't seem to care more about the baby; babies are +such entrancing toys to those who like toys, people like her and Peter.</p> + +<p>Suddenly Lucy saw that two large tears were rolling down Rhoda's pale +cheeks as she lay. Lucy knelt by the sofa side and took Rhoda's hand in +both of hers and laid her cheek upon it.</p> + +<p>"Please, little Rhoda, not to cry. Please, little Rhoda, tell me."</p> + +<p>Rhoda, with her other hand, brushed the tears away.</p> + +<p>"I'm a silly. I suppose I'm crying because I can't feel to care about +anything in the world, and I wish I could. What's the use of a baby if +you can't love it? What's the use of a husb—"</p> + +<p>Lucy's hand was over her lips, and Lucy whispered, "Oh, hush, little +Rhoda, hush!"</p> + +<p>But Rhoda pushed the hand away and cried, "Oh, why do we pretend and +pretend and pretend? It's Guy I care for—Guy, Guy, Guy, who's gone for +good and all."</p> + +<p>She fell to crying drearily, with Lucy's arms about her.</p> + +<p>"But you <i>mustn't</i> cry," said Lucy, her own eyes brimming over; "you +mustn't, you mustn't. And you do care for Peter, you know you do, only +it's so hot, and you're tired and ill. If that horrible Guy was here—oh, +I know he's horrible—you'd know you cared for Peter most. You mustn't +<i>say</i> things, Rhoda; it makes them alive." Her eyes were wide and +frightened as she looked over Rhoda's head out of the window.</p> + +<p>Slowly Rhoda quieted down, and lay numb and still.</p> + +<p>"You won't tell Peter," she said; and Lucy said, "Oh, Rhoda!"</p> + +<p>"Well, of course I know you wouldn't. Only that you and Peter tell one +another things without saying anything.... Peter belongs to you really, +you know, not to me at all. All he thinks and says and is—it's all +yours. He's never really been near <i>me</i> like that, not from the +beginning. I was a silly to let him sacrifice himself for me the way he's +done. We don't belong really, Peter and I; however friendly we are, we +don't belong; we don't understand each other like you two do.... You +don't mind my saying that, do you?" for Lucy had dropped her hands and +fallen away.</p> + +<p>"I mind your saying anything," said Lucy, "just now. Don't say things: it +makes them alive. It's hot, and you're tired, and I'm not going to stay +any more."</p> + +<p>She got up from the floor and stood for a moment looking down at Rhoda. +Rhoda saw her eyes, how they were wet and strange and far-away, and full +of what seemed an immense weight of pity; pity for all the sadnesses of +mankind.</p> + +<p>The next moment Lucy's cool finger-tips touched her forehead in a light +caress, and Lucy was gone.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XV" id="CHAPTER_XV"></a>CHAPTER XV</h2> + +<h3>THE LOSS OF A WIFE</h3> + + +<p>In September Peter and Rhoda had a son, whom they called Thomas, because, +Peter said, he had a sceptical look about the eyes and nose. Peter was +pleased with him, and he with Peter. Rhoda wasn't much interested; she +looked at him and said he was rather like Peter, and might be taken away +now, please.</p> + +<p>"Like me?" Peter wondered dubiously. "Well, I know I'm not handsome, +but..."</p> + +<p>Peggy, a born mother, took Thomas into her large heart at once, with her +out-at-elbows infants, and was angry with Rhoda for not showing more +interest.</p> + +<p>"You'd think, from the way of her, that it was her thirteenth instead of +her first," she complained to Hilary. "I've no patience with the silly, +mooning child. She's nothing like good enough for Peter, and that's a +fact, and she'd have a right to realise it and try to improve for very +shame, instead of moping the way she does. It's my belief, Hilary, that +her silly little heart's away after the Vyvian man, whatever haunt of +wickedness he's adorning now. I don't want to believe it of her; but +there's no end to the folly of the human heart, is there, now? I wish she +was a Catholic and had a priest to make her take shame to herself; but +there's no hold one has over her as it is, for she won't say a word to me +beyond 'Yes' and 'No,' and 'Take him away, please, he tires me.' I nearly +told her she'd a right not to be so easily tired by her own son now she's +getting her health. But there, she's a poor frail thing and one can't +speak roughly to her for fear she breaks in two."</p> + +<p>Hilary said, "After all, there's no great cause for rejoicing in a man's +being born into the world to trouble; I suppose she feels that. It will +make it more difficult than ever for them and for us to make both ends +meet."</p> + +<p>"Oh, meet," groaned Peggy, "that's not what there's any thought of their +doing in these days, my dear. If one can bring them within a mile of one +another, one's thankful for small mercies."</p> + +<p>Hilary rested his head on his hand and sighed.</p> + +<p>"Have you spoken to Peter yet about appealing to the Urquharts?" he +asked.</p> + +<p>"Darling, I have not, and I'm not going to. Why should I annoy the poor +child to no purpose? He'll not appeal to the Urquharts, we know that +well, and I'm not going to waste my breath. I'd far rather—"</p> + +<p>"What?" asked Hilary, as she paused.</p> + +<p>"Oh well, I don't know. Don't you worry about ways and means; something +will surely turn up before long." Peggy was an optimist.</p> + +<p>"And anyhow," went on Peggy, to change the subject from ways and means, +which was a depressing one, "isn't our little Peter a darling with his +baby? I love to see them together. He washes it himself as often as +not, you know; only he can't always catch it again when it slips through +his hands, and that worries him. He's dreadfully afraid of its getting +drowned or spoilt or lost or something."</p> + +<p>"It probably will," said Hilary, who was a pessimist. "Peter is no hand +at keeping things. We are not a fortunate family."</p> + +<p>"Never mind, darling; we've kept three; and more by token Kitty <i>must</i> +have a new pair of boots this winter; she's positively indecent the way +she goes about now. I can't help it, Hilary; you must pawn your ring +again or something."</p> + +<p>Peggy didn't want to say anything else depressing, so she didn't mention +that Miss Matthews had that morning given notice of her departure. But in +Peggy's own mind there was a growing realisation that something drastic +must really be done soon.</p> + +<p>October went by. When Peter knew that the Urquharts had come back to +London, he wondered why Lucy didn't come to see Thomas. So he wrote and +asked her to, and on that she came.</p> + +<p>She came at tea-time, one day when Rhoda happened to have gone out. So +Peter and Lucy had tea alone together, and Thomas lay in his crib and +looked at them, and Algernon snored on Lucy's knee, and the November fog +shut out the outer world like a blanket, and blurred the gas-light in the +dingy room.</p> + +<p>Peter thought Lucy was rather quiet and pale, and her chuckle was a +little subdued. Her dominant aspect, of clear luminousness, was somehow +dimmed and mystified, with all other lights, in this blurred afternoon. +Her wide clear eyes, strange always with the world's gay wonder and +mystery, had become eyes less gay, eyes that did not understand, that +even shrank a little from what they could not understand. Lucy looked a +touch puzzled, not so utterly the glad welcomer of all arriving things +that she had always been.</p> + +<p>But for Thomas, the latest arrived thing, she had a glad welcome. +Like Peter, she loved all little funny weak things; and Thomas seemed +certainly that, as he lay and blinked at the blurred gas and curled his +fingers round one of Peter's. A happy, silent person, with doubts, one +fancied, as to the object of the universe, but no doubts that there were +to be found in it many desirable things.</p> + +<p>When Lucy came in, Peter was reading aloud to him some of Traherne's +"Divine Reflections on the Native Objects of an Infant-Eye," which he +seemed rather to like.</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"I that so long [Peter told him he was thinking,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Was <i>Nothing</i> from Eternity,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Did little think such Joys as Ear and Tongue<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To celebrate or see:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Such Sounds to hear, such Hands to feel, such Feet,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Such Eyes and Objects on the Ground to Meet.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"New burnisht Joys!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Which finest Gold and Pearl excell!"<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>"Oo," said Thomas expectantly.</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"A Stranger here, [Peter told him further,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Strange things doth meet, strange Glory see;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Strange Treasures lodg'd in this fair World appear,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Strange all and New to me:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But that they <i>mine</i> should be who Nothing was,<br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>That</i> strangest is of all; yet brought to pass."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>"Ow," said Thomas, agreeing.</p> + +<p>Peter turned over the pages. "Do you like it? Do you think so too? Here's +another about you."</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"But little did the Infant dream<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That all the Treasures of the World were by,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And that himself was so the Cream<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And Crown of all which round about did ly.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Yet thus it was!..."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>"I don't think you'd understand the rest of that verse, Thomas; it's +rather more difficult. 'Yet thus it was!' We'll end there, and have our +tea."</p> + +<p>Turning his head he saw that Lucy had come in and was standing behind +him, looking over his shoulder at Thomas in his crib.</p> + +<p>"Oh, Lucy," he said, "I'm reading to Thomas. Thomas is that. Do you like +him? He is surprised at life, but quite pleased. He that was <i>Nothing</i> +from Eternity did little think such Joys to celebrate or see. Yet thus it +is. He is extraordinarily happy about it all, but he can't do anything +yet, you know—not speak or sit up or anything. He can only make noises, +and cry, and drink, and slither about in his bath like a piece of wet +soap. Wasn't there a clergyman once who thought his baby ought to be +baptised by immersion unless it was proved not well able to endure it, +as it says in the rubric or somewhere, so he put it in a tub to try if +it could endure it or not, and he let it loose by accident and couldn't +catch it again, it was so slippery, just like a horrid little fish, and +its mother only came in and got hold of it just in time to prevent its +being drowned? So after that he felt he could honestly certify that the +child couldn't well endure immersion. I'm getting better at catching +Thomas, though. He isn't supposed to slip off my hand at all, but he +kicks and slithers so I can't hold him, and swims away and gets lost. +After tea will you come and help me wash him? Rhoda's out to tea; I'm so +sorry. But there's tea, and Thomas and Algernon and me, and—and rather +thick bread and butter only, apparently; but I shall have jam now you've +come. First I must adjust Thomas's drinking-bottle; he always likes a +drink while we have our tea. He's two months old. Is he good for that, +do you think, or should he be a size larger? But I rather like them +small, don't you? They're lighter so, for one thing. Is he nice? Do you +like him?"</p> + +<p>Lucy, kneeling by the crib, nodded.</p> + +<p>"He's very old and wise, Peter; very old and gay. Look at his eyes. He's +much—oh very much—older than you or me. That's as it should be."</p> + +<p>"He'll rejuvenate with years, won't he?" said Peter. "At present he's +too old to laugh when I make jokes; he thinks them silly; but he'll be +sillier than anyone himself in about six months, I expect. Now we'll have +tea."</p> + +<p>Lucy left Thomas and came to the tea-table and poured out tea for both of +them.</p> + +<p>"I'm trying to learn to do without three lumps," said Peter, as Lucy put +them in. "I expect it's extravagant to have three, really. But then Rhoda +and Thomas don't take any, so it's only the same as if we each had one, +isn't it. Thomas shan't be allowed more than one in each cup when he +grows young enough to want any; Rhoda and I mean him to be a refined +person."</p> + +<p>"I don't think he will be," said Lucy, looking thoughtfully into the +future. "I expect he'll be as vulgar as you and me. He's awfully like you +to look at, Peter."</p> + +<p>"So I am informed. Well, I'm not vain, and I don't claim to be an Adonis, +like Denis. Is Denis flourishing? The birds were splendid; they came so +thick and fast that I gathered it was being a remarkable season. But as +you only answered my numerous letters by one, and that àpropos merely of +Thomas's arrival, I could only surmise and speculate on your doings. I +suppose you thought the grouse were instead of letters."</p> + +<p>"They were Denis's letters. <i>I</i> didn't shoot the grouse, dear darlings, +nor send them."</p> + +<p>"What were your letters, then?"</p> + +<p>"Well, I sent rowan berries, didn't I? Weren't they red?"</p> + +<p>"Yes. Even Thomas read them. We're being rather funny, aren't we? Is +Denis going on with Parliament again this autumn, or has he begun to get +tired of it?"</p> + +<p>"Not a bit tired of it. He doesn't bother about it particularly, you +know; not enough to tire himself; he sort of takes it for granted, like +going up to Scotland in August."</p> + +<p>Peter nodded. "I know. He would take it just like that if he was +Prime Minister, or Archbishop of Canterbury. I daresay he will be one +day; isn't it nice the way things drop into his hands without his +bothering to get them."</p> + +<p>He didn't see the queer, silent look Lucy turned on him as he spread his +thick bread and butter with blackberry jam.</p> + +<p>"Thomas," she said after a moment, "has dropped into your hands, Peter." +It was as if she was protesting against something, beating herself +against some invisible, eternal barrier that divided the world into +two unequal parts.</p> + +<p>Peter said, "Rather, he has. I do hope he'll never drop out. I'm getting +very handy about holding him, though. Oh, let's take him upstairs and tub +him now; do you mind?"</p> + +<p>So they took him upstairs and tubbed him, and Lucy managed to hold him so +firmly that he didn't once swim away and get lost.</p> + +<p>As they were drying him (Lucy dried him with a firmer and more effective +hand than Peter, who always wiped him very gingerly lest he should +squash) Rhoda came in. She was strange-eyed and pale in the blurred +light, and greeted Lucy in a dreamy, absent way.</p> + +<p>"I've had tea out.... Oh, have you bathed baby? How good of you. I meant +to be in earlier, but I was late.... The fog's awful; it's getting +thicker and thicker."</p> + +<p>She sat down by the fire and loosened her coat, and took off her hat and +rubbed the fog from her wet hair, and coughed. Rhoda had grown prettier +lately; she looked less tired and listless, and her eyes were brighter, +and the fire flushed her thin cheek to rose-colour as she bent over it.</p> + +<p>Peter took her wet things from her and took off her shoes and put +slippers on her feet, and she gave him an absent smile. Rhoda had had +a dreamy way with her since Thomas's birth; moony, as Peggy, who didn't +approve, called it.</p> + +<p>A little later, when Thomas was clean and warm and asleep in his bed, +they were told that Mrs. Urquhart's carriage had come.</p> + +<p>Lucy bent over Thomas and kissed him, then over Rhoda. Rhoda whispered in +her ear, without emotion, "Baby ought to have been yours, not mine," and +Lucy whispered back:</p> + +<p>"Oh hush, hush!"</p> + +<p>Rhoda still held her, still whispered, "Will you love him? Will you be +good to him, always?"</p> + +<p>And Lucy answered, opening wide eyes, "Why, of course. No one could help +it, could they?" and on that Rhoda let her go.</p> + +<p>Peter thought that Lucy must have infected Rhoda with some of her own +appreciation of Thomas, opened her eyes to his true worth; for during the +next week she was newly tender to him. She bathed him every evening +herself, only letting Peter help a little; she held him in her arms +without wearying of his weight, and wasn't really annoyed even when he +was sick upon her shoulder, an unfortunate habit of Thomas's.</p> + +<p>But a habit, Peter thought, that Thomas employed with some +discrimination; for the one and only one time that Guy Vyvian took him +in his arms—or rather submitted to his being put there by Rhoda—Thomas +was sicker than he had ever been before, with an immense completeness.</p> + +<p>"Just what I always feel myself," commented Peter in his own mind, as +Thomas was hastily removed. "I'm glad someone has shown him at last what +the best people feel about him."</p> + +<p>Vyvian had come to call. It was the first time Peter had met him since +his marriage; he hoped it would be the last. The object of the call +was to inspect Thomas, Rhoda said. Thomas was inspected, produced the +impression indicated above, and was relegated to the region of things for +which Vyvian had no use. He detested infants; children of any sort, in +fact; and particularly Thomas, who had Peter's physiognomy and expressed +Peter's sentiments in a violently ill-bred way.</p> + +<p>Peter, a little later, was very glad that Thomas had revealed himself +thus openly on this occasion. For it quite sealed Thomas's fate, if +anything more was needed to seal it than the fact that Thomas would be +an impossible burden, and also belonged by right to Peter. Anyhow, they +left Thomas behind them when they went.</p> + +<p>Rhoda wrote a scrawled note for Peter one foggy Monday morning, and +hugged Thomas close and cried a little, and slipped out into the misty +city with a handbag. Peter, coming in at tea-time, found the note on +the sitting-room chimney-piece. It said:—</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>Don't try to follow me, Peter, for I can't come back. I <i>have</i> tried to +care for you more than him and be a good wife, but I can't. You know I +told you when we got engaged that I cared for him, and I tried so hard +to stop, and I thought I would be able, with you to help me, but I +couldn't do it. For the first few months I thought I could, but all the +time it was there, like a fire in me, eating me up; and later on he began +writing to me, but for a long time I wouldn't answer, and then he came to +see me, and I said he mustn't, but he's been meeting me out and I +couldn't stop him, and at last it grew that I knew I loved him so that it +was no use pretending any more. I'd better go, Peter, for what's the use +of trying to be a good wife to you when all I care for is him. I know +he's not good, and you are, but I love him, and I must go when he wants +me. It was all a mistake; you and I ought never to have married. You +meant it kindly, I know; you meant to help me and make me happy, but it +was no use. You and I never properly belonged. When I saw you and Lucy +together, I knew we didn't belong, not like that; we didn't properly +understand each other's ways and thoughts, like you two did. I love Lucy, +too. You and she are so like. And she'll be good to Baby; she said she +would. I hate to leave Baby, but Guy won't let me bring him, and anyhow +I suppose I couldn't, because he's yours. I've written a list of his +feeds, and it's on the chimney-piece behind the clock; please make whoever +sees to him go by it or he gets a pain. Please be careful when you bath +him; I think Mrs. Adams had better do it usually. She'll take care of him +for you, or Peggy will, perhaps. You'll think I never cared for him, but +I do, I love him, only I must love Guy most of all. I don't know if I +shall be happy or miserable, but I expect miserable, only I must go with +Guy. Please, dear Peter, try and understand this, and forgive me. I think +you will, because you always do understand things, and forgive them too; +I think you are the kindest person I ever knew. If I thought you loved me +really, I don't think I'd go, even for Guy; but I know you've only felt +kindly to me all along, so I think it is best for you too that I should +go, and you will be thankful in the end. Good-bye. You promised mother to +see after me, I know, for she told me before she died; well, you've done +your best, and mother'd be grateful to you if she could know. I suppose +some would say she does know, perhaps; but I don't believe those stories; +I believe it's all darkness beyond, and silence. And if it is, we must +try and get all the light and warmth here that we can. So I'm going.</p> + +<p>Good-bye, Peter.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Rhoda.</span></p></div> + +<p>Peter read it through, sitting on the rug by the fire. When he had +finished it, he put it into the fire and watched it burn. Then he sighed, +and sat very still for a while, his hands clasped round one knee.</p> + +<p>Presently he got up and looked behind the clock, and saw that the next +feeding-time was due now. So he rang for Mrs. Adams, the landlady, and +asked her if she would mind bringing Thomas's bottle.</p> + +<p>When Thomas had it, Peter stood and looked down upon him as he drank with +ill-bred noises.</p> + +<p>"Gently, Thomas: you'll choke. You'll choke and die, I know you will. +Then you'll be gone too. Everything goes, Thomas. Everything I touch +breaks; everything I try to do fails. That's because I'm such an ass, +I suppose. I did think I could perhaps make one little unlucky girl +decently happy; but I couldn't, you see. So she's gone after light and +warmth, and she'll—she'll break her heart in a year, and it'll be my +fault. Follow her? No, I shan't do that. I shouldn't find her, and if I +did what would be the use? If she must go, she must; she was only eating +her heart out here; and perhaps it's better to break one's heart on +something than eat it out in emptiness. No, it isn't better in this case. +Anything in the world would have been better than this; that she should +have gone with that—that person. Yet thus it is. And they'll all set on +her and speak against her, and I shall have to bear it. You and I will +have to bear it together, Thomas.... I suppose I ought to be angry. I +ought to want to go after them, to the end of the world or wherever +they've gone and kill him and bring her back. But I can't. I should fail +in that too. I'm tired of trying to do things; simply horribly tired of +it, Thomas." He sat down on the rug with Thomas in his arms; and there, +an hour later, Peggy found them. She swung in breezily, crying, "Oh, +Peter, all alone in the dark? Where's Rhoda? Why, the silly children +haven't had their tea!" she added, looking at the unused cups on the +tea-table.</p> + +<p>Peter looked up vaguely. "Oh, tea. I forgot. I don't think I want any +tea to-day. And Thomas has had his. And Rhoda's gone. It's no good not +telling you—is it?—because you'll find out. She's gone away. It's been +my fault entirely; I didn't make her happy, you see. And she's written +out a list of the times Thomas has to feed at. I suppose Mrs. Adams will +do that if I ask her, and generally look after him when I'm out."</p> + +<p>Peggy stood aghast before him for a moment, staring, then collapsed, +breathless, on the sofa, crying, with even more r's than usual.</p> + +<p>"<i>Peter!</i>... Why, she's gone and rrun off with that toad, that rreptile +man! Oh, I know it, so it's not a bit of use your trying to keep it from +me."</p> + +<p>"Very well," said Peter; "I suppose it's not."</p> + +<p>"Oh, the little fool, the little, silly, wicked fool! But if ever a +little fool got her rich deserts without needing to wait for purgatory, +that one'll be Rhoda.... Oh, Peter, be more excited and angry! Why +aren't you stamping up and down and vowing vengeance, instead of sitting +on the hearth saying, 'Rhoda's gone,' as if it was the kitten?"</p> + +<p>"I'm sorry, Peggy." Peter sighed a little. "I'm nursing Thomas, you see."</p> + +<p>Peggy at that was on her knees on the floor, taking both of them into her +large embrace.</p> + +<p>"Oh, you two poor little darling boys, what's to become of you both? That +child has a heart of stone, to leave you to yourselves the way she's +done. Don't defend her, Peter; I won't hear a word said for her again +as long as I live; she deserves Guy Vyvian, and I couldn't say a worse +word for her than that. You poor little Tommy; come to me then, babykins. +You must come back to us now, Peter, and I'll look after you both."</p> + +<p>She cuddled Thomas to her breast with one arm, and put the other round +Peter's shoulders as he sat huddled up, his chin resting on his knees. +At the moment it was difficult to say which of the two looked the most +forsaken, the most left to himself. Only Thomas hadn't yet learnt to +laugh, and Peter had. He laughed now, softly and not happily.</p> + +<p>"It <i>has</i> been rather a ghastly fiasco, hasn't it," he said. "Absurd, you +know, too, in a way. I thought it was all working out so nicely, Thomas +coming and everything. But no. It wasn't working out nicely at all. +Things don't as a rule, do they?"</p> + +<p>There was a new note of dreariness in his voice; a note that had perhaps +been kept out of it of set purpose for a long time. Now there seemed at +the moment no particular reason to keep it out any more, though fresh +reasons would arrive, no doubt, very soon; and Thomas when waking was a +reason in himself. But in this dim hour between two roads, this hour of +relaxation of tension in the shadowy firelight, when Thomas slept and +only Peggy listened, Peter, having fallen crashing through floor after +floor of his pleasant house of life, till he was nearly at the bottom, +looked up at all the broken floors and sighed.</p> + +<p>Peggy's arm was comfortingly about him. To her he was always a little, +brittle, unlucky boy, as she had first seen him long ago.</p> + +<p>"Never you mind, Peterkin. There's a good time coming, I do believe. +She'll come back, perhaps; who knows? Vyvian wouldn't do for long, not +even for Rhoda. Besides, you may be sure he'll throw her off soon, and +then she'll want to come back to you and Tommy. I wouldn't say that to +any other man, because, of course, no other man would have her back; but +I do believe, Peterkin, that you would, wouldn't you now? I expect you'd +smile and say, 'Oh, come in, you're just in time for tea and to see me +bath Thomas,' and not another word about it."</p> + +<p>"Probably," said Peter. "There wouldn't be much to say, would there? +But she won't come back; I know that. Even if she leaves him she won't. +Rhoda's horribly proud really, you know. She'd sooner sweep a crossing, +or trim hats or something, than come near us again. I don't know what to +hope about it. I suppose one must hope they'll go on together, as Rhoda +seems to like him as he is; but it's an awful thought.... She's right +that we never understood each other. I couldn't, you know, bear to think +of spending even one day alone with Vyvian. I should be sick, like +Thomas. The mere sight of his hair is enough, and his hand with that +awful ring on it. I—I simply draw the line at him. <i>Why</i> does Rhoda +care for him? How can she?" Peter frowned over it in bewilderment.</p> + +<p>Peggy said, "Girls are silly things. And I suppose the way one's been +brought up counts, and what one's inherited, and all that."</p> + +<p>"Well, if Rhoda'd taken after Mrs. Johnson she wouldn't have liked +Vyvian. He used to give her the creeps, like a toad. She told me so. +She disliked him more than I did.... Well, I shall never understand. I +suppose if I could Rhoda would have found me more sympathetic, and might +have stayed."</p> + +<p>"Now, darling, you're not to sit up and brood any more; that won't help. +You're coming straight back with me to dinner, and Tommy's coming too, to +sleep. I shall ask Mrs. Adams to help me get his things together."</p> + +<p>"He hasn't many things," said Peter, looking vaguely round for them. "I +got him a rattle and a ball, but he doesn't seem to care about them much; +Lucy says he's not young enough yet. Here's his bottle. And his night +clothes are upstairs, and his other day clothes, and his bath. Thomas +leads the simple life, though; he really possesses very little; I think +he's probably going to be a Franciscan later on. But he can sleep with me +here all right; I should like to have him; only it would be awfully good +of you if you'd have him to-morrow, while I'm out at work. But in the +night he and I rather like each other's company."</p> + +<p>"Rubbish," said Peggy. "You're both coming along to fifty-one this +minute. You don't suppose I'm going to leave you two infants alone +together like that. We've heaps of room at fifty-one"—she sighed a +little—"people have been fading away like the flowers of the forest, +and we should be thankful to have you back."</p> + +<p>"Oh, we'll come then; thanks very much, Peggy." Peter's ready +sympathy was turned on again, having temporarily been available only +for himself and Rhoda and Thomas. He remembered now that Peggy and Hilary +needed it too. He and Thomas would go and be boarders in the emptying +boarding-house; it might amuse Thomas, perhaps, to see the other +boarders.</p> + +<p>"And we'll have him baptized," went on Peggy, thinking of further +diversions for Thomas and Peter. "You'll let him be a Catholic, Peter, +won't you?"</p> + +<p>"Thomas," said Peter, "can be anything he likes that's nice. As long as +he's not a bigot. I won't have him refusing to go into one sort of church +because he prefers another; he mustn't ever acquire the rejecting habit. +Short of that, he may enter any denomination or denominations he +prefers."</p> + +<p>They were collecting Thomas's belongings as they talked. Thomas lay and +looked at them with the very blue slits that were like his father's eyes +grown old. And suddenly Peggy, looking from son to father, saw that +Peter's eyes had grown as old as Thomas's, looking wearily out of a pale, +pinched face.</p> + +<p>Peggy's own eyes brimmed over as she bent over Thomas's night-shirt.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XVI" id="CHAPTER_XVI"></a>CHAPTER XVI</h2> + +<h3>A LONG WAY</h3> + + +<p>Lord Evelyn Urquhart dined with his nephew on the last evening in +February. It was a characteristic Urquhart dinner-party; the guests were +mostly cheerful, well-bred young people of high spirits and of the +worldly station that is not much concerned with any aspect of money but +the spending of it. High living, plain thinking, agreeable manners and +personal appearance, plenty of humour, enough ability to make a success +of the business of living and not enough to agitate the brain, a light +tread along a familiar and well-laid road, and a serene blindness to +side-tracks and alleys not familiar nor well-laid and to those that +walked thereon—these were the characteristics of the pleasant people +who frequented Denis Urquhart's pleasant house in Park Lane.</p> + +<p>Lucy was among them, small and pale, and rather silent, and intensely +alive. She, of course, was a native not of Park Lane but of Chelsea; and +the people who had frequented her home there were of a different sort. +They had had, mostly, a different kind of brain, a kind more restless and +troublesome and untidy, and a different type of wit, more pungent and +ironic, less well-fed and hilarious, and they were less well-dressed and +agreeable to look at, and had (perhaps) higher thoughts (though how shall +one measure height?) and ate (certainly) plainer food, for lack of +richer. These were the people Lucy knew. Her father himself had been of +these. She now found her tent pitched among the prosperous; and the study +of them touched her wide gaze with a new, pondering look. Denis hadn't +any use for cranks. None of his set were socialists, vegetarians, +Quakers, geniuses, anarchists, drunkards, poets, anti-breakfasters, or +anti-hatters; none of them, in fine, the sort of person Lucy was used to. +They never pawned their watches or walked down Bond Street in Norfolk +coats. They had, no doubt, their hobbies; but they were suitable, +well-bred hobbies, that did not obtrude vulgarly on other people's +notice. Peter had once said that if he were a plutocrat he would begin +to dream dreams. Lucy supposed that the seemingly undreaming people +who were Denis's friends were not rich enough; they hadn't reached +plutocracy, where romance resides, but merely prosperity, which has fewer +possibilities. Lucy began in these days to ponder on the exceeding evil +of Socialism, which the devil has put it into certain men's hearts to +desire. For, thought Lucy, sweep away the romantic rich, sweep away +the dreaming destitute, and what have you left? The prosperous; the +comfortable; the serenely satisfied; the sanely reasonable. Dives, with +his purple and fine linen, his sublime outlook over a world he may +possess at a touch, goes to his own place; Lazarus, with his wallet for +crusts and his place among the dogs and his sharp wonder at the world's +black heart, is gathered to his fathers: there remain the sanitary +dwellings of the comfortable, the monotonous external adequacy that +touches no man's inner needs, the lifeless rigour of a superintended +well-being. Decidedly, thought Lucy, siding with the Holy Roman Church, +a scheme of the devil's. Denis and his friends also thought it was rot. +So no doubt it was. Denis belonged to the Conservative party. Lucy +thought parties funny things, and laughed. Though she had of late taken +to wandering far into seas of thought, so that her wide forehead was +often puckered as she sat silent, she still laughed at the world. Perhaps +the more one thinks about it the more one laughs; the height and depth of +its humour are certainly unfathomable.</p> + +<p>On this last night of February, Lord Evelyn, when the other guests had +gone, put his unsteady white hand under Lucy's chin and raised her small +pale face and looked at it out of his near-sighted, scrutinising eyes, +and said:</p> + +<p>"Humph. You're thinner."</p> + +<p>Lucy's eyes laughed up at him.</p> + +<p>"Am I? I suppose I'm growing old."</p> + +<p>"You're worrying. What's it about?" asked Lord Evelyn.</p> + +<p>They were in the library. Lord Evelyn and Denis sat by the fire in +leather chairs and smoked, and Lucy sat on a hassock between them, her +chin in her hands.</p> + +<p>She was silent for a moment. Then she looked up at Denis, who was reading +Punch, and said, "I've had a letter from Peggy Margerison this morning."</p> + +<p>Denis gave a sound between a grunt and a chuckle. The grunt element was +presumably for Peggy Margerison, the chuckle for Punch.</p> + +<p>Lord Evelyn, tapping his eye-glass on the arm of his chair, said, "Well? +Well?" impatiently, nervously.</p> + +<p>Lucy drew a note from her pocket (she was never pocketless) and spread it +on her knees. It was a long letter on crinkly paper, written in a large, +dashing, sprawling hand, full of curls, generosities, extravagances.</p> + +<p>"She says," said Lucy, "(Please listen, Denis,) that—that they want +money."</p> + +<p>"I somehow thought that would be what she said," Denis murmured, still +half preoccupied. "I'm sure she's right."</p> + +<p>"A woman who writes a hand like that," put in Lord Evelyn, "will always +spend more than she has. A hole in the purse; a hole in the purse."</p> + +<p>"She says," went on Lucy, looking through the letter with wrinkled +forehead, "that they're all very hard-up indeed. Of course, I knew that; +I can see it whenever I go there; only Peter will never take more than +silly little clothes and things for Thomas. And now Peggy says they're in +great straits; Thomas is going to teethe or something, and wants better +milk, all from one cow, and they're all awfully in debt."</p> + +<p>"I should fancy that was chronic," remarked Denis, turning to Essence of +Parliament.</p> + +<p>"A hole in the purse, a hole in the purse," muttered Lord Evelyn, tapping +with his eye-glass.</p> + +<p>"Peggy says that Peter won't ask for help himself, but he's let her, +it seems. And their boarders are nearly all gone, one of them quite +suddenly, without paying a sixpence for all the time he was there."</p> + +<p>"I suppose he didn't think he'd had sixpence worth," said Denis. "He was +probably right."</p> + +<p>"And Thomas is still very delicate after his bronchitis, and Peter's got +a bad cold on the chest and wants more cough-mixture than they can afford +to buy; and they owe money to the butcher and the fishmonger and the +baker and the doctor and the tailor, and Hilary's lost his latest job and +isn't earning anything at all. So I suppose Peter is keeping the family."</p> + +<p>"Scamps; scamps all," muttered Lord Evelyn. "Deserve all they get, and +more. People like the Margerisons an't worth helping. They'd best go +under at once; best go under. Swindlers and scamps, the lot of them. +I daresay the woman's stories are half lies; of course, they want money, +but it's probably only to spend on nonsense. Why can't they keep +themselves, like decent people?"</p> + +<p>"Oh," said Lucy, dismissing that as absurd, "they can't. Of course they +can't. They never could ... Denis."</p> + +<p>"Lucy." Denis absently put out a hand to meet hers.</p> + +<p>"How much shall we give them, Denis?"</p> + +<p>Denis dropped Punch onto the floor, and lay back with his hands clasped +behind his fair head. Lucy, looking at his up-turned, foreshortened, +cleanly-modelled face, thought with half of her mind what a perfect +thing it was. Sudden aspects of Denis's beauty sometimes struck her +breathless, as they struck Peter.</p> + +<p>"The Margerison family wants money, I understand," said Denis, who hadn't +been listening attentively.</p> + +<p>"Very badly, Denis."</p> + +<p>Denis nodded. "They always do, of course.... Well, is it our business to +fill the bottomless Margerison purse?"</p> + +<p>Lucy sat very still, looking up at him with wide eyes.</p> + +<p>"Our business? I don't know. But, of course, if Peter and Peter's people +want anything, we shall give it them."</p> + +<p>"But I gather it's not Peter that asks? Peter never asks, does he?"</p> + +<p>"No," said Lucy. "Peter never asks. Not even for Thomas."</p> + +<p>"Well, I should be inclined to trust Peter rather than his charming +family. Peter's name seems to be dragged into that letter a good deal, +but it doesn't follow that Peter sanctioned it. I'm not going to annoy +Peter by sending him what he's never asked for. I should think probably +Peter knows they can get on all right as they are, and that this letter +must be taken with a good deal of salt. I expect the egregious Hilary +only wants the money for some new enterprise of his own, that will fail, +as usual. Anyhow, I really don't fancy having any further dealings with +Hilary Margerison or his wife; I've had enough there. He's the most +impossible cad and swindler."</p> + +<p>"Swindlers all, swindlers all," said Lord Evelyn, getting up and pacing +up and down the room, his hands behind his back.</p> + +<p>Lucy, after a moment, said simply, "I shall give them something, Denis. +I must. Don't you see? Whoever it was, I would. Because anyhow, they're +poor and we're rich, and they want things we can give them. It's so +obvious that when people ask one for things they must have them if one +can give them. And when it's Peter who's in want, and Peter's baby, and +Peter's people ..."</p> + +<p>"You see," said Denis, "I doubt about Peter or the baby benefiting by +anything we give them. It will all go down the drain where Hilary +Margerison's money flows away. Give it to Peter or give it to his +relations, it'll come to the same thing. Peter gives them every +penny he gets, I don't doubt. You know what Peter is; he's as weak as +a baby in his step-brother's hands; he lets himself be dragged into the +most disgraceful transactions because he can't say no."</p> + +<p>Lucy looked up at him, open-eyed, pale, quiet.</p> + +<p>"You think of Peter like that?" she said, and her voice trembled a +little.</p> + +<p>Lord Evelyn stopped in his walk and listened.</p> + +<p>"I'm sorry, Lucy," said Denis, throwing away his cigar-end. "I don't want +to say anything against Peter to you. But ... one must judge by facts, +you know. I don't mean that Peter means any harm; but, as I say, he's +weak. I'm fond of Peter, you know; I wish to goodness he wouldn't play +the fool as he does, mixing himself up with his precious relations and +helping them in their idiotic schemes for swindling money out of +people—but there it is; he will do it; and as long as he does it I don't +feel moved to have much to do with him. I should send him money if he +asked me personally, of course, even if I knew it would only go into his +brother's pocket; but I'm not going to do it at his sister-in-law's +command. If you ask me whether I feel inclined to help Hilary Margerison +and his wife, my answer is simply no I don't. They're merely scum; and +why should one have anything to do with scum?"</p> + +<p>Lucy looked at him silently for a while. Then she said slowly, "I see. +Yes, I see you wouldn't want to, of course. They <i>are</i> scum. And you're +not. But I am, I think. I belong to the same sort of people they do. I +could swindle and cheat too, I expect. It's the people at the bottom who +do that. They're my relations, you see, not yours."</p> + +<p>"My dear Lucy, only Peter is your relation."</p> + +<p>"Peter and Thomas. And I count the rest too, because they're Peter's. So +let me do all that is to be done, Denis. Don't you bother. I'll take them +money."</p> + +<p>"Let them alone, Lucy. You'd better, you know. What's the good?"</p> + +<p>"I don't know," said Lucy. "None, I expect. None at all; because Peter +wouldn't take it from me without you."</p> + +<p>She came a little nearer him, and put her hand on his knee like a wistful +puppy.</p> + +<p>"Denis," she said, "I wish <i>you</i> would. They know already that I care. +But I wish <i>you</i> would. Peter'd like you to. He'd be more pleased than if +I did; much more. Peter cares for you and me and Thomas extraordinarily +much; and you can't compare carings, but the way he cares for you is the +most wonderful of all, I believe. If you went to him ... if you showed +him you cared ... he'd take it from you. He wouldn't take it from me +without you, because he'd suspect you weren't wanting him to have it. +Denis, won't you go to Peter, as you used to do long ago, before he was +in disgrace and poor, before he was scum? Can't you, Denis?"</p> + +<p>Denis had coloured faintly. He always did when people were emotional. +Lucy seldom was; she had a delicious morning freshness that was like the +cool wind on the hills in spring.</p> + +<p>"Peter never comes here, Lucy, does he. If he wanted to see me, I suppose +he would."</p> + +<p>Lucy was looking strangely at the beautiful face with the faint flush +rising in it. She apparently thought no reply necessary to his words, but +said again, "<i>Can't</i> you, Denis? Or is it too hard, too much bother, too +much stepping out of the way?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, it's not the bother, of course. But ... but I really don't see +anything to be gained by it, that's the fact.... Our meetings, on the +last few occasions when we have met, haven't been particularly +comfortable. I don't think Peter likes them any better than I do.... One +can't force intercourse, Lucy; if it doesn't run easily and smoothly, it +had better be left alone. There have been things between us, between +Peter's family and my family, that can't be forgotten or put aside by +either of us, I suppose; and I don't think Peter wants to be reminded of +them by seeing me any more than I do by seeing him. It's—it's so beastly +uncomfortable, you know," he added boyishly, ruffling up his hair with +his hand; and concluded didactically, "People <i>must</i> drift apart if their +ways lie in quite different spheres; it's inevitable."</p> + +<p>Denis, who had a boyish reticence, had expanded and explained himself +more than usual.</p> + +<p>Lucy's hand dropped from his knee on to her own.</p> + +<p>"I suppose it <i>is</i> inevitable," she said, beneath her breath. "I +suppose the distance is too great. 'Tis such a long, long way from +here to there ... such a long, long way.... Good-night, Denis; I'm +going to bed."</p> + +<p>She got up slowly, cramped and tired and pale. It was not till she was +on her feet that she saw Lord Evelyn sitting in the background, and +remembered his presence. She had forgotten him; she had been thinking +only of Denis and Peter and herself. She didn't know if he had been +listening much; he sat quietly, nursing his knee, saying nothing.</p> + +<p>But when Lucy had gone he said to Denis, "You're right, Denis; you're +utterly right, not to have anything to do with those swindlers," and, as +if in a sudden fresh anger against them, he began again his quick, uneven +pacing down the room.</p> + +<p>"False through and through," he muttered. "False through and through."</p> + +<p>Lucy's face, as she had risen to her feet and said "Good night, Uncle +Evelyn," had been so like Peter's as he had last seen it, when Peter had +passed him in the doorway at Astleys, that it had taken his breath away.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XVII" id="CHAPTER_XVII"></a>CHAPTER XVII</h2> + +<h3>QUARRELS IN THE RAIN</h3> + + +<p>In Brook Street the rain fell. It fell straight and disconsolate, +unutterably wet, splashing drearily on the paved street between the rows +of wet houses. It fell all day, from the dim dawn, through the murky +noon, to the dark evening, desolately weeping over a tired city.</p> + +<p>Inside number fifty-one, Peggy mended clothes and sang a little song, +with Thomas in her lap, and Peter, sitting in the window-seat, knitted +Thomas a sweater of Cambridge blue. Peter was getting rather good at +knitting. Hilary was there too, but not mending, or knitting, or singing; +he was coughing, and complaining of the climate.</p> + +<p>"I fancy it is going to be influenza," he observed at intervals, +shivering. "I feel extraordinarily weak, and ache all up my back. I fancy +I have a high temperature, only Peter has broken the thermometer. You +were a hundred and four, I think, Peter, the day you went to bed. I +rather expect I am a hundred and five. But I suppose I shall never know, +as it is impossible to afford another thermometer. I feel certain it is +influenza; and in that case I must give up all hope of getting that job +from Pickering, as I cannot possibly go and see him to-morrow. Not but +that it would be a detestable job, anyhow; but anything to keep our heads +above water.... My headache is now like a hot metal band all round my +head, Peggy."</p> + +<p>"Poor old boy," said Peggy. "Take some more phenacetine. And do go to +bed, Hilary. If you <i>have</i> got flu, you'll only make yourself as bad as +Peter did by staying up too long. You've neither of you any more sense +than Tommy here, nor so much, by a long way, have they, little man? No, +Kitty, let him be; you'd only drop him on the floor if I let you, and +then he'd break, you know."</p> + +<p>Silvio was kneeling up on the window-seat by Peter's side, taking an +interest in the doings of the street.</p> + +<p>Peggy said, "Well, Larry, what's the news of the great world?"</p> + +<p>"It's raining," said Silvio, who had something of the mournful timbre of +Hilary's voice in his.</p> + +<p>Peggy said, "Oh, darling, be more interesting! I'm horribly afraid you're +going to grow up obvious, Larry, and that will never do. What else is it +doing?"</p> + +<p>"There's a cat in the rain," said Silvio, flattening his nose against the +blurred glass, and manifestly inclined to select the sadder aspects of +the world's news for retail. That tendency too, perhaps, he inherited +from Hilary.</p> + +<p>Presently he added, "There's a taxi coming up the street," and Peggy +placed Thomas on Peter's knees and came to the window to look. When she +had looked she said to Peter, "It must be nearly six o'clock" (the clock +gained seventeen minutes a day, so that the time was always a matter for +nicer calculation than Peggy could usually afford to give it); "and if +Hilary's got flu, I should think Tommy'd be best out of the room.... I +haven't easily the time to put him to bed this evening, really."</p> + +<p>Peter accepted the suggestion and conveyed his son from the room. As he +did so, someone knocked at the front door, and Peggy ran downstairs to +open it.</p> + +<p>She let in the unhappy noise of the rain and a tall, slim person in a fur +coat.</p> + +<p>Peggy was surprised, and (most rarely) a little embarrassed. It wasn't +the person she had looked for. She even, in her unwonted confusion, let +the visitor speak first.</p> + +<p>He said, "Is Mr. Peter Margerison in?" frostily, giving her no sign of +recognition.</p> + +<p>"He is not, Lord Evelyn," said Peggy, hastily. "That is, he is busy with +the baby upstairs. Will I take him a message?"</p> + +<p>"I shall be glad if you will tell him I have called to see him."</p> + +<p>"I will, Lord Evelyn. Will you come up to the drawing-room while I get +him?"</p> + +<p>Peggy led the way, drawing meanwhile on the resources of a picturesque +imagination.</p> + +<p>"He may be a little while before he can leave the baby, Lord Evelyn. Poor +mite, it's starved with hunger, the way it cries and cries and won't +leave off, and Peter has to cheer it."</p> + +<p>Lord Evelyn grunted. The steep stairs made him a little short of breath, +and not sympathetic.</p> + +<p>"And even," went on Peggy, stopping outside the drawing-room door, +"even when it does get a feed of milk, it's to-day from one kind of cow, +to-morrow from another. Why, you'd think all the cows in England, turn +and turn about, supplied that poor child with milk; and you know they get +pains from changing. It's not right, poor baby; but what can we and his +father do? The same with his scraps of clothes—this weather he'd a right +to be having new warm ones—but there he lies crying for the cold in his +little thin out-grown things; it brings the tears to one's eyes to see +him. And he's not the only one, either. His father's just out of an +illness, and keeps a cough on the chest because he can't afford a warm +waistcoat or the only cough-mixture that cures him.... But Peter +wouldn't like me to be telling you all this. Will you go in there, +Lord Evelyn, and wait?"</p> + +<p>She paused another moment, her hand on the handle.</p> + +<p>"You'll not tell Peter I told you anything. He'd not be pleased. He'll +not breathe a word to you of it himself—indeed, he'll probably say it's +not so."</p> + +<p>Lord Evelyn made no comment; he merely tapped his cane on the floor; he +seemed impatient to have the door opened.</p> + +<p>"And," added Peggy, "if ever you chanced to be offering him anything—I +mean, you might be for giving him a birthday present, or a Xmas present +or something sometime—you'd do best to put it as a gift to the baby, or +he'll never take it."</p> + +<p>Having concluded her diplomacy, she opened the door and ushered him into +the room, where Hilary sat with his headache and the children played +noisily at horses.</p> + +<p>"Lord Evelyn Urquhart come to see Peter," called Peggy into the room. +"Come along out of that, children, and keep yourselves quiet somewhere."</p> + +<p>She bundled them out and shut the door on Lord Evelyn and Hilary.</p> + +<p>Hilary rose dizzily to his feet and bowed. Lord Evelyn returned the +courtesy distantly, and stood by the door, as far as possible from his +host.</p> + +<p>"This is good of you," said Hilary, "to come and see us in our fallen +estate. Do sit down."</p> + +<p>Lord Evelyn, putting his glass into his eye and turning it upon Hilary as +if in astonishment at his impertinence in addressing him, said curtly, "I +came to see your half-brother. I had not the least intention, nor the +least desire, to see anyone else whatever; nor have I now."</p> + +<p>"Quite so," said Hilary, his teeth chattering with fever. (His +temperature, though he would never know, as Peter had broken the +thermometer, must be anyhow a hundred and three, he was sure.) "Quite +so. But that doesn't affect my gratitude to you. Peter's friends are +mine. I must thank you for remembering Peter."</p> + +<p>Lord Evelyn, presumably not seeing the necessity, was silent.</p> + +<p>"We have not met," Hilary went on, passing his hot hand over his fevered +brow, where the headache ran all round like a hot metal band, "for a very +long time, Lord Evelyn; if we put aside that momentary encounter at +Astleys last year." Hilary did put that aside, rather hastily, and went +on, "Apart from that, we have not met since we were both in Venice, +nearly two years ago. Lord Evelyn, I have often wished to tell you +how very deeply I have regretted certain events that came between us +there. I think there is a great deal that I might explain to you...."</p> + +<p>Lord Evelyn, with averted face, said, "Be good enough to be silent, sir. +I have no desire to hear any of your remarks. I have come merely to see +your half-brother."</p> + +<p>"Of course," said Hilary, who was sensitive, "if you take that line, +there is nothing to be said between you and me."</p> + +<p>Lord Evelyn acknowledged this admission with a slight inclination of the +head.</p> + +<p>"Nothing whatever, sir."</p> + +<p>So there was silence, till Peter came in, pale and sickly and +influenzaish, but with a smile for Lord Evelyn. It was extraordinarily +nice of Lord Evelyn, he thought, to have come all the way to Brook Street +in the rain to see him.</p> + +<p>Lord Evelyn looked at him queerly, intently, out of his short-sighted +eyes as they shook hands.</p> + +<p>"I wish to talk to you," he remarked, with meaning.</p> + +<p>Hilary took the hint, looked proud, said, "I see that my room is +preferred to my company," and went away.</p> + +<p>When he had gone, Peter said, "Do sit down," but Lord Evelyn took no +notice of that. He had come to see Peter in his need, but he had not +forgiven him, and he would remain standing in his house. Peter had once +hurt him so badly that the mere sight of him quickened his breath and +flushed his cheek. He tapped his cane impatiently against his grey spats.</p> + +<p>"You're ill," he said, accusingly.</p> + +<p>"Oh, I've only had flu," said Peter; "I'm all right now."</p> + +<p>"You're ill," Lord Evelyn repeated. "Don't contradict me, sir. You're +ill; you're in want; and you're bringing up a baby on insufficient diet. +What?"</p> + +<p>"Not a bit," said Peter. "I am not in want, nor is Thomas. Thomas' diet +is so sufficient that I'm often afraid he'll burst with it."</p> + +<p>Lord Evelyn said, "You're probably lying. But if you're not, why d'ye +countenance your sister-in-law's begging letters? You're a hypocrite, +sir. But that's nothing I didn't know before, you may say. Well, you're +right there."</p> + +<p>Lord Evelyn's anger was working up. He hadn't known it would be so +difficult to talk to Peter and remain calm.</p> + +<p>"You want to make a fool of me again," he broke out, "so you join in a +lying letter and bring me here on false pretences. At least, I suppose it +was really Lucy you thought to bring. You play on Lucy's soft heart, +knowing you can squeeze money out of her—and so you can afford to say +you've no use for mine. Is that it?"</p> + +<p>Peter said, dully looking at his anger as at an ancient play re-staged, +"I don't know what you're talking about. I know nothing of any letter. +And you don't suppose I should take your money, or Lucy's either. Why +should I? I don't want money."</p> + +<p>Lord Evelyn was pacing petulantly up and down the shabby carpet, waving +his cane as he walked.</p> + +<p>"Oh, you know nothing of any letter, don't you. Well, ask your +sister-in-law, then; ask that precious brother of yours. Haven't you +always chosen to hang on to them and join in their dirty tricks? And +now you turn round and say you know nothing of their doings; a pretty +story.... Now look here, Mr. Peter Margerison, you've asked for money +and you shall take it, d'ye see?"</p> + +<p>Peter flung at him, in a queer and quite new hot bitterness and anger (it +was perhaps the result of influenza, which has strange after effects). +"You've no right to come here and say these things to me. I didn't want +you to come; I never asked you to; and now I never want to see you again. +Please go, Lord Evelyn."</p> + +<p>Lord Evelyn paused in his walk, and stood looking at him for a moment, +his lips parted to speak, his hands clasped behind him over the gold head +of his cane.</p> + +<p>Then, into the ensuing silence, came Lucy, small and pale and wet in her +grey furs, and stood like a startled kitten, her wide eyes turning from +one angry face to the other.</p> + +<p>Peter said to her, in a voice she had never heard from him before, "So +you've come too."</p> + +<p>Lord Evelyn tittered disagreeably. "Didn't expect her, of course, did +you. So unlikely she'd come, after getting a letter like that.... I +suppose you're wondering, Lucy, what I'm doing <i>dans cette galère</i>."</p> + +<p>"No," said Lucy, "I wasn't. I know. You've come to see Peter, like me."</p> + +<p>He laughed again. "Yes, that's it. Like you. And now he pretends he won't +take the money he asked for, Lucy. Won't be beholden to me at any price. +Perhaps he was waiting for you."</p> + +<p>Lucy was looking at Peter, who looked so ill and so strange and new. +Never before had he looked at her like that, with hard eyes. Peter was +angry; the skies had fallen.</p> + +<p>She said, and put out her hands to him, "What's the matter, Peter? +Don't ... don't look like that.... Oh, you're ill; do sit down; it's +so stupid to stand about."</p> + +<p>Peter said, his own hands hanging at his sides, "Do you mind going away, +both of you. I don't think I want to talk to either of you to-day.... I +suppose you've brought money to give me too, Lucy, have you?"</p> + +<p>Lucy coloured faintly over her small pale face.</p> + +<p>"I won't give you anything you don't like, Peter. But I may give a +present to Thomas, mayn't I?"</p> + +<p>"No," said Peter, without interest or emotion.</p> + +<p>So they stood in silence for a moment, facing each other, Lucy +full-handed and impotent before Peter whose empty hands hung closed and +unreceiving; Lucy and Peter, who had once been used to go shares and to +give and take like two children, and who could give and take no more; and +in the silence something oddly vibrated, so that Lord Evelyn, the +onlooker, abruptly moved and spoke.</p> + +<p>"Come home, Lucy. He's told us he'll have none of us."</p> + +<p>Lucy still stood pleading, like a child; then, at Lord Evelyn's touch +on her arm, she suddenly began to cry, again like a child, helpless and +conquered.</p> + +<p>At her tears Peter turned away sharply, and walked to the window.</p> + +<p>"Please go," he said. "Please go."</p> + +<p>They went, Lucy quietly crying, and Lord Evelyn, suddenly become oddly +gentle, comforting her.</p> + +<p>At the door he paused for a moment, looked round at Peter, hesitated, +took a step back towards him, began to say something.</p> + +<p>"Peter...."</p> + +<p>Then Peggy came in, followed by Hilary. Lord Evelyn shut his lips +lightly, bowed, and followed Lucy downstairs. Peggy went after them +to let them out.</p> + +<p>Hilary flung himself into a chair.</p> + +<p>"Well, Peter? Well?"</p> + +<p>Peter turned round from the window, and Hilary started at his face.</p> + +<p>"My dear boy, what on earth is the matter?"</p> + +<p>Then Peggy came in, her eyes full of dismayed vexation, but laughter +twitching at her lips.</p> + +<p>"Oh, my dears! What a mood they're in! Lord Evelyn looked at me to +destroy me—and Lucy crying as if she'd never stop; I tried to make her +take some sal volatile, but he wouldn't let her, but wisked her into her +carriage and shut the door in my face. Mercy, what temper!"</p> + +<p>The last words may not have had exclusive reference to Lord Evelyn, as +Peggy was now looking at Peter in some astonishment and alarm. When +Peter looked angry, everyone was so surprised that they wanted to take +his temperature and send him to bed. Peggy would have liked to do that +now, but really didn't dare.</p> + +<p>What had come to the child, she wondered?</p> + +<p>"What did they talk about, Peter? A funny thing their coming within half +an hour of each other like that, wasn't it. And I never thought to see +Lord Evelyn here, I must say. Now I wonder why was Lucy crying and he so +cross?"</p> + +<p>Peter left her to wonder that, and said merely, "Once for all, I won't +have it. You shall <i>not</i> beg for money and bring my name into it. +It's—it's horrid."</p> + +<p>With a weak, childish word his anger seemed to explode and die away. +After all, no anger of Peter's could last long. And somehow, illogically, +his anger here was more with the Urquharts than with the Margerisons +and most with Lucy. One is, of course, most angry, with those who have +most power to hurt.</p> + +<p>Suddenly feeling rather ill, Peter collapsed into a chair.</p> + +<p>Peggy, coming and kneeling by him, half comforting, half reproaching, +said, "Oh, Peter darling, you haven't been refusing money, when you know +you and Tommy and all of us need it so much?"</p> + +<p>Hilary said, "Peter has no regard whatever for what we all need. He +simply doesn't care. I suppose now we shall never be able to afford even +a new thermometer to replace the one Peter broke. Again, why should +it matter to Peter? He took his own temperature all through his illness, +and I suppose that is all he cares about. I wonder how much fever I have +at this moment. Is my pulse very wild, Peggy?"</p> + +<p>"It is not," said Peggy, soothingly, without feeling it. "And I daresay +Peter's temperature is as high as yours now, if we knew; he looks like +it. Well, Peter, it was stupid of you, my dear, wasn't it, to say no to +a present and hurt their feelings that way when they'd been so good as +to come in the rain and all. If they offer it again—"</p> + +<p>Peter said, "They won't. They won't come here again, ever. They've done +with us, I'm glad to say, and we with them. So you needn't write to them +again; it will be no use."</p> + +<p>Peter was certainly cross, Peggy and Hilary looked at him in surprised +disapproval. How silly. Where was the use of having friends if one +treated them in this unkind, proud way?</p> + +<p>"Peter," said Hilary, "has obviously decided that we are not fit to have +anything to do with his grand friends. No doubt he is well-advised—" he +looked bitterly round the unkempt room—"and we will certainly take the +hint."</p> + +<p>Then Peter recovered himself and said, "Oh don't be an ass, Hilary," and +laughed dejectedly, and went up to finish putting Thomas to bed.</p> + +<p>In the carriage that rolled through the rain from Brook Street to Park +Lane, Lord Evelyn Urquhart was saying, "This is the last time; the very +last time. Never again do I try to help any Margerison. First I had to +listen for full five minutes to the lies of that woman; then to the +insufferable remarks of that cad, that swindler, Hilary Margerison, who +I firmly believe had an infectious disease which I have no doubt caught," +(he was right; he had caught it). "Then in comes Peter and insults me to +my face and tells me to clear out of the house. By all means; I have done +so, and it will be for good. What, Lucy? There, don't cry, child; they +an't worth a tear between the lot of 'em."</p> + +<p>But Lucy cried. She, like Peter, was oddly not herself to-day, and cried +and cried.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XVIII" id="CHAPTER_XVIII"></a>CHAPTER XVIII</h2> + +<h3>THE BREAKING-POINT</h3> + + +<p>The boarding-house suddenly ceased to be. Its long illness ended in +natural death. There was a growing feeling among the boarders that no +self-respecting person could remain with people whose financial affairs +were in the precarious condition of the Margerisons'—people who couldn't +pay the butcher, and lived on ill-founded expectations of subsidies. As +two years ago the Margerisons had been thrown roughly out of the +profession of artistic experts, so now the doors of the boarding-house +world were shut upon them. Boarders are like that; intensely respectable.</p> + +<p>All the loosed dogs of ill-fortune seemed to be yelping at the +Margerisons' heels at once. Hilary, when he recovered from his influenza +and went out to look for jobs, couldn't find one. Again and again he was +curtly refused employment, by editors and others. Every night he came +home a little more bitter than the day before. Peter too, while he lay +mending of his breakages, received a letter from the place of business he +adorned informing him that it would not trouble him further. He had never +been much use to it; he had been taken on at Leslie's request and given a +trial; but it could not last for ever, as Peter fair-mindedly admitted.</p> + +<p>"Well," he commented, "I suppose one must do something else, eventually. +But I shall put off reflecting on that till I can move about more +easily."</p> + +<p>Hilary said, "We are being hounded out of London as we were hounded out +of Venice. It is unbearable. What remains?"</p> + +<p>"Nothing, that I can see at the moment," said Peter, laughing weakly.</p> + +<p>"Ireland," said Peggy suddenly. "Let's go there. Dublin's worth a dozen +of this hideous old black dirty place. You could get work on 'The +Nationalist,' Hilary, I do believe, for the sub-editorship's just been +given to my cousin Larry Callaghan. Come along to the poor old country, +and we'll try our luck again."</p> + +<p>"Dublin I believe to be an unspeakable place to live in," said Hilary, +but mainly from habit. "Still, I presume one must live somewhere, so ..."</p> + +<p>He turned to Peter. "Where shall you and Thomas live?"</p> + +<p>Peter flushed slightly. He had supposed that he and Thomas were also to +live in the unspeakable Dublin.</p> + +<p>"Oh, we haven't quite made up our minds. I must consult Thomas about it."</p> + +<p>"But," broke in Peggy, "of course you're coming with us, my dear. What do +you mean? You're not surely going to desert us now, Peter?"</p> + +<p>Peter glanced at Hilary. Hilary said, pushing his hair, with his restless +gesture, from his forehead, "Really, Peggy, we can't drag Peter about +after us all our lives; it's hardly fair on him to involve him in all +our disasters, when he has more than enough of his own."</p> + +<p>"Indeed and he has. Peter's mischancier than you are, Hilary, on the +whole, and I will not leave him and Tommy to get lost or broken by +themselves. Don't be so silly, Peter; of course you're coming with us."</p> + +<p>"I think," said Peter, "that Thomas and I will perhaps stay in London. +You see, <i>I</i> can't, probably, get work on 'The Nationalist' and it's +doubtful what I could do in Dublin. I suppose I can get work of a sort +in London; enough to provide Thomas with milk, though possibly not all +from one cow."</p> + +<p>"I daresay. And who'd look after the mite, I'd like to know, while you're +earning his milk?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, the landlady, I should think. Everyone likes Thomas; he's remarkably +popular."</p> + +<p>Afterwards Hilary said to Peggy, "Really, Peggy, I see no reason why +Peter should be dragged about with us in the future. The joint <i>ménage</i> +has not, in the past, been such a success that we need want to perpetuate +it. In fact, though, of course, it is pleasant to have Peter in the +house...."</p> + +<p>"Indeed it is, the darling," put in Peggy.</p> + +<p>"One can't deny that disasters have come upon us extraordinarily fast +since he came to live with us in Venice two years ago. First he +discovered things that annoyed him in my private affairs, which was +extremely disagreeable for all of us, and really he was rather +unnecessarily officious about that; in fact, I consider that it was owing +largely to the line he took that things reached their final very trying +<i>dénouement</i>. Since then disaster upon disaster has come upon us; Peter's +unfortunate marriage, and consequent serious expenses, including the +child now left upon his hands (really, you know, that was an exceedingly +stupid step that Peter took; I tried to dissuade him at the time, but of +course it was no use). And he is so very frequently ill; so am I, you +will say"—(Peggy didn't, because Hilary wasn't, as a matter of fact, ill +quite so often as he believed)—"but two crocks in a household are twice +as inconvenient as one. And now there has been this unpleasant jar with +the Urquharts. Peter, by his rudeness to them, has finally severed the +connection, and we can hope for nothing from that quarter in future. And +I am not sure that I choose to have living with me a much younger brother +who has influential friends of his own in whom he insists that we shall +have neither part nor lot. I strongly object to the way Peter spoke to us +on that occasion; it was extremely offensive."</p> + +<p>"Oh, don't be such a goose, Hilary. The boy only lost his temper for a +moment, and I'm sure that happens seldom enough. And as to the rest of +it, I don't like the way you speak of him, as if he was the cause of our +mischances, and as if his being so mischancey himself wasn't a reason why +we should all stick together, and him with that scrap of a child, too; +though I will say Peter's a handier creature with a child than anyone +would think. I suppose it's the practice he's had handling other costly +things that break easy.... Well, have it your own way, Hilary. Only mind, +if Peter <i>wants</i> to come with us, he surely shall. I'm not going to leave +him behind like a left kitten. And I'd love to have him, for he makes +sunshine in the house when things are blackest."</p> + +<p>"Lately Peter has appeared to me to be rather depressed," said Hilary, +and Peggy too had perceived that this was so. It was something so new in +Peter that it called for notice.</p> + +<p>There was needed no further dispute between Peggy and Hilary, for Peter +said that he and Thomas preferred to stay in London.</p> + +<p>"I can probably find a job of some sort to keep us. I might with luck +get a place as shop-walker. That always looks a glorious life. You merely +walk about and say, 'Yes, madam? This way for hose, madam.' Something +to live on and nothing to do, as the poet says. But I expect they are +difficult places to get, without previous experience. Short of that, +I could be one of the men round stations that open people's cab doors +and take the luggage out; or even a bus-conductor, who knows? Oh, +there are lots of openings. But in Dublin I feel my talents might be +lost.... Thomas and I will move into more modest apartments, and go in +for plain living and high thinking."</p> + +<p>"You poor little dears," said Peggy, and kissed both of them. "Well, +it'll be plain living for the lot of us, that's obvious, and lucky too +to get that.... I'd love to have you two children with us, but ..."</p> + +<p>But Peter, to whom other people's minds were as books that who runs may +read, had no intention of coming with them. That faculty of intuition of +Peter's had drawbacks as well as advantages. He knew, as well as if +Hilary had said so, that Hilary considered their life together a +disastrous series of mishaps, largely owing to Peter, and that he did not +desire to continue it. He knew precisely what was Denis Urquhart's point +of view and state of feelings towards himself and his family, and how +unbridgeable that gulf was. He knew why Lucy was stopping away, and +would stop away (for if other people's thoughts were to him as pebbles in +running water, hers were pebbles seen white and lucid in a still, clear +pool). And he knew very well that he relieved Peggy's kind heart when he +said he and Thomas would stop in London; for to Peggy anything was better +than to worry her poor old Hilary more than need be.</p> + +<p>So, before March was out, about St. Cuthbert's day, in fact, Hilary +Margerison and his family left England for a more distressful country, +to seek their fortunes fresh, and Peter and his family sought modest +apartments in a little street behind St. Austin's Church, where the +apartments are very modest indeed.</p> + +<p>"Are they too modest for you, Thomas?" Peter asked dubiously. "And do you +too much hate the Girl?"</p> + +<p>The Girl was the landlady's daughter, and undertook for a small +consideration to look after Thomas while Peter was out, and feed him at +suitable intervals. Thomas and Peter did rather hate her, for she was a +slatternly girl, matching her mother and her mother's apartments, and +didn't always take her curlers off till the evening, and said "Boo" to +Thomas, merely because he was young—a detestable habit, Peter and +Thomas considered. Peter had to make a great deal of sensible +conversation to Thomas, to make up.</p> + +<p>"I'm sorry," Peter apologised, "but, you see, Thomas, it's all we can +afford. You don't earn anything at all, and I only earn a pound a week, +which is barely enough to keep you in drink. I don't deserve even that, +for I don't address envelopes well; but I suppose they know it's such a +detestable job that they haven't the face to give me less."</p> + +<p>Peter was addressing envelopes because a Robinson relative had given him +the job, and he hadn't the nerve to refuse it. He couldn't well refuse +it, because of Thomas. Uncompanioned by Thomas he would probably have +chosen instead to sweep a crossing or play a barrel-organ, or stand at +a street corner with outstretched hat (though this last would only have +done for a summer engagement, as Peter didn't like the winds that play +round street corners in winter). But Thomas was very much there, and had +to be provided for; so Peter copied letters and addressed envelopes and +earned twenty shillings weekly, and out of it paid for Thomas's drink and +Thomas's Girl and his own food, and beds and a sitting-room and fires +and laundry for both, and occasional luxuries in the way of wooden +animals for Thomas to play with. So they were not extremely poor; they +were respectably well-to-do. For Thomas's sake, Peter supposed it was +worth while not to be extremely poor, even though it meant addressing +envelopes and living in a great grey prison-house of a city, where one +only surmised the first early pushings of the spring beyond the +encompassing gloom.</p> + +<p>Peter used to tell Thomas about that, in order that he might know +something of the joyous world beyond the walls. He told Thomas in March, +taking time by the forelock, about the early violets that were going some +time to open blue eyes in the ditches by the roads where the spring winds +walk; about the blackthorn that would suddenly make a white glory of the +woods; about the green, sticky budding of the larches, and the keen sweet +smell of them, and the damp fragrance of the roaming wind that would blow +over river-flooded fields, smelling of bonfires and wet earth. He took +him through the seasons, telling him of the blown golden armies of the +daffodils that marched out for Easter, and the fragrant white glory of +the may; and the pale pink stars of the hedge-roses, and the yellow joy +of buttercup fields wherein cows stand knee-deep and munch, in order to +give Thomas sweet white milk.</p> + +<p>"Ugh," said Thomas, making a face, and Peter answered, "Yes, I know; +sometimes they come upon an onion-flower and eat that, and that's not +nice, of course. But mostly it's grass and buttercups and clover." Then +he told him of hot July roads, where the soft white dust lies, while the +horses and the cows stand up to their middles in cool streams beneath the +willows and switch their tails, and the earth dreams through the year's +hot noon; and of August, the world's welfare and the earth's warming-pan, +and how, in the fayre rivers, swimming is a sweet exercise. "And my +birthday comes then. Oh, 'tis the merry time, wherein honest neighbours +make good cheer, and God is glorified in his blessings on the earth. +Then cometh September, Thomas"—Peter was half talking, half reading out +of a book he had got to amuse Thomas—"then cometh September, and then he +(that's you, Thomas) doth freshly beginne to garnish his house and make +provision of needfull things for to live in winter, which draweth very +nere.... There are a few nice things in September; ripe plums and pears +and nuts—(no, nuts aren't nice, because our teeth aren't good, are they; +at least mine aren't, and you've only got one and a half); but anyhow, +plums, and a certain amount of yellow sunshine, and Thomas's birthday. +But on the whole it's too near the end of things; and in briefe, I thus +conclude of it, I hold it the Winter's forewarning and the Summer's +farewell. Adieu.... We won't pursue the year further, my dear; the rest +is silence and impenetrable gloom, anyhow in this corner of the world, +and doesn't bear thinking about."</p> + +<p>Thus did Peter talk to Thomas of an evening, when they sat together after +tea over the fire.</p> + +<p>Sometimes he told him news of the world of men. One evening he said to +him, very gently and pitifully, "Dear old man, your mother's dead. For +her sake, one's glad, I suppose. You and I must try to look at it from +her point of view. She's escaped from a poor business. Some day I'll read +you the letter she wrote to you and me as she lay dying; but not yet, for +I never read you sad things, do I? But some day you may be glad to know +that she had thoughts for you at the last. She was sorry she left us, +Thomas; horribly, dreadfully sorry.... I wish she hadn't been. I wish +she could have gone on being happy till the end. It was my fault that she +did it, and it didn't even make her happy. And I suppose it killed her at +the last; or would she anyhow have escaped that way before long? But I +took more care of her than he did.... And now she'll never come back to +us. I've thought sometimes, Thomas, that perhaps she would; that perhaps +she would get tired of him, so tired that she would leave him and come +back to us, and then you'd have had a mother to do for you instead of +only me and the Girl. Poor little Thomas; you'll never have a mother now. +I'm sorry, sorry, sorry about it. Sorry for you, and sorry for her, and +sorry for all of us. It's a pitiful world, Thomas, it seems. I wonder how +you're going to get through it."</p> + +<p>Never before had he talked to Thomas like that. He had been used to speak +to him of new-burnisht joys and a world of treasure. But of late Peter +had been conscious of increasing effort in being cheerful before Thomas. +It was as if the little too much that breaks had been laid upon him and +under it he was breaking. For the first time he was seeing the world not +as a glorious treasure-place full of glad things for touch and sight and +hearing, full of delightful people and absurd jokes, but as a grey and +lonely sea through which one drifted rudderless towards a lee shore. He +supposed that there was, somewhere, a lee shore; a place where the winds, +having blown their uttermost, ceased to blow, and where wrecked things +were cast up at last broken beyond all mending and beyond all struggling, +to find the peace of the utterly lost. He had not got there yet; he and +his broken boat were struggling in the grey cold waters, which had swept +all his cargo from him, bale by bale. From him that hath not shall indeed +be taken away even that which he hath.</p> + +<p>It was Thomas who caused Peter to think of these things newly; Thomas, +who was starting life with so poor a heritage. For Thomas, so like +himself, Peter foresaw the same progressive wreckage. Thomas too, having +already lost a mother, would lose later all he loved; he would give to +some friend all he was and had, and the friend would drop him in the mud +and leave him there, and the cold bitterness as of death would go over +Thomas's head. He would, perhaps, love a woman too, and the woman would +leave him quite alone, not coming near him in his desolation, because he +loved her. He would also lose his honour, his profession, and the +beautiful things he loved to handle and play with. "And then, when you've +lost everything, and perhaps been involved in some of my disgraces, +you'll think that at least you and I can stick together and go under +together and help each other a little. And I daresay you'll find that +I shall say, 'No, I'm going off to Ireland, or Italy, or somewhere; I've +had enough of you, and you can jolly well sink or swim by yourself'—so +you see you won't have even me to live for in the end, just when you want +me most. That's the sort of thing that happens.... Oh, what chance have +you?" said Peter very bitterly, huddled, elbows on knees, over the chilly +fire, while Thomas slumbered in a shawl on the rug.</p> + +<p>Bitterness was so strange in Peter, so odd and new, that Thomas was +disturbed by it, and woke and wailed, as if his world was tumbling about +his ears.</p> + +<p>Peter too felt it strange and new, and laughed a little at it and himself +as he comforted Thomas. But his very laughter was new and very dreary. He +picked Thomas up in his arms and held him close, a warm little whimpering +bundle. Then it was as if the touch of the small live thing that was his +own and had no one in the world but him to fend for it woke in him a new +instinct. There sprang up in him swiftly, new-born out of the travail of +great bitterness, a sharp anger against life, against fate, against the +whole universe of nature and man. To lose and lose and lose—how that +goes on and on through a lifetime! But at last it seems that the limit is +reached, something snaps and breaks, and the loser rises up, philosopher +no more, to take and grasp and seize. The lust to possess, to wring +something for Thomas and himself out of life that had torn from them so +much—it sprang upon him like a wild beast, and fastened deep fangs into +his soul and will.</p> + +<p>Outside, a small April wind stirred the air of the encompassing city, a +faint breath from a better world, seeming to speak of life and hope and +new beginnings.</p> + +<p>Peter, laying Thomas gently on a chair, went to the open window and leant +out, looking into the veil of the unhappy streets that hid an exquisite +world. Exquisiteness was surely there, as always. Mightn't he too, he and +Thomas, snatch some of it for themselves? The old inborn lust for things +concrete, lovely things to handle and hold, caught Peter by the throat. +In that hour he could have walked without a scruple into an empty house +or shop and carried away what he could of its beauties, and brought them +home to Thomas, saying, "Anyhow, here's something for us to go on with." +He was in the mood in which some people take to drink, only Peter didn't +like any drinks except non-alcoholic ones; or to reckless gambling, only +he didn't find gambling amusing; or to some adventure of love, only to +Peter love meant one thing only, and that was beyond his reach.</p> + +<p>But when he had put Thomas to bed, in his little common cheap night-shirt, +he went out into the streets with his weekly earnings in his pockets and +spent them. He spent every penny he had. First he went to a florist's and +bought daffodils, in great golden sheaves. Then he went to a toyshop and +got a splendid family of fluffy beasts, and a musical box, and a Noah's +Ark, and a flute. He had spent all his money by then, so he pawned his +watch and signet ring and bought Thomas some pretty cambric clothes and +a rocking cradle. He had nothing else much to pawn. But he badly wanted +some Japanese paintings to put in the place of the pictures that at +present adorned the sitting-room. Thomas and he must have something nice +and gay to look at, instead of the Royal Family and the Monarch of the +Glen and "Grace Sufficient" worked in crewels. So he went into a shop in +Holborn and chose some paintings, and ordered them to be sent up, and +said, "Please enter them to me," so firmly that they did. Having done +that once, he repeated it at several other shops, and sometimes they +obeyed him and sometimes said that goods could not be sent up without +pre-payment. Pre-payment (or, indeed, as far as Peter could look forward, +post-payment) being out of the question, those goods had to be left where +they were. But Peter, though handicapped by shabby attire, had an +engaging way with him, and most shopmen are trustful and obliging. If +they lost by the transaction, thought Peter recklessly, it was their turn +to lose, not his. It was his turn to acquire, and he had every intention +of doing so. He had a glorious evening, till the shops shut. Then he went +home, and found that the daffodils had come, and he filled the room with +them, converting its dingy ugliness into a shining glory. Then he took +down all the horrible pictures and texts and stacked them behind the +sofa, awaiting the arrival of the Japanese paintings. He thought Thomas +would like the paintings as much as he did himself. Their room in future +should be a bright and pleasant place, fit for human beings to live in. +He cleared the chimney-piece of its horrid, tinkling ornaments to leave +space for his brown pottery jars full of daffodils. He put the ornaments +with the pictures behind the sofa, and when the Girl came in with his +supper requested her at her leisure to remove them.</p> + +<p>"I have been getting some new pictures, you see," he told her, and was +annoyed at the way her round eyes widened. Why shouldn't he get as many +new pictures as he chose, without being gaped at?</p> + +<p>There was more gaping next day, when his purchases were sent up. He had +warned his landlady and the Girl beforehand, that they might not tell the +messengers it must be a mistake and send them away, on what would, no +doubt be their stupid and impertinent impulse. So they gaped and took +them in, and Peter hurried back early from his work and fetched Thomas +in to watch him open parcels and admire the contents. He spread bright +rugs over the horse-hair sofa and chairs, and flung big soft cushions +about them, and said "Hurrah! The first time I've been really comfortable +since I left Cambridge." Then he bathed Thomas and put him into a new +little soft cambric night-shirt, and put him to bed in the rocking-cradle. +Thomas was delighted with it all. He had no doubt inherited Peter's +love of all things bright and beautiful, and now for the first time he +had them.</p> + +<p>"That's more the style, isn't it, old man?" said Peter, stretching +himself among cushions in the arm-chair. Thomas agreed that it was, and +the two epicureans took their ease among the pleasures of the senses.</p> + +<p>"What next?" Peter wondered. "We must have more things still, mustn't we? +Nice things of all sorts; not only the ones we can buy. But we must begin +with the ones we can buy.... Mrs. Baker will have to wait for her rent +for a time; I can't spare any for that.... I've a good mind, Thomas, to +take a whole holiday; a long one. Chuck the envelopes and take to living +like a lord, on tick. It's wonderful how far tick will carry you, if you +try. Muffins for tea, you see, Thomas, only you can't have any. Well, +what's the matter? Why shouldn't I have muffins for tea? You've got +milk, haven't you, and I'm not getting a share in that. Don't be +grudging.... But we want more than muffins and milk, Thomas; and more +than cushions and daffodils and nice pictures. We want a good time. We +want friends; we want someone to love us; we want a holiday. If Leslie +was in England I'd go and say, 'Thomas and I are coming to stay with you +for a time, and you've just got to fork out supplies for us and let us +spend them.' Leslie would do it, too. But people are always away when +one wants them most.... Oh, hang it all, Thomas, I'm not going on with +those horrible envelopes; I'm not. I'm going to do things I like. Why +shouldn't I? Why <i>shouldn't</i> I? Lots of people do; all the best people. +I shall give notice to-morrow. No, I shan't; I shall just not turn up, +then I shan't be bothered with questions.... And we're not going on with +the friends we have here—Mrs. Baker, and the Girl, and the other +envelope-gummers. No; we're going to insist on having nice amusing +friends to play with; friends who are nicer than we are. The Girl isn't +so nice, not by a long way. Rodney is; but he's too busy to be bothered +with us much. We want friends of leisure. We will have them; we <i>will</i>. +Why should we be chucked out and left outside people's doors, just +because they're tired of us? The thing that matters is that we're not +tired of them.... To-morrow, Thomas, you and I are going down to a place +called Astleys, in Berkshire, to visit some friends of ours. If they +don't want us, they can just lump us; good for them. Why should they +always have only the things they want? Be ready at nine, old man, and +we'll catch a train as soon after that as may be."</p> + +<p>Thomas laughed, thinking it a splendid plan. He had never seen Astleys in +Berkshire, but he knew it to be a good place, from Peter's voice when he +mentioned it.</p> + +<p>"But I don't want to excite you so late at night," said Peter, "so don't +think any more about it, but go to sleep, if you've finished that milk. +Does your head ache? Mine does. That's the worst of weak heads; they +always ache just when things are getting interesting. But I don't care; +we're going to have things—things to like; we're going to get hold of +them somehow, if we die in gaol for it; and that's worth a headache or +two. Someone says something about having nothing and yet possessing all +things; it's one of the things with no meaning that people do say, and +that make me so angry. It ought to be having nothing and <i>then</i> +possessing all things; because that's the way it's going to be with us. +Good night, Thomas; you may go to sleep now."</p> + +<p>Thomas did so; and Peter lay on the sofa and gazed at the daffodils in +the brown jars that filled the room with light.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIX" id="CHAPTER_XIX"></a>CHAPTER XIX</h2> + +<h3>THE NEW LIFE</h3> + + +<p>Peter, with Thomas over his shoulder, stepped out of the little station +into a radiant April world. Between green, budding hedges, between +ditches where blue violets and joyous-eyed primroses peered up out of wet +grass, a brown road ran, gleaming with puddles that glinted up at the +blue sky and the white clouds that raced before a merry wind.</p> + +<p>Peter said, "Do you like it, old man? Do you?" but Thomas's heart was too +full for speech. He was seeing the radiant wonderland he had heard of; it +crowded upon him, a vivid, many-splendoured thing, and took his breath +away. There were golden ducklings by the grassy roadside, and lambs +crying to him from the fields, and cows, eating (one hoped) sweet grass, +with their little calves beside them. A glorious scene. The gay wind +caught Peter by the throat and brought sudden tears to his eyes, so long +used to looking on grey streets.</p> + +<p>He climbed over a stile in the hedge and took a field path that ran up to +a wood—the wood way, as he remembered, to Astleys. Peter had stayed at +Astleys more than once in old days, with Denis. He remembered the keen, +damp fragrance of the wood in April; the smooth stems of the beeches, +standing up out of the mossy ground, and the way the primroses glimmered, +moon-like, among the tangled ground-ivy; and the way the birds made every +budding bough rock with their clamorous delight. It was a happy wood, +full of small creatures and eager happenings and adventurous quests; +a fit road to take questers after happiness to their goal. In itself it +seemed almost the goal already, so alive was it and full of joy. Was +there need to travel further? Very vividly the impression was borne in on +Peter (possibly on Thomas too) that there was no need; that here, perhaps +round the next twist of the little brown path, was not the way but the +achievement.</p> + +<p>And, rounding the next bend, they knew it to be so; for above the path, +sitting at a beech-tree's foot among creeping ivy, with head thrown back +against the smooth grey stem, and gathered primroses in either hand, was +Lucy.</p> + +<p>Looking round at the sound of feet on the path, she saw them, and smiled +a little, not as if surprised, nor as if she had to change the direction +of her thought, but taking them into her vision of the spring woods as +if they were natural dwellers in it.</p> + +<p>Peter stood still on the path and looked up at her and smiled too. He +said, "Oh, Lucy, Thomas and I have come."</p> + +<p>She bent down towards them, and reached out her hands, dropping the +primroses, for Thomas. Peter gave her Thomas, and she laid him on her +lap, cradled on her two arms, and smiled, still silently.</p> + +<p>Peter sat down on the sloping ground just below her, his back against +another tree.</p> + +<p>"We've come to see you and Denis. You won't come to see us, so we had to +take it into our own hands. We decided, Thomas and I, two days ago, that +we weren't going on any longer in this absurd way. We're going to have a +good time. So we went out and got things—lots of lovely things. And I've +chucked my horrible work. And we've come to see you. Will Denis mind? I +can't help it if he does; we've got to do it."</p> + +<p>Lucy nodded, understanding. "I know. In thinking about you lately, I've +known it was coming to this, rather soon. I didn't quite know when. But +I knew you must have a good time."</p> + +<p>After a little while she went on, and her clear voice fell strange and +tranquil on the soft wood silence:</p> + +<p>"What I didn't quite know was whether you would come and take it—the +good time—or whether I should have to come and bring it to you. I was +going to have come, you know. I had quite settled that. It's taken me +a long time to know that I must: but I do know it now."</p> + +<p>"You didn't come," said Peter suddenly, and his hands clenched sharply +over the ivy trails and tore them out of the earth, and his face whitened +to the lips. "All this time ... you didn't come ... you kept away...." +The memory of that black emptiness shook him. He hadn't realised till it +was nearly over quite how bad it had been, that emptiness.</p> + +<p>The two pale faces, so like, were quivering with the same pain, the same +keen recognition of it.</p> + +<p>"No," Lucy whispered. "I didn't come ... I kept away."</p> + +<p>Peter said, steadying his voice, "But now you will. Now I may come to +you. Oh, I know why you kept away. You thought it would be less hard for +me if I didn't see you. But don't again. It isn't less hard. It's—it's +impossible. First Denis, then you. I can't bear it. I only want to see +you sometimes; just to feel you're there. I won't be grasping, Lucy."</p> + +<p>"Yes," said Lucy calmly, "you will. You're going to be grasping in +future. You're going to take and have.... Peter, my dear, haven't you +reached the place I've reached yet? Don't you know that between you and +me it's got to be all or nothing? I've learnt that now. So I tried +nothing. But that won't do. So now it's going to be all.... I'm coming to +Thomas and you. We three together will find nice things for one another."</p> + +<p>Peter's forehead was on his drawn-up knees. He felt her hand touch his +head, and shivered a little.</p> + +<p>"Denis," he whispered.</p> + +<p>She answered, "Denis has everything. Denis won't miss me among so much. +Denis is the luckiest, the most prosperous, the most succeeding person I +know. Peter, let me try and tell you about Denis and me."</p> + +<p>She paused for a moment, leaning her head back against the beech-tree and +looking up wide-eyed at the singing roof overhead.</p> + +<p>"You know how it was, I expect," she said, with the confidence they +always had in each other's knowledge, that saved so many words. "How +Denis came among us, among you and me and father and Felicity and our +unprosperous, dingy friends, and how he was all bright and shining and +beautiful, and I loved him, partly because he was so bright and +beautiful, and a great deal because you did, and you and I have always +loved the same things. And so I married him; and at the time, and oh, for +ever so long, I didn't understand how it was; how it was all wrong, and +how he and I didn't really belong to each other a bit, because he's in +one lot of people, and I'm in another. He's in the top lot, that gets +things, and I'm in the under lot, with you and father and all the poorer +people who don't get things, and have to find life nice in spite of it. +I'd deserted really; and father and Felicity knew I had; only I didn't +know, or I'd never have done it. I only got to understand gradjully" +(Lucy's long words were apt to be a blur, like a child's), "when I saw +what a lot of good things Denis and his friends had, and how I had to +have them too, 'cause I couldn't get away from them; and oh, Peter, I've +felt smothered beneath them! They're so heavy and so rich, and shut +people out from the rest of the world that hasn't got them, so that +they can't hear or see each other. It's like living in a palace in the +middle of dreadful slums, and never caring. Because you <i>can't</i> care, +however much you try, in the palace, the same as you can if you're down +in the middle of the poorness and the emptiness. Wasn't it Christ who +said how hardly rich men shall enter into the kingdom of heaven? And it's +harder still for them to enter into the other kingdoms, which aren't +heaven at all. It's hard for them to step out from where they are and +enter anywhere else. Peter, can anyone ever leave their world and go into +another. I have failed, you see. Denis would never even begin to try; he +wouldn't see any object. I don't believe it can be done. Except perhaps +by very great people. And we're not that. People like you and me and +Denis belong where we're born and brought up. Even for the ones who try, +to change, it's hard. And most of us don't try at all, or care ... Denis +hardly cares, really. He's generous with money; he lets me give away as +much as I like; but he doesn't care himself. Unhappiness and bad luck and +disgrace don't touch him; he doesn't want to have anything to do with +them; he doesn't like them. Even his friends, the people he likes, he +gets tired of directly they begin to go under. You know that. And it's +dreadful, Peter. I hate it, being comfortable up there and not seeing and +not hearing and not caring. Seems to me we just live to have a good time. +Well, of course, people ought to do that, it's the thing to live for, and +I usen't to mind before I was rich, and father and Felicity and you and I +had a good time together. But when you're rich and among rich people, and +have a good time not because you make it for yourself out of all the +common things that everyone shares—the sunshine and the river and the +nice things in the streets—but have a special corner of good things +marked off for you, then it gets dreadful. 'Tisn't that one thinks one +ought to be doing more for other people; I don't think I've that sort of +conscience much; only that <i>I don't belong</i>. I can't help thinking of all +the down-below people, the disreputable, unlucky people, who fail and +don't get things, and I know that's where I really belong. It's like +being born in one family and going and living in another. You never fit +in really; your proper family is calling out to you all the time. Oh, not +only because they aren't rich and lucky, but because they really suit you +best, in little ways as well as big ways. You understand them, and they +understand you. All the butlers and footmen and lady's-maids frighten me +so; I don't like telling them to do things; they're so—so solemn and +respectable. And I don't like creatures to be killed, and I don't like +eating them afterwards. But Denis and his friends and the servants and +everyone thinks it's idiotic to be a vegetarian. Denis says vegetarians +are nearly all cranks and bounders, and long-haired men or short-haired +women. Well, I can't help it; I s'pose that shows where I really and +truly belong, though I don't like short-haired women; it's so ugly, and +they talk so loud very often. And there it is again; I dislike short hair +'cause of that, but Denis dislikes it 'cause <i>it isn't done</i>. That's so +often his reason; and he means not done by his partic'lar lot of top-room +people.... So you see, Peter, I don't belong there, do I? I don't belong +any more than you do."</p> + +<p>Peter shook his head. "I never supposed you did, of course."</p> + +<p>"Well," she said next, "what you're thinking now is that Denis wants me. +He <i>doesn't</i>—not much. He's not awf'ly fond of me, Peter; I think he's +rather tired of me, 'cause I often want to do tiresome things, that +aren't done. I think he knows I don't belong. He's very kind and pleasant +always; but he'd be as happy without me, and much happier with another +wife who fitted in more. He only took me as a sort of luxury; he didn't +really need me. And you do; you and Thomas. You want me much more than he +ever did, or ever could. You want me so much that even if Denis did want +me a great deal, I should come to you, because you want me more, and +because all his life he's had the things he wanted, and now it's your +turn. 'Tisn't <i>fair</i>. Why shouldn't you have things too—you and Thomas? +Thomas and you and I can be happy together with no money and nothing else +much; we can make our own good time as we go along, if we have each +other. Oh, Peter, let's!"</p> + +<p>She bent down to him, reaching out her hands, and Thomas smiled on her +lap. So for a moment the three stayed, and the woods were hushed round +them, waiting. Then in the green roof above a riot of shrill, sweet +triumph broke the hush, and Peter leaped to his feet and laughed.</p> + +<p>"Oh, Lucy, let's. Why not? I told Thomas the day before yesterday that we +were going to have a good time now. Well, then, let's have it. Who's to +prevent it? It's our turn; it's our turn. We'll begin from now and take +things and keep them.... Oh, d'you mean it, Lucy? D'you mean you'll come +and play with us, for ever and ever?"</p> + +<p>"'Course I will," she said, simply, like a child.</p> + +<p>He fell on his knees beside her and leant on his hands and peered into +Thomas's face.</p> + +<p>"Do you hear, Thomas? She's coming; she's coming to us, for always. You +wanted her, didn't you? You wanted her nearly as much as I did, only you +didn't know it so well.... Oh, Lucy, oh, Lucy, oh, Lucy ... I've wanted +you so ..."</p> + +<p>"I've wanted you too," she said. "I haven't talked about that part of it, +'cause it's so obvious, and I knew you knew. All the time, even when I +thought I cared for Denis, I was only half a person without you. Of +course, I always knew that, without thinking much about it, from the time +we were babies. Only I didn't know it meant this; I thought it was more +like being brother and sister, and that we could both be happy just +seeing each other sometimes. It's only rather lately that I've known it +had to be everything. There's nothing at all to say about the way we +care, Peter, because it's such an old stale thing; it's always been, and +I s'pose it always will be. 'Tisn't a new, surprising, sudden thing, like +my falling in love with Denis. It's so deep, it's got root right down at +the bottom, before we can either of us remember. It's like this ivy +that's all over the ground, and out of which all the little flowers +and things grow. And when it's like that...."</p> + +<p>"Yes," said Peter, "when it's like that, there's only one way to take. +What's the good of fighting against life? We're not going to fight any +more, Thomas and I. We're going simply to grab everything we can get. +The more things the better; I always knew that. Who wants to be a +miserable Franciscan on the desert hills? It's so unutterably profane. +Here begins the new life."</p> + +<p>They sat in silence together on the creeping, earth-rooted ivy out of +which all the little flowers and things grew; and all round them the +birds sang how it was spring-time. The fever of the spring was in Peter's +blood, flowing through his veins like fire, and he knew only that life +was good and lovely and was calling to the three of them to come and live +it, to take the April paths together through green woods. The time was +not long past, though it seemed endless years ago, when he would have +liked them to be four, when he would have liked Denis to come too, +because he had so loved Denis that to hurt him and leave him would have +been unthinkable. But the time was past. Peter and Lucy had come to the +place where they couldn't share and didn't want to, and no love but one +matured. They had left civilisation, left friendship, which is part of +civilisation, behind, and knew only the primitive, selfish, human love +that demands all of body and soul. They needed no words to explain to one +another their change of view. For always they had leaped to one another's +thoughts and emotions and desires.</p> + +<p>Lucy said wistfully, after a time, "Denis will never see us again."</p> + +<p>But thoughts of Denis did not, could not, dim the radiant vision of roads +running merrily through the country of the spring.</p> + +<p>Thomas here said that it was milk-time, and Peter, who had thoughtfully +remembered to bring his bottle, produced it from his pocket and applied +it, while Lucy looked on and laughed.</p> + +<p>"In future," she said, "I shall take over that job."</p> + +<p>"I wonder," murmured Peter, "exactly what we contemplate living on. Shall +we sell boot-laces on the road, or play a barrel-organ, or what?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, anything that's nice. But I've got a little, you know. Father hadn't +much, but there was something for Felicity and me. It's seemed nothing, +compared with what I've been living on lately; but it will look quite a +lot when it's all we've got.... Father'd be glad, Peter, if he knew. He'd +say we ought to do it, I know he would. It's partly him I've been hearing +all this time, calling and calling to me to come away and live. He did so +hate fat and sweetness and all smothering things. They just bored him +dreadfully. He wouldn't ever come and stay with us, you know.... Oh, and +I've written to Felicity, telling her what I meant to do. I don't quite +know what she'll say; nobody ever does know, with Felicity.... Now I'm +going back to the house, Peter, and you and Thomas must go back too. But +first we'll settle what to do, and when to do it."</p> + +<p>It didn't take much settling, between three people who saw no +difficulties anywhere, but said simply, "Let us do this," and did it, +as children do. But such plans as they thought desirable they made, +then parted.</p> + +<p>"I shall tell Denis," said Lucy, "I must do that. I'll explain to him +all I can, and leave the rest. But not yet. I shall tell him on Sunday +night."</p> + +<p>"Yes," Peter agreed, simply, while the shadow fell again momentarily on +his vision. "You must do that, of course...."</p> + +<p>He left it at that; for Denis he had no words.</p> + +<p>Lucy got up, and laid Thomas in Peter's arms.</p> + +<p>"How much I've talked and talked, Peter. I've never talked so much +before, have I? And I s'pose I never will again. But it had to be all +said out once. I'm tired of only thinking things, even though I knew +you understood. Saying things makes them alive. They're alive now, and +always will be. So good-bye."</p> + +<p>They stood and looked at one another for a moment in silence, then turned +and took their opposite ways.</p> + +<p>Peter didn't go back to London till the late afternoon. He had things to +show Thomas on this his first day in the country. So he took him a long +walk, and Thomas sat in meadows and got a near view of cows and sheep, +and saw Peter paddle in a stream and try to catch minnows in an old tin +pot that he found.</p> + +<p>Another thing that he found, or rather that found them, was a +disreputable yellow dog. He was accompanying a tramp and his wife along +the road. When the tramp sat down and untied a handkerchief full of apple +pie and cold potatoes (tramps have delightful things to eat as a rule) +the dog came near and asked for his share, and was violently removed to +a distance by the tramp's boot. He cried and ran through the hedge and +came upon Peter and Thomas, who were sitting on the other side, in a +field. Peter looked over the hedge and said, "Is he yours?" and was told, +"Mine! No, 'e ain't. 'E's been follerin' us for miles, and the more I +kick 'im the more 'e follers. Wish someone'd pison 'im. I'm sick of 'im." +His wife, who had the weary, hopeless, utterly resigned face of some +female tramps, said, "'E'll do for 'im soon, my man will," without much +interest.</p> + +<p>"I'll take him with me," said Peter, and drew the disreputable creature +to him and gently rubbed his bruised side, and saw that he had rather a +nice face, meant to be cheerful, and friendly and hopeful eyes. Indeed, +he must be friendly and hopeful to have followed such companions so far.</p> + +<p>"Will you be our dog?" said Peter to him. "Will you come walking with us +in future, and have a little bit of whatever we get? And shall we call +you San Francesco, because you like disreputable people and love your +brother, the sun, and keep company with your little sisters, the fleas? +Very good, then. This is Thomas, and you may lick his face very gently, +but remember that he is smaller than you and has to be tenderly treated +lest he break."</p> + +<p>San Francesco stayed with them through the afternoon, and accompanied +them back to London, smuggled under a seat, because Peter couldn't afford +a ticket for him. He proved a likeable being on further acquaintance, +with a merry grin and an amused cock of the eye; obviously one who took +the world's vagaries with humorous patience. Peter conveyed him from +Paddington to Mary Street with some difficulty, and bought a bone for him +from a cat's-meat-what-orfers man, and took him up to the bright and +beautiful sitting-room. Then he told his landlady that he was about to +leave her.</p> + +<p>"It isn't that I'm not satisfied, you know," he added, fearing to hurt +her, "but I'm going to give up lodgings altogether. I'm going abroad, to +Italy, on Monday."</p> + +<p>"<i>I</i> see." Mrs. Baker saw everything in a moment. Her young gentleman had +obviously been over-spending his income (all these new things must have +cost a pretty penny), and had discovered, what many discover, that flight +was the only remedy.</p> + +<p>"About the rent," she began, "and the bills ..."</p> + +<p>Peter said, "Oh, I'll pay you the rent and the bills before I go. I +promise I will. But I can't pay much else, you know, Mrs. Baker. So when +people come to dun me, tell them I've gone no one knows where. I'm +awfully sorry about it, but I've simply no money left."</p> + +<p>His smile, as always, softened her, and she nodded.</p> + +<p>"I'll deal with 'em, sir ... I knew you was over-spending yourself, as it +were; I could have told you, but I didn't like. You'd always lived so +cheap and quiet till the day before yesterday; then all these new things +so suddenly. Ader and I said as you must 'ave come in for some money, or +else as (you'll excuse me, sir) you was touched in the 'ead."</p> + +<p>"I wasn't," said Peter. "Not in the least. I wanted the things, so I got +them. But now I come to think of it, I shan't want most of them any more, +as I'm going away, so I think I'll just return them to the shops they +came from. Of course they won't be pleased, but they'll prefer it to +losing the money <i>and</i> the things, I suppose, won't they. And we haven't +spoiled them a bit, except that cushion Francesco has just walked over, +and that can be cleaned, I expect. I had to have them, you know, just +when I wanted them; I couldn't have borne not to; but I don't really +need them any more, because I'm going to have other things now. Oh, I'm +talking too much, and you want to be cooking the supper, don't you, and +I want to put Thomas to bed."</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XX" id="CHAPTER_XX"></a>CHAPTER XX</h2> + +<h3>THE LAST LOSS</h3> + + +<p>Three days later it was Easter Day. In the evening, about half-past nine, +when Thomas lay sleeping and Peter was packing the rugs and cushions and +pictures he hadn't paid for into brown paper parcels (a tedious job), +Rodney came in. Peter hadn't seen him for some time.</p> + +<p>"What on earth," said Rodney, lighting his pipe and sitting down, "are +you doing with all that upholstery? Has someone been sending you Easter +presents? Well, I'm glad you're getting rid of them as speedily as may +be."</p> + +<p>Peter said ruefully, because he was tired of the business, "The stupid +things aren't paid for. So I'm packing them up to be sent back directly +the shops open again. I can't afford them, you see. Already most of my +belongings are in pawn."</p> + +<p>"I see." Rodney wasn't specially struck by this; it was the chronic +condition of many of his friends, who were largely of the class who pawn +their clothes on Monday and redeem them on Saturday to wear for Sunday, +and pawn them again, paying, if they can afford it, a penny extra to have +the dresses hung up so that they don't crush.</p> + +<p>"A sudden attack of honesty," Rodney commented. "Well, I'm glad, because +I don't see what you want to cumber yourself with all those cushions and +rugs for. You're quite comfortable enough without them."</p> + +<p>Peter said, "Thomas and I wanted nice things to look at. We were tired of +horse-hair and 'Grace Sufficient'. Thomas is fastidious."</p> + +<p>Rodney put a large finger on Thomas' head.</p> + +<p>"Thomas isn't such a fool.... Hullo, there's another of you." Francesco +woke and came out of his corner and laid his nose on Rodney's knee with +his confiding grin.</p> + +<p>"Yes, that's San Francesco. Rather nice, isn't he. He's coming with us +too. I called him Francesco instead of Francis that he might feel at +home in Italy."</p> + +<p>"Oh, in Italy."</p> + +<p>Peter hadn't meant to tell Rodney that, because he didn't think that +Rodney would approve, and he wanted to avoid an argument. But he had let +it out, of course; he could never keep anything in.</p> + +<p>"That's where we're going to-morrow, to seek our fortunes. Won't it be +rather good in Italy now? We don't know what we shall do when we get +there, or where we shall go; but something nice, for sure."</p> + +<p>"I'm glad," said Rodney. "It's a good country in the spring. Shall you +walk the roads with Thomas slung over your back, or what?"</p> + +<p>"I don't know. Partly, I daresay. But we want to find some little place +between the hills and the sea, and stay there. Perhaps for always; I +don't know. It's going to be extraordinarily nice, anyhow."</p> + +<p>Rodney glanced at him, caught by the ring in his voice, a ring he hadn't +heard for long. He didn't quite understand Peter. When last he saw him, +he had been very far through, alarmingly near the bottom. Was this +recovery natural grace, or had something happened? It seemed to Rodney +rather admirable, and he looked appreciatively at Peter's cheerful face +and happy eyes.</p> + +<p>"Good," he said. "Good—splendid!"</p> + +<p>And then Peter, meeting his pleased look and understanding it, winced +back from it, and coloured, and bent over his brown paper and string. He +valued Rodney's appreciation, a thing not easily won. He felt that in +this moment he had won it, as he had never won it before. For he knew +that Rodney liked pluck, and was thinking him plucky.</p> + +<p>Against his will he muttered, half beneath his breath, "Oh, it isn't +really what <i>you</i> call good. It is good, you know: <i>I</i> think it's good; +but you won't. You'll call it abominable."</p> + +<p>"Oh," said Rodney.</p> + +<p>Peter went on, with a new violence, "I know all you'll say about it, so +I'm not going to give you the opportunity of saying it till I'm gone. You +needn't think I'm going to tell you now and let you tell me I'm wrong. +I'm not wrong; and if I am I don't care. Please don't stay any more; I'd +rather you weren't here to-night. I don't want to tell you anything; only +I had just got to say that, because you were thinking.... Oh, do go now."</p> + +<p>Rodney sat quite still and looked at him, into him, through him, beyond +him. Then he said, "You needn't tell me anything. I know. Lucy and you +are going together."</p> + +<p>Peter stood up, rather unsteadily.</p> + +<p>"Well? That's not clever. Any fool could have guessed that."</p> + +<p>"Yes. And any fool could guess what I'm going to say about it, too. You +know it all already, of course...."</p> + +<p>Rodney was groping for words, helplessly, blindly.</p> + +<p>"Peter, I didn't know you had it in you to be a cad."</p> + +<p>Peter was putting books into a portmanteau, and did not answer.</p> + +<p>"You mean to do that ... to Denis...."</p> + +<p>Peter put in socks and handkerchiefs.</p> + +<p>"And to Lucy.... I don't understand you, Peter.... I simply don't +understand. Are you mad—or drunk—or didn't I really ever know you in +the least?"</p> + +<p>Peter stuffed in Thomas' nightgowns, crumpling them hideously.</p> + +<p>"Very well," said Rodney, very quietly. "It doesn't particularly matter +which it is. In any case you are not going to do it. I shall prevent it."</p> + +<p>"You can't," Peter flung at him, crushing a woolly rabbit in among +Thomas' clothes.</p> + +<p>Rodney sat still and looked at him, resting his chin on his hand; looked +into him, through him, beyond him.</p> + +<p>"I believe I can," he said simply.</p> + +<p>Peter stopped filling the bag, and, still sitting on the floor by it, +delivered himself at last.</p> + +<p>"We care for each other. Isn't that to count, then? We always have cared +for each other. Are we to do without each other for always? We want each +other, we need each other. Denis doesn't need Lucy. He never did; not as +I do. Are Lucy and I to do without each other, living only half a life, +because of him? I tell you, I'm sick to death of doing without things. +The time has come when it won't do any more, and I'm going to take what +I can. I think I would rob anyone quite cheerfully if he had what I +wanted. A few days ago I did rob; I bought things I knew I couldn't pay +for. I'm sending them back now simply because I don't want them any more, +not because I'm sorry I took them. It was fair I should take them; it was +my turn to have things, mine and Thomas's. And now I'm going to take +this, and keep it, till it's taken away from me. I daresay it will be +taken away soon; my things always are. Everything has broken and gone, +one thing after another, all my life—all the things I've cared for. I'm +tired of it. I was sick of it by the time I was ten years old, sick of +always getting ill or smashed up; and that's gone on ever since, and +people have always thought, I know, 'Oh, it's only him, he never minds +anything, he doesn't count, he's just a crock, and his only use is to +play the fool for us.' But I did mind; I did. And I only played the fool +because it would have been drearier still not to, and because there was +always something amusing left to laugh at, not because I didn't mind. +And then I cared for Denis as ... Oh, but you know how I cared for Denis. +He was the most bright and splendid thing I knew in all the splendid +world ... and he chucked me, because everything went wrong that could +go wrong between us without my fault ... and our friendship was +spoilt.... And I cared for Hilary and Peggy; and they would go and do +things to spoil all our lives, and the more I tried, like an ass, to +help, the more I seemed to mess things up, till the crash came, and we +all went to bits together. And we had to give up the only work we +liked—and I did love mine so—and slave at things we hated. And still we +kept sinking and sinking, and crashing on worse and worse rocks, till we +hadn't a sound piece left to float us. And then, when I thought at least +we could go down together, they went away and left me behind. So I'd +failed there too, hopelessly. I always have failed in everything I've +tried. I tried to make Rhoda happy, but that failed too. She left me; and +now she's dead, and Thomas hasn't any mother at all.... And Lucy ... whom +I'd cared for since before I could remember ... and I'd always thought, +without thinking about it, that some day of course we should be +together... Lucy left me, and our caring became wrong, so that at last +we didn't care to see one another at all. And then it was as if hell had +opened and let us in. The other things hadn't counted like that; health, +money, beautiful things, interesting work, honour, friends, marriage, +even Denis—they'd all collapsed and I did mind, horribly. But not like +that. As long as I could see Lucy sometimes, I could go on—and I had +Thomas too, though I don't know why he hasn't collapsed yet. But at last, +quite suddenly, when the emptiness and the losing had been getting to +seem worse and worse for a long time, they became so bad that they were +impossible. I got angry; it was for Thomas more than for myself, I think; +and I said it should end. I said I would take things; steal them, if I +couldn't get them by fair means. And I went down to Astleys, to see them, +to tell them it must end. And in the woods I met Lucy. And she'd been +getting to know too that it must end, for her sake as well as for +mine.... And so we're going to end it, and begin again. We're going to be +happy, because life is too jolly to miss."</p> + +<p>Peter ended defiantly, and flung his razor in among the socks.</p> + +<p>Rodney had listened quietly, his eyes on Peter's profile. When he +stayed silent, Peter supposed that he had at last convinced him of the +unbreakable strength of his purpose for iniquity, and that he would give +him up and go away. After a minute he turned and looked up at Rodney, and +said, "Now do you see that it's no good?"</p> + +<p>Rodney took out his pipe and knocked it out and put it away before he +answered:</p> + +<p>"I'm glad you've said all that, Peter. Not that I didn't know it all +before; of course I did. When I said at first that I didn't understand +you, I was lying. I did understand, perfectly well. But I'm glad you've +said it, because it's well to know that you realise it so clearly +yourself. It saves my explaining it to you. It gives us a common +knowledge to start on. And now may <i>I</i> talk for a little, please? No, +not for a little; for some time."</p> + +<p>"Go on," said Peter. "But it's no use, you know.... What do you mean by +our common knowledge? The knowledge that I'm a failure?"</p> + +<p>Rodney nodded. "Precisely that. You've stated the case so clearly +yourself—in outline, for you've left out a great deal, of course—that +really it doesn't leave much for me to say. Let's leave you alone for +the moment. I want to talk about other people. There are other people +in the world besides ourselves, of course, improbable as the fact +occasionally seems. The fact, I mean, that it's a world not of individual +units but of closely connected masses of people, not one of whom stands +alone. One can't detach oneself; one's got to be in with one camp or +another. The world's full of different and opposing camps—worse luck. +There are the beauty-lovers and the beauty-scorners, and all the +fluctuating masses in between, like most of us, who love some aspects of +it and scorn others. There are the well-meaning and the ill-meaning—and +again the incoherent cross-benchers, who mean a little good and a little +harm and for the most part mean nothing at all either way. Again, there +are what people call the well-bred, the ill-bred, and of course the +half-bred. An idiotic division that, because what do we know, any of us, +of breeding, that we should call it good or bad? But there it is; a most +well-marked division in everyone's eyes. And (and now I'm getting to the +point) there are the rich and the poor—or call them, rather, the Haves +and the Have-nots. I don't mean with regard to money particularly, though +that comes in. But it's an all-round, thing. It's an undoubted fact, +and one there's no getting round, that some people are born with the +acquiring faculty, and others with the losing. Most of us, of course, are +in the half-way house, and win and lose in fairly average proportions. +But some of us seem marked out either for the one or for the other. I +know personally a good many in both camps. Many more of the Have-nots, +though, because I prefer to cultivate their acquaintance. There's a great +deal to be done for the Haves too; they need, I fancy, all the assistance +they can get if they're not to become prosperity-rotten. The Have-Nots +haven't that danger; but they've plenty of dangers of their own; and, +well, I suppose it's a question of taste, and that I prefer them. Anyhow, +I do know a great many. People, you understand, with nothing at all that +seems to make life tolerable. Destitutes, incapables, outcasts, slaves to +their own lusts or to a grinding economic system or to some other cruelty +of fate or men. Whatever the immediate cause of their ill-fortune may be, +its underlying, fundamental cause is their own inherent faculty for +failure and loss, their incompetence to take and hold the good things of +life. You know the stale old hackneyed cry of the anti-socialists, how it +would be no use equalising conditions because each man would soon return +again to his original state. It's true in a deeper sense than they mean. +You might equalise economic conditions as much as you please, but you'd +never equalise fundamental conditions; you'd never turn the poor into the +rich, the Have-Nots into the Haves. You know I'm not a Socialist. I don't +want to see a futile attempt to throw down barriers and merge all camps +in one indeterminate army who don't know what they mean or where they're +going. I'm not a Socialist, because I don't believe in a universal +outward prosperity. I mean, I don't want it; I should have no use for it. +I'm holding no brief for the rich; I've nothing to say about them just +now; and anyhow you and I have no concern with them." Rodney pulled +himself back from the edge of a topic on which he was apt to become +readily vehement. "But Socialism isn't the way out for them any more than +it's the way out for the poor; it's got, I believe, to be by individual +renunciation that their salvation will come; by their giving up, and +stripping bare, and going down one by one and empty-handed into the +common highways, to take their share of hardness like men. It will be +extraordinarily difficult. Changing one's camp is. It's so difficult as +to be all but impossible. Perhaps you've read the Bible story of the +young man with great possessions, and how it was said, 'With men it is +impossible...' Well, the tradition, true or false, goes that in the end +he did it; gave up his possessions and became financially poor. But we +don't know, even if that's true, what else he kept of his wealth; a good +deal, I daresay, that wasn't money or material goods. One can't tell. +What we do know is that to cross that dividing line, to change one's +camp, is a nearly impossible thing. Someone says, 'That division, the +division of those who have and those who have not, runs so deep as almost +to run to the bottom.' The great division, he calls it, between those who +seize and those who lose. Well, the Haves aren't always seizers, I think; +often—more often, perhaps—they have only to move tranquilly through +life and let gifts drop into their hands. It's pleasant to see, if we are +not in a mood to be jarred. It's often attractive. It was mainly that +that attracted you long ago in Denis Urquhart. The need and the want in +you, who got little and lost much, was somehow vicariously satisfied by +the gifts he received from fortune; by his beauty and strength and good +luck and power of winning and keeping. He was pleasant in your eyes, +because of these gifts of his; and, indeed, they made of him a pleasant +person, since he had nothing to be unpleasant about. So your emptiness +found pleasure in his fullness, your poverty in his riches, your weakness +in his strength, and you loved him. And I think if anything could (yet) +have redeemed him, have saved him from his prosperity, it would have been +your love. But instead of letting it drag him down into the scrum and the +pity and the battle of life, he turned away from it and kept it at a +distance, and shut himself more closely between his protecting walls of +luxury and well-being. Then, again, Lucy gave him his chance; but he +hasn't (so far) followed her love either. She'd have led him, if she +could, out of the protecting, confining walls, into the open, where +people are struggling and perishing for lack of a little pity; but he +wouldn't. So far the time hasn't been ripe for his saving; his day is +still to come. It's up to all of us who care for him—and can any of us +help it?—to save him from himself. And chiefly it's your job and Lucy's. +You can do your part now only by clearing out of the way, and leaving +Lucy to do hers. She will do it, I firmly believe, in the end, if you +give her time. Lucy, I know, for I have seen it when I have been with +her, has been troubled about her own removal from the arena, about her +own being confined between walls so that she can't hear the people +outside calling; but that is mere egotism. She can hear and see all +right; she has all her senses, and she will never stop using them. It's +her business to be concerned for Denis, who is blind and deaf. It's her +business to use her own caring to make him care. She's got to drag him +out, not to let herself be shut inside with him. It can be done, and +Lucy, if anyone in the world, can do it—if she doesn't give up and +shirk. Lucy, if anyone in the world, has the right touch, the right +loosing power, to set Denis free. I think that you too have the touch and +the power—but you mustn't use yours; the time for that is gone by. Yours +is the much harder business of clearing out of the way. If you ever loved +Denis, you will do that."</p> + +<p>He paused and looked at Peter, who was still sitting on the floor, +motionless, with bent head.</p> + +<p>"May I go on?" said Rodney, and Peter answered nothing.</p> + +<p>Rodney looked away again out of the window into a grey night sky that +hid the Easter moon, and went on, gently. He was tired of talking; his +discourse had been already nearly as long as an average woman; but he +went on deliberately talking and talking, to give Peter time.</p> + +<p>"So, you see, that is an excellent reason—to you it is, I believe, the +incontrovertible reason—why you should once more give up and lose, and +not take. But, deeper than that, to me more insurmountable than that, is +the true reason, which is simply that that very thing—to lose, to do +without—is your business in life, as you've said yourself. It's your +profession. You are in the camp of the Have-Nots; you belong there. You +can't desert. You can't step out and go over to the enemy. If you did, if +you could (only you can't) it would be a betrayal. And, whatever you +gained, you'd lose by it what you have at present—your fellowship with +the other unfortunates. Isn't that a thing worth having? Isn't it +something to be down on the ground with the poor and empty-handed, not +above them, where you can't hear them crying and laughing? Would you, if +you could, be one of the prosperous, who don't care? Would you, if you +could, be one of those who have their joy in life ready-made and put into +their hands, instead of one of the poor craftsmen who have to make their +own? What's the gaiety of the saints? Not the pleasant cheerfulness of +the Denis Urquharts and their kind, who have things, but the gaiety, in +the teeth of circumstances, of St. Francis and his paupers, who have +nothing and yet possess all things. That's your gaiety; the gaiety that +plays the fool, as you put it, looking into the very eyes of agony and +death; that loses and laughs and makes others laugh in the last ditch; +the gaiety of those who drop all cargoes, fortune and good name and love, +overboard lightly, and still spread sail to the winds and voyage, and +when they're driven by the winds at last onto a lee shore, derelicts +clinging to a broken wreck, find on the shore coloured shells to play +with and still are gay. That's your gaiety, as I've always known it and +loved it. Are you going to chuck that gaiety away, and rise up full of +the lust to possess, and take and grasp and plunder? Are you going to +desert the empty-handed legion, whose van you've marched in all your +life, and join the prosperous?" Rodney broke off for a moment, as if he +waited for an answer. He rose from his chair and began to walk about the +room, speaking again, with a more alright vehemence. "Oh, you may think +this is mere romance, fancy, sentiment, what you will. But it isn't. It's +deadly, solid truth. You can't grasp. You can't try to change your camp. +You—and Lucy too, for she's in the same camp—wouldn't be happy, to put +it at its simplest. You'd know all the time that you'd shirked, deserted, +been false to your business. You'd be fishes out of water, with the +knowledge that you'd taken for your own pleasure something that someone +else ought to have had. It isn't in either of you to do it. You must +leave such work to the Haves. Why, what happens the first time you try it +on? You have to send back the goods you've tried to appropriate to where +they came from. It would be the same always. You don't know <i>how</i> to +possess. Then in heaven's name leave possessing alone, and stick to the +job you are good at—doing without. For you are good at that. You always +have been, except just for just one short interlude, which will pass like +an illness and leave you well again. Believe me, it will. I don't know +when, or how soon; but I do know that sometime you will be happy again, +with the things, the coloured shells, so to speak, that you find still +when all the winds and storms have done their worst and all your cargoes +are broken wrecks at your feet. It will be then, in that last emptiness, +that you'll come to terms with disaster, and play the fool again to amuse +yourself and the other derelicts, because, when there's nothing else +left, there's always laughter."</p> + +<p>Rodney had walked to the window, and now stood looking out at the dim, +luminous night, wherein, shrouded, the Easter moon dwelt in the heart of +shadows. From many churches, many clocks chimed the hour. Rodney spoke +once more, slowly, leaning out into the shadowy night.</p> + +<p>"Through this week," he said, "they have been watching in those churches +a supreme renouncement, the ultimate agony of giving up, the last triumph +of utter loss. I'm not going to talk about that; it's not my business or +my right ... But it surely counts, that giving up whatever we may or may +not believe about it. It shines, a terrible counsel of perfection for +those who have, burning and hurting. But for those who have not, it +doesn't burn and hurt; it shines to cheer and comfort; it is the banner +of the leader of the losing legion, lifted up that the rest may follow +after. Does that help at all?... Perhaps at this moment nothing helps at +all.... Have I said enough? Need I go on?"</p> + +<p>Peter's voice, flat and dead, spoke out of the shadow of the dim room.</p> + +<p>"You have said enough. You need not go on."</p> + +<p>Then Rodney turned and saw him, sitting still on the floor by the +half-packed bag, with the yellow dog sleeping against him. In the dim +light his face looked pale and pinched like a dead man's.</p> + +<p>"You've done your work," the flat voice said. "You've taken it away—the +new life we so wanted. You've shown that it can't be. You're quite right. +And you're right too that nothing helps at all.... Because of Denis, I +can't do this. But I find no good in emptiness; why should I? I want to +have things and enjoy them, at this moment, more desperately than you, +who praise emptiness and doing without, ever wanted anything."</p> + +<p>"I am aware of that," said Rodney.</p> + +<p>"You've got in the way," said Peter, looking up at the tall gaunt figure +by the window; and anger shook him. "You've stepped in and spoilt it all. +Yes, you needn't be afraid; you've spoilt it quite irrevocably. You knew +that to mention Denis was enough to do that. I was trying to forget him; +I could have, till it was too late. You can go home now and feel quite +easy; you've done your job. There's to be no new life for me, or Thomas, +or Lucy, or Francesco—only the same old emptiness. The same old ... oh, +damn!"</p> + +<p>Peter, who never swore, that ugly violence being repugnant to his nature, +swore now, and woke Francesco, who put up his head to lick his friend's +face. But Peter pushed him away, surprising him violently, and caught at +his half-filled bag and snatched at the contents and flung them on the +top of one another on the floor. They lay in a jumbled chaos—Thomas's +clothes and Peter's socks and razor and Thomas's rabbit and Peter's +books; and Francesco snuffled among them and tossed them about, thinking +it a new game.</p> + +<p>"Go away now." Peter flung out the words like another oath. "Go away to +your poverty which you like, and leave us to ours which we hate. There's +no more left for you to take away from us; it's all gone. Unless you'd +like me to throw Thomas out of the window, since you think breakages are +so good."</p> + +<p>Rodney merely said, "I'm not going away just yet. Could you let me stay +here for the night and sleep on the sofa? It's late to go back to-night."</p> + +<p>"Sleep where you like," said Peter. "There's the bed. I don't want it."</p> + +<p>But Rodney stretched himself instead on the horse-hair sofa. He said no +more, knowing that the time for words was past. He lay tired and quiet, +with closed eyes, knowing how Peter and the other disreputable forsaken +outcast sat together huddled on the floor through the dim night, till the +dawn looked palely in and showed them both fallen asleep, Peter's head +resting on Francesco's yellow back.</p> + +<p>It was Rodney who got up stiffly from his hard resting-place in the dark +unlovely morning, and made tea over Peter's spirit-lamp for both of them. +Peter woke later, and drank it mechanically. Then he looked at Rodney and +said, "I'm horribly stiff. Why did neither of us go to bed?" He was pale +and heavy-eyed, and violent no more, but very quiet and tired, as if, +accepting, he was sinking deep in grey and cold seas, that numbed +resistance and drowned words.</p> + +<p>The milk came in, and Peter gave Thomas to drink; and on the heels of the +milk came the post, and a letter for Peter.</p> + +<p>"I suppose," said Peter dully, as he opened it, "she too has found out +that it can't be done."</p> + +<p>The letter said: "Peter, we can't do it. I am horribly, horribly sorry, +but I know it now for certain. Perhaps you know it too, by now. Because +the reason is in you, not in me. It is that you love Denis too much. So +you couldn't be happy. I want you to be happy, more than I want anything +in the world, but it can't be this way. Please, dear Peter, be happy +sometime; please, please be happy. I love you always—if that helps at +all.—Lucy."</p> + +<p>Peter let the note fall on the floor, and stood with bent head by the +side of Thomas's crib, while Thomas guggled his milk.</p> + +<p>"Two minds with but a single thought," he remarked, in that new, dreary +voice of his. "As always.... Well, it saves trouble. And we're utterly +safe now, you see; doubly safe. You can go home in peace."</p> + +<p>Then Rodney, knowing that he could be no more use, left the three +derelicts together.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXI" id="CHAPTER_XXI"></a>CHAPTER XXI</h2> + +<h3>ON THE SHORE</h3> + + +<p>There is a shore along which the world flowers, one long sweet garden +strip, between the olive-grey hills and the very blue sea. Like nosegays +in the garden the towns are set, blooming in their many colours, linked +by the white road running above blue water. For vagabonds in April the +poppies riot scarlet by the white road's edge, and the last of the +hawthorn lingers like melting snow, and over the garden walls the purple +veils of the wistaria drift like twilight mist. Over the garden walls, +too, the sweetness of the orange and lemon blossom floats into the road, +and the frangipani sends delicate wafts down, and the red and white roses +toss and hang as if they had brimmed over from sheer exuberance. If a +door in one of the walls chance to stand ajar, vagabonds on the road may +look in and see an Eden, unimaginably sweet, aflame with oleanders and +pomegranate blossom, and white like snow with tall lilies.</p> + +<p>The road itself is good, bordered on one side by the garden sweetness +and the blossoms that foam like wave-crests over the walls, on the other +breaking down to a steep hill-slope where all the wild flowers of spring +star the grassy terraces, singing at the twisted feet of the olives that +give them grey shadow. So the hillside runs steeply down to where at its +rocky base the blue waves murmur. All down the coast the road turns and +twists and climbs and dips, above little lovely bays and through little +gay towns, caught between mountains and blue water. For those who want a +bed, the hush of the moonlit olives that shadow the terraced slopes gives +sweeter sleep than the inns of the towns, and the crooning of the quiet +sea is a gentler lullaby than the noises of streets, and the sweetness of +the myrtle blossom is better to breathe than the warm air of rooms. To +wander in spring beneath the sun by day and the moon by night along the +sea's edge is a good life, a beautiful life, a cheerful and certainly an +amusing life. Social adventures crowd the road. There are pleasant people +along this shore of little blue bays. Besides the ordinary natives of the +towns and the country-side, and besides the residents in the hotels +(whose uses to vagabonds are purely financial) there is on this shore a +drifting and incalculable population, heterogeneous, yet with a note of +character common to all. A population cosmopolitan and shifting, living +from hand to mouth, vagrants of the road or of the street corner, finding +life a warm and easy thing in this long garden shut between hills and +sea. So warm and lovely and easy a garden is it that it has for that +reason become a lee shore; a shore where the sick and the sad and the +frail and the unfortunate are driven by the winds of adversity to find +a sheltered peace. On the shore all things may be given up; there is no +need to hold with effort any possession, even life itself, for all things +become gifts, easily bestowed and tranquilly received. You may live on +extremely little there, and win that little lightly. You may sell things +along the road for some dealer, or for yourself—plaster casts, mosaic +brooches, picture postcards, needlework of divers colours. If you have +a small cart drawn by a small donkey, you are a lucky man, and can carry +your wares about in it and sell them at the hotels, or in the towns at +fair-time. If you possess an infant son, you can carry him also about in +the cart, and he will enjoy it. Also, if your conversation is like the +sun's, with a friendly aspect to good and bad, you will find many friends +to beguile the way. You may pick them up at fairs, on <i>festa</i> days, like +blackberries.</p> + +<p>On Santa Caterina's day, the 30th of April, there is a great <i>festa</i> in +the coast towns. They hold the saint in especial honour on this shore, +for she did much kindness there in plague-time. Vagabonds with wares to +sell have a good day. There was, on one Santa Caterina's day, a young +man, with a small donkey-cart and a small child and a disreputable yellow +dog, who was selling embroidery. He had worked it himself; he was working +at it even now, in the piazza at Varenzano, when not otherwise engaged. +But a fair is too pleasantly distracting a thing to allow of much +needlework being done in the middle of it. There are so many interesting +things. There are the roulette tables, round which interested but +cautious groups stand, while the owners indefatigably and invitingly +twirl. The gambling instinct is not excessively developed in Varenzano. +There was, of course, the usual resolute and solitary player, who stood +through the hours silently laying one halfpenny after another on clubs, +untempted to any deviation or any alteration of stake, except that on the +infrequent occasions when it really turned out clubs he stolidly laid and +lost his gained halfpennies by the other. By nine o'clock in the morning +he had become a character; spectators nudged new-comers and pointed him +out, with "<i>Sempre fiori, quello.</i>" The young man with the embroidery was +sorry about him; he had an expression as if he were losing more halfpence +than he could well afford. The young man himself lost all the stakes he +made; but he didn't gamble much, knowing himself not lucky. Instead, he +watched the fluctuating fortunes of a vivacious and beautiful youth near +him, who flung on his stakes with a lavish gesture of dare-devil +extravagance, that implied that he was putting his fortune to the touch +to win or lose it all. It was a relief to notice that his stakes were +seldom more than threepence. When he lost, he swore softly to himself: +"<i>Dio mio, mio Dio, Dio mio</i>," and then turned courteously to the +embroidery-seller, who was English, with a free interpretation—"In +Engliss, bai George." This seemed to the embroidery-seller to be true +politeness in misfortune. The beautiful youth seemed to be a person of +many languages; his most frequent interjection was, "<i>Dio mio</i>—Holy +Moses—oh hang!" After which he would add an apology, addressed to the +embroidery-seller, who had a certain air of refined innocence, +"<i>Bestemmiar, no. Brutto bestemmiare. Non gli piace, no</i>," and resume +his game.</p> + +<p>Peter, who was selling embroidery, liked him so much that he followed him +when he went to try his luck at the cigar game. Here Peter, who never +smoked, won two black and snake-like cigars, which he presented to the +beautiful young man, who received them with immense cordiality. A little +later the young man, whose name was Livio, involved himself in a violent +quarrel with the cigar banker, watched by an amused, placid and impartial +crowd of spectators. Peter knew Livio to have the right on his side, +because the banker had an unpleasant face and Livio accused him of being +not only a Venetian but a Freemason. The banker in response remarked that +he was not going to stay to be insulted by a Ligurian thief, and with +violent gestures unscrewed his tin lady and her bunch of real lemons and +put away his board. Livio burst into a studied and insulting shout of +laughter, stopped abruptly without remembering to bring it to a proper +finish, and began to be pleasant to the embroidery-seller, speaking +broken American English with a strong nasal twang.</p> + +<p>"My name is Livio Ceresole. Bin in America; the States. All over the +place. Chicago, 'Frisco, Pullman cars, dollars—<i>you</i> know. Learnt +Engliss there. Very fine country; I <i>should</i> smile." He did so, and +looked so amiable and so engaging that the embroidery-seller smiled back, +thinking what a beautiful person he was. He had the petulant, half +sensuous, spoilt-boy beauty of a young Antinuous, with a rakish touch +added by the angle of his hat and his snappy American idioms.</p> + +<p>So it came about that those two threw in their lots for a time. There was +something about the embroidery-seller that drew these casual friendships +readily to him; he was engaging, with a great innocence of aspect and +gentleness of demeanour, and a friendly smile that sweetened the world, +and a lovable gift of amusement.</p> + +<p>He had been wandering on this shore for now six months, and had friends +in most of the towns. One cannot help making them; the people there are, +for the most part, so pleasant. A third-class railway carriage, vilely +lighted and full of desperately uncomfortable wooden seats, and so full +of warm air and bad tobacco smoke that Peter often felt sick before the +train moved (he always did so, in any train, soon after) was yet full of +agreeable people, merry and sociable and engagingly witty, and, whether +achieving wit or not, with a warm welcome for anything that had that +intention. There is a special brand of charm, of humour, of infectious +and friendly mirth, and of exceeding personal beauty, that is only fully +known by those who travel third in Italy.</p> + +<p>From Varenzano on this <i>festa</i> day in the golden afternoon the +embroidery-seller and his donkey-cart and his small son and his yellow +dog and Livio Ceresole walked to Castoleto. Livio, who had a sweet voice, +sang snatches of melody in many languages; doggerel songs, vulgarities +from musical comedies, melodies of the street corner; and the singer's +voice redeemed and made music of them all. He was practising his songs +for use at the hotels, where he sang and played the banjo in the +evenings, to add to his income. He told Peter that he was, at the moment, +ruined.</p> + +<p>"In Engliss," he translated, "stony-broke." A shop he had kept in Genoa +had failed, so he was thrown upon the roads.</p> + +<p>"You too are travelling, without a home, for gain?" he inferred. "You are +one of us other unfortunates, you and the little child. Poor little one!"</p> + +<p>"Oh, he likes it," said Peter. "So do I. We don't want a home. This is +better."</p> + +<p>"Not so bad," Livio admitted, "when one can live. But we should like to +make our fortunes, isn't it so?"</p> + +<p>Peter said he didn't know. There seemed so little prospect of it that the +question was purely academical.</p> + +<p>They were coming to Castoleto. Livio stopped, and proceeded to pay +attention to his personal appearance, moistening a fragment of +yesterday's "Corriere della Sera" in his mouth, and applying it with +vigour to his dusty boots. When they shone to his satisfaction, he +produced from his pocket a comb and a minute hand-mirror, and arranged +his crisp waves of dark hair to a gentlemanly neatness. Then he replaced +his pseudo-panama hat, with the slight inclination to the left side that +seemed to him suitable, re-tied his pale blue tie, and passed the mirror +to Peter, who went through similar operations.</p> + +<p>"Castoleto will be gay for the <i>festa</i>," Livio said. "Things doing," he +interpreted; adding, "Christopher Columbus born there; found America. +Very big man; yes, <i>sir</i>."</p> + +<p>Peter said he supposed so.</p> + +<p>Livio added, resuming his own tongue, "Santa Caterina da Siena visited +Castoleto. Are you a Christian?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, well," said Peter, who found the subject difficult, and was not good +at thinking out difficult things. Livio nodded. "One doesn't want much +church, of course; that's best for the women. But so many English aren't +Christians at all, but heretics."</p> + +<p>They came into Castoleto, which is a small place where the sea washes a +shingly shore just below the town, and the narrow streets smell of fish +and other things. Livio waved his hand towards a large new hotel that +stood imposingly on the hill just behind the town.</p> + +<p>"There we will go this evening, I with my music, you with your +embroideries." That seemed a good plan. Till then they separated, Livio +going to try his fortune at the fair, and Peter and Thomas and Francesco +and Suor Clara (the donkey) establishing themselves on the shore by the +edge of the waveless sea. There Peter got out of the cart a tea-caddy and +a spirit lamp and made tea (he was always rather unhappy if he missed his +tea) and ate biscuits, and gave Thomas—now an interested and cheerful +person of a year and a half old—milk and sopped biscuit, and produced a +bone for Francesco and carrots for Clara, and so they all had tea.</p> + +<p>It was the hour when the sun dips below the western arm of hills that +shuts the little bay, leaving behind it two lakes of pure gold, above +and below. The sea burned like a great golden sheet of liquid glass +spreading, smooth and limpid, from east to west, and swaying with a +gentle hushing sound to and fro which was all the motion it had for +waves. From moment to moment it changed; the living gold melted into +green and blue opal tints, tender like twilight.</p> + +<p>"After tea we'll go paddling," Peter told Thomas. "And then perhaps we'll +get a fisherman to take us out while he drops his net. Santa Caterina +should give good fishing."</p> + +<p>In the town they were having a procession. Peter heard the chanting as +they passed, saw, through the archways into the streets, glimpses of it. +He heard their plaintive hymn that entreated pity:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Difendi, O Caterina<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Da peste, fame e guerra,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Il popol di Cartoleto<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In mare e in terra..."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>Above the hymn rose the howls of little St. John the Baptist, who had +been, no doubt, suddenly mastered by his too high-spirited lamb and upset +on to his face, so that his mother had to rush from out the crowd to +comfort him and brush the dust from his curls that had been a-curling in +papers these three weeks past.</p> + +<p>It was no doubt a beautiful procession, and Peter and Thomas loved +processions, but they had seen one that morning at Varenzano, so they +were content to see and hear this from a distance.</p> + +<p>Why, Peter speculated, do we not elsewhere thus beautify and sanctify +our villages and cities and country places? Why do they not, in fishing +hamlets of a colder clime, thus bring luck to their fishing, thus summon +the dear saints to keep and guard their shores? Why, Peter for the +hundredth time questioned, do we miss so much gaiety, so much loveliness, +so much grace, that other and wiser people have?</p> + +<p>Peter shook his head over it.</p> + +<p>"A sad business, Thomas. But here we are, you and I, and let us be +thankful. Thankful for this lovely country set with pleasant towns and +religious manners and nice people, and for the colour and smoothness +of the sea we're going paddling in, and for our nice tea. <i>Are</i> you +thankful, Thomas? Yes, I'm sure you are."</p> + +<p>Someone, passing behind them, said with surprise, "Is that <i>you</i>, +Margerison?"</p> + +<p>Peter, looking round, his tin mug in one hand and a biscuit in the other, +recognised an old schoolfellow. He was standing on the beach staring at +the tea-party—the four disreputable vagabonds and their cart.</p> + +<p>Peter laughed. It rather amused him to come into sudden contact with the +respectable; they were always so much surprised. He had rather liked this +man. Some people had good-temperedly despised him for a molly-coddle; he +had been a delicate boy, and had cherished himself rather. Peter, +delicate himself, incapable of despising anyone, and with a heart that +went out to all unfortunates, had been, in a mild and casual way, his +friend. Looking into his face now, Peter was struck to sorrow and +compassion, because it was the face of a man who had accepted death, and +to whom life gave no more gifts, not even the peace of the lee shore. It +was a restless face, with hollow cheeks unnaturally flushed, and bitter, +querulous lips. His surprise at seeing Peter and his vagabond equipment +made him cough.</p> + +<p>When he had done coughing, he said, "What <i>are</i> you doing, Margerison?"</p> + +<p>Peter said he was having tea. "Have you had yours? I've got another mug +somewhere—a china one."</p> + +<p>As he declined with thanks, Peter thought, "He's dying. Oh, poor chap, +how ghastly for him," and his immense pity made him even gentler than +usual. He couldn't say, "How are you?" because he knew; he couldn't +say, "Isn't this a nice place?" because Ashe must leave it so soon; he +couldn't say, "I am having a good time," because Ashe would have no +more good times, and, Peter suspected, had had few.</p> + +<p>What he did say was, "This is Thomas. And this is San Francesco, and this +is Suor Clara. They're all mine. Do you like their faces?"</p> + +<p>Ashe looked at Francesco, and said, "Rather a mongrel, isn't he?" and +Peter took the comment as condemning the four of them, and divined in +Ashe the respectability of the sheltered life, and was compassionate +again. Ashe cared, during the brief space of time allotted to him, to be +respectably dressed; he cared to lead what he would call a decent life. +Peter, in his disreputability, felt like a man in the open air who looks +into the prison of a sick-room.</p> + +<p>Ashe said he was staying at Varenzano with his mother, and they were +passing through Castoleto on the way back from their afternoon's drive.</p> + +<p>"It's lungs, you know. They don't give me much chance—the doctors, I +mean. It's warm and sheltered on this coast, so I have to be here. I'd +rather be here, I suppose, than doing a beef-and-snow cure in one of +those ghastly places. But it's a bore hanging round and doing nothing. +I'd as soon it ended straight off."</p> + +<p>Ashamed of having been so communicative (but Peter was used to people +being unreserved with him, and never thought it odd), he changed the +subject.</p> + +<p>"Are you on the tramp, or what? Is it comfortable?"</p> + +<p>"Very," said Peter, "and interesting."</p> + +<p>"<i>Is</i> it interesting? How long are you going on with it? When are you +going home?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, this is as much home as anywhere else, you know. I don't see any +reason for leaving it yet. We all like it. I've no money, you see, and +life is cheap here, and warm and nice."</p> + +<p>"Cheap and warm and nice...." Ashe repeated it, vaguely surprised. He +hadn't realised that Peter was one of the permanently destitute, and +tramping not from pleasure but from necessity.</p> + +<p>"What do you <i>do</i>?" he asked curiously, seeing that Peter was not at all +embarrassed.</p> + +<p>"Oh, nothing very much. A little needlework, which I sell as I go along. +And various sorts of peddling, sometimes. I'm going up to the hotel this +evening, to try and make the people there buy things from me. And we just +play about, you know, and enjoy the roads and the towns and the fairs and +the seashore. It's all fun."</p> + +<p>Ashe laughed and made himself cough.</p> + +<p>"You awfully queer person! You really like it, living like that?... But +even I don't like it, you know, living shut away from life in this +corner, though I've money enough to be comfortable with. Should I like +it, your life, I wonder? You're not bored, it seems. I always am. What +is it you like so much?"</p> + +<p>Peter said, lots of things. No, he wasn't bored; things were too amusing +for that.</p> + +<p>They couldn't get any further, because Ashe's mother called him from the +carriage in the road. She too looked tired, and had sad eyes.</p> + +<p>Peter looked after them with compassion. They were wasting their little +time together terribly, being sad when they should have found, in these +last few months or years of life, quiet fun on the warm shore where they +had come to make loss less bitter.</p> + +<p>Tea being over, he went paddling, with Thomas laughing on his shoulder, +till it was Thomas's bedtime. Then he put Thomas away in his warm corner +of the cart, and Livio joined him, and they had supper together at a +<i>trattoria</i>, and then climbed the road between vineyards and lemon +gardens up to the new white hotel.</p> + +<p>Livio, as they walked, practised his repertory of songs, singing +melodious snatches in the lemon-scented dusk. They came to the hotel, and +found that the inhabitants were sitting round little tables in the dim +garden, having their coffee by the light of hanging lanterns.</p> + +<p>From out of the dusk Livio struck his mandolin and sweetly sang. Peter +meanwhile wandered round from group to group displaying his wares by +the pink light of the lanterns. He met with some success; he really +embroidered rather nicely, and people were good-natured and kind to the +pale-faced, delicate-looking young man who smiled with his very blue, +friendly eyes. There was always an element in Peter that inspired pity; +one divined in him a merry unfortunate.</p> + +<p>The people in the hotel were of many races—French, Italian, German, and +one English family. Castoleto is not an Anglo-Saxon resort; it is small +and of no reputation, and not as yet Anglicised. Probably the one English +family in the hotel was motoring down the coast, and only staying for one +night.</p> + +<p>Peter, in his course round the garden, came suddenly within earshot of +cultured English voices, and heard some one laugh. Then a voice, soft in +quality, with casual, pleasant, unemphasised cadence, said, "Considering +these vile roads, she's running extraordinarily well. Really, something +ought to be done about the roads, though; it's absolutely disgraceful. +Blake says ..." one of the things that chauffeurs do say, and that +Peter did not listen to.</p> + +<p>Peter had stopped suddenly where he was when the speaker had laughed. Of +the many personal attributes of man, some may become slurred out of all +character, disguised and levelled down among the herd, blurred with time, +robbed of individuality. Faces may be so lost and blurred, almost beyond +the recognition of those who have loved them. But who ever forgot a +friend's laugh, or lost the character of his own? If Ulysses had laughed +when he came back to Ithaca, his dog would have missed his eternal +distinction.</p> + +<p>Soft, rather low, a thing not detached from the sentence it broke into, +but rather breaking out of it, and merging then into words again—Peter +had carried it in his ears for ten years. Was there ever any man but one +who laughed quite so?</p> + +<p>Looking down the garden, he saw them, sitting under a pergola, +half-veiled by the purple drifts of the wistaria that hung in trails +between them and him. Through its twilight screen he saw Denis in a +dinner-jacket, leaning back in a cane chair, his elbow on its arm, a +cigarette in his raised hand, speaking. The light from a big yellow +lantern swinging above them lit his clear profile, gleamed on his fair +hair. Opposite him was Lucy, in a white frock, her elbows on a little +table, her chin in her two hands, her eyes wide and grey and full of the +wonder of the twilight. And beyond her sat Lord Evelyn, leaning back with +closed eyes, a cigar in his delicate white hand.</p> + +<p>Peter stood and looked, and a little faint, doubtful smile twitched at +his lips, as at a dear, familiar sight long unseen. Should he approach? +Should he speak? For a moment he hung in doubt.</p> + +<p>Then he turned away. He had no part with them, nor they with him. His +part—Rodney had said it once—was to clear out.</p> + +<p>Livio, close to him, was twanging his mandolin and singing some absurd +melody:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Ah, Signor!"<br /></span> +<span class="i0">"Scusi, Signora?"<br /></span> +<span class="i0">"È forae il mio marito,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Da molti anni smarrito?..."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>Peter broke in softly, "Livio, I go. I have had enough."</p> + +<p>Livio's eyebrows rose; he shrugged his shoulders, but continued his +singing. He, anyhow, had not yet had enough of such a good-natured +audience.</p> + +<p>Peter slipped out of the garden into the white road than ran down between +the grey mystery of the olive groves to the little dirty fishing-town and +the dark, quiet sea. In the eastern sky there was a faint shimmer, a +disturbance of the deep, star-lit blue, a pallor that heralded the rising +of the moon. But as yet the world lay in its mysterious dusk.</p> + +<p>Peter, his feet stirring on the white dust of the road, drew in the +breath of the lemon-grown, pine-grown, myrtle-sweet hills, and the keen +saltness of the sea, and the fishiness of the little, lit, clamorous town +on its edge. In the town there was singing, raucous and merry. Behind in +the garden there was singing, melodious and absurd. It echoes fleeted +down the road.</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Ah, Signor!"<br /></span> +<span class="i0">"Scusi, Signora?"<br /></span> +<span class="i0">"È forse il mio marrito..."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>Peter sat on the low white wall to watch the moon rise. And for a moment +the bitter smell of the soft dust on the road was in his nostrils, and he +was taken back into a past bitterness, when the world had been dust to +his feet, dust to his touch, dust in his throat, so that he had lain +dust-buried, and choked for breath, and found none. This time a year ago +he had lain so, and for many months after that. Those months had graved +lines on his face—lines perhaps on his soul—that all the quiet, gay +years could not smooth out. For the peace of the lee shore is not a thing +easily won; to let go and drift before the storms wheresoever they drive +needs a hard schooling; to lose comes first, and to laugh long after.</p> + +<p>The dust Peter's feet had stirred settled down; and now, instead of +its faint bitterness, the sweetness of the evening hills stole about. +And over the still sea the white moon rose, glorious, triumphant, and +straight from her to Peter, cleaving the dark waters, her bright road +ran.</p> + +<p>Peter went down into the little, merry town.</p> + +<p>He and Thomas slept at an inn that night. Livio joined them there next +morning at breakfast. He said, "You were foolish to leave the hotel so +soon. I got a good sum of money. There was an English family, that gave +me a good reward. My music pleased them. The English are always generous +and extravagant. Oh, Dio, I forgot; one of them sent you this note by me. +He explained nothing; he said, 'Is he that was with you your friend? Then +give him this note.' Did he perhaps know you of old, or did he merely +perceive that you were of his country? I know nothing. One does not read +the letters entrusted to one for one's friends. Here it is."</p> + +<p>He handed Peter a folded-up piece of notepaper. Opening it, Peter read, +scrawled unsteadily in pencil, "Come and see me to-morrow morning. I +shall be alone." E.P.U.</p> + +<p>"He followed me to the garden door as I went away," continued Livio, "and +gave it me secretly. I fancy he did not mean his companions to know. You +will go?"</p> + +<p>Peter smiled, and Livio looked momentarily embarrassed.</p> + +<p>"Oh, you know, it came open in my hand; and understanding the language so +well, it leaped to my eyes. I knew you would not mind. You will go and +see this milord? He <i>is</i> a milord, for I heard the waiter address him."</p> + +<p>"Yes," said Peter. "I will go and see him."</p> + +<p>An hour later he was climbing the white road again in the morning +sunshine.</p> + +<p>Asking at the hotel for Lord Evelyn Urquhart, he was taken through the +garden to a wistaria-hung summer-house. The porter indicated it to him +and departed, and Peter, through the purple veils, saw Lord Evelyn +reclining in a long cane chair, smoking the eternal cigarette and reading +a French novel.</p> + +<p>He looked up as Peter's shadow fell between him and the sun, and dropped +the yellow book with a slight start. For a moment neither of them spoke; +they looked at each other in silence, the pale, shabby, dusty youth with +his vivid eyes; the frail, foppish, middle-aged, worn-out man, with his +pale face twitching a little and his near-sighted eyes screwed up, as if +he was startled, or dazzled, or trying hard to see something.</p> + +<p>The next moment Lord Evelyn put out a slim, fine hand.</p> + +<p>"How are you, Peter Margerison? Sit down and talk to me."</p> + +<p>Peter sat down in the chair beside him.</p> + +<p>Lord Evelyn said, "I'm quite alone this morning. Denis and Lucy have +motored to Genoa. I join them there this afternoon.... You didn't know +last night that I saw you."</p> + +<p>"No," said Peter. "I believed that none of you had seen me. I didn't want +you to; so I came away."</p> + +<p>Lord Evelyn nodded. "Quite so; quite so. I understood that. And I didn't +mention you to the others. Indeed, I didn't mean to take any notice of +you at all; but at the end I changed my mind, and sent for you to come. +I believe I'm right in thinking that your wish is to keep out of the way +of our family."</p> + +<p>"Yes," said Peter.</p> + +<p>"You're right. You've been very right indeed. There's nothing else you +could have done, all this time." Peter glanced at him quickly, to see +what he knew, and saw.</p> + +<p>Lord Evelyn saw the questioning glance.</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes, yes, boy. Of course, I knew about you and Lucy. I'm not such +a blind fool as I've sometimes been thought in the past—eh, Peter +Margerison? I always knew you cared for Lucy; and I knew she cared for +you. And I knew when she and you all but went off together. I asked Lucy; +I can read the child's eyes better than books, you see. I read it, and I +asked her, and she admitted it."</p> + +<p>"It was you who stopped her," said Peter quietly.</p> + +<p>Lord Evelyn tapped his fingers on his chair arm.</p> + +<p>"I'm not a moralist; anything but a moralist, y'know. But as a man of the +world, with some experience, I knew that couldn't be. So I told her the +truth."</p> + +<p>"The truth?" Peter wondered.</p> + +<p>"Yes, boy, the truth. The only truth that mattered to Lucy. That you +couldn't be happy that way. That you loved Denis too much to be happy +that way. When I said it, she knew it. 'Deed, I believe she'd known it +before, in her heart. So she wrote to you, and ended that foolish idea. +You know now that she was right, I think?"</p> + +<p>"I knew it then. I was just going to telegraph to her not to come when +I got her letter. No, I didn't know she was right; but I knew we couldn't +do it. I didn't know it for myself, either; I had to be told. When I was +told, I knew it."</p> + +<p>"Ah." Lord Evelyn looked at the pale face, that had suddenly taken a look +of age, as of one who looks back into a past bitterness.</p> + +<p>"Ah." He looked in silence for a moment, then said, "You've been through +a bad time, Peter."</p> + +<p>Peter's face twitched suddenly, and he answered nothing.</p> + +<p>"All those months," said Lord Evelyn, and his high, unsteady voice shook +with a curious tremor, "all that summer, you were in hell."</p> + +<p>Peter gave no denial.</p> + +<p>"I knew it," said Lord Evelyn. "And you never answered the letter I wrote +you."</p> + +<p>"No," said Peter slowly. "I answered no letters at all, I think. I +don't remember exactly what I did, through that summer. I suppose I +lived—because here I am. And I suppose I kept Thomas alive—because +he's here too. But for the rest—I don't know. I hated everyone and +everything. I believe Rodney used to come and see me sometimes; but I +didn't care.... Oh, what's the good of talking about it? It's over now."</p> + +<p>Lord Evelyn was shading his face with a shaking hand.</p> + +<p>"Poor boy," he muttered to himself. "Poor boy. Poor boy."</p> + +<p>Peter, recovering his normal self, said, "You've been awfully good to +me, Lord Evelyn. I've behaved very badly to you, I believe. Thanks most +awfully for everything. But don't pity me now, because I've all I want."</p> + +<p>"Happy, are you?" Lord Evelyn looked up at him again, searchingly.</p> + +<p>"Quite happy." Peter's smile was reassuring.</p> + +<p>"The dooce you are!" Lord Evelyn murmured. "Well, I believe you.... Look +here, young Peter, I've a proposal to make. In the first place, is it +over, that silly business of yours and Lucy's? Can you meet without +upsetting each other?"</p> + +<p>Peter considered for a moment.</p> + +<p>"Yes; I think we can. I suppose I shall always care—I always have—but +now that we've made up our minds that it won't do ... accepted it, you +know.... Oh, yes, I think we could meet, as far as that goes."</p> + +<p>Lord Evelyn nodded approval.</p> + +<p>"Very good, very good. Now listen to me. You're on the roads, aren't you, +without a penny, you and your boy?"</p> + +<p>"Yes. I make a little as I go along, you know. One doesn't need much +here. We're quite comfortable."</p> + +<p>"Are you, indeed?... Well now, I see no reason why you shouldn't be more +comfortable still. I want you to come and live with me."</p> + +<p>Peter startled, looked up, and coloured. Then he smiled.</p> + +<p>"It's most frightfully good of you...."</p> + +<p>"Rubbish, rubbish." Lord Evelyn testily waved his words aside. "'Tisn't +for your sake. It's for mine. I want your company.... My good boy, +haven't you ever guessed, all these years, that I rather like your +company? That was why I was so angry when you and your precious brother +made a fool of me long ago. It hurt, because I liked you, Peter +Margerison. That was why I couldn't forgive you. Demme! I don't think +I've forgiven you yet, nor ever shall. That is why I came and insulted +you so badly one day as you remember. That's why I've such a soft place +for Lucy, who's got your laugh and your voice and your tricks of talk, +and looks at me with your white face. That's why I wasn't going to let +her and you make young fools of yourselves together. That, I suppose, +is why I know all the time what you're feeling; why I knew you were in +hell all last summer; why I saw you, though I'm such a blinde bat now, +last night, when neither Denis nor Lucy did. And that's why I want +you and your boy to come and keep me company now, till the end."</p> + +<p>Peter put out his hand and took Lord Evelyn's.</p> + +<p>"I don't know what I can say to thank you. I do appreciate it, you know, +more than anything that's ever happened to me before. I can't think how +you can be so awfully nice to me...."</p> + +<p>"Enough, enough," said Lord Evelyn. "Will you or won't you? Yes or no?"</p> + +<p>Peter at that gave his answer quickly.</p> + +<p>"No. I can't, you know."</p> + +<p>Lord Evelyn turned on him sharply.</p> + +<p>"You <i>won't</i>? The devil take it!"</p> + +<p>"It's like this," said Peter, disturbed and apologetic, "we don't want to +lead what's called respectable lives, Thomas and I. We don't want to be +well-off—to live with well-off people. We—we can't, d'you see. It's not +the way we're made. We don't belong. We're meant just to drift about the +bottom, like this, and pick up a living anyhow."</p> + +<p>"The boy's a fool," remarked Lord Evelyn, throwing back his head and +staring at the roof.</p> + +<p>Peter, who hated to wound, went on, "If we could share the life of any +rich person, it would be you."</p> + +<p>"Good Lord, I'm not rich. Wish I were. Rich!"</p> + +<p>"Oh, but you are, you know. You're what <i>we</i> mean by rich.... And it's +not only that. There's Denis and Lucy too. We've parted ways, and I do +think it's best we shouldn't meet much. What's the good of beginning +again to want things one can't have? I might, you know; and it would +hurt. I don't now. I've given it all up. I don't want money; I don't want +Denis's affection ... or Lucy ... or any of the things I have wanted, and +that I've lost. I'm happy without them; without anything but what one +finds to play with here as one goes along. One finds good things, you +know—friends, and sunshine, and beauty, and enough minestra to go on +with, and sheltered places on the shore to boil one's kettle in. I'm +happy. Wouldn't it be madness to leave it and go out and begin having and +wanting things again?"</p> + +<p>Lord Evelyn had been listening with a curious expression of comprehension +struggling with impatience.</p> + +<p>"And the boy?" he said. "D'you suppose there'll never come a time when +you want for the boy more than you can give him here, in these dirty +little towns you like so much?"</p> + +<p>"Oh," said Peter, "how can one look ahead? Depend on it, if Thomas is one +of the people who are born to have things, he will have them. And if he's +not, he won't, whatever I try to get for him. He's only one and a half +now; so at least there's time before we need think of that. He's happy at +present with what he's got."</p> + +<p>"And is it your purpose, then, to spend all your life—anyhow, many +years—in these parts, selling needlework?"</p> + +<p>"I've no purpose," said Peter. "I must see what turns up. No, I daresay I +shall try England again some time. But, wherever I am, I think I know now +what is the happy way to live, for people like me. We're no use, you see, +people like me; we make a poor job at the game, and we keep failing and +coming bad croppers and getting hurt and in general making a mess of +things. But at least we can be happy. We can't make our lives sublime, +and departing leave behind us footprints on the sands of time—oh, I +don't think I want to, in the least—but we can make a fairly good time +for ourselves and a few other people out of the things we have. That's +what we're doing, Thomas and I. And it's good enough."</p> + +<p>Lord Evelyn looked at him long in silence, with his narrowed, searching +eyes, that seemed always to be looking for something in his face and +finding it there.</p> + +<p>Then he sighed a little, and Peter, struck through by remorse, saw how +old he looked in that moment.</p> + +<p>"How it takes one back—takes one back," muttered Lord Evelyn.</p> + +<p>Then he turned abruptly on Peter.</p> + +<p>"Lest you get conceited, young Peter, with me begging for your company +and being kindly refused, I'll tell you something. I loved your mother; +my brother's wife. Did you ever guess that?—guess why I liked you a good +deal?"</p> + +<p>"Yes," said Peter, and Lord Evelyn started.</p> + +<p>"You did? Demme! that's her again. She always guessed everything, and +so did you. She guessed I cared.... You're her own child—only she was +lovely, you know, and you're not, don't think it.... Well, she had her +follies, like you—a romantic child, she always was.... You must go +your own way, young Peter. I'll not hinder or help you till you want +me.... And now I'm tired; I've talked too much. I'm not going to ask you +to lunch with me, for I don't want you. Leave me now."</p> + +<p>Peter paused for a moment still. He wanted to ask questions, and could +not.</p> + +<p>"Well, what now? Oh, I see; you want the latest news of your Denis and +Lucy. Well, they're doing as well as can be expected. Denis—I need +hardly say, need I?—flourishes like the green bay tree in all his works. +He's happy, like you. No, not like you a bit; he's got things to be +happy about; his happiness isn't a reasonless lunacy; it's got a sound +bottom to it. The boy is a fine boy, probably going to be nearly as +beautiful as Denis, but with Lucy's eyes. And Lucy's happy enough, I +hope. Knows Denis inside and out, you know, and has accepted him, for +better or worse. I don't believe she's pining for you, if that's what +you want to know. You may be somewhere deep down at the bottom of her +always—shouldn't wonder if you are—but she gives the top of her to +Denis all right—and more than that to the boy—and all of her to life +and living, as she always did and always must. You two children seem to +be tied to life with stronger ropes than most people, an't you. Sylvia +was, before you. Not to any one thing in life, or to many things, but +just to life itself. So go and live it in your own way, and don't bother +me any more. You've tired me out."</p> + +<p>Peter said good-bye, and went. He loved Lord Evelyn, and his eyes +were sad because he had thrown back his offer on his hands. He didn't +think Lord Evelyn had many more years before him, though he was only +fifty-five; and for a moment he wondered whether he couldn't, after all, +accept that offer till the end came. He even, at the garden wall, hung +for a moment in doubt, with the echo of that high, wistful voice in his +ears.</p> + +<p>But before him the white road ran down from the olive-grey hills to the +little gay town by the blue sea's edge, and the sweetness of the scented +hills in the May sunshine caught him by the throat, and, questioning no +more, he took the road.</p> + +<p>He loved Lord Evelyn; but the life he offered was not for Peter, not for +Thomas as yet; though Thomas, in the years to come, should choose his own +path. At present there was for both of them the merry, shifting life of +the roads, the passing friendships, lightly made, lightly loosed, the +olive hills, silver like ghostly armies in the pale moonlight, the +sweetness of the starry flowers at their twisted stems, the sudden blue +bays that laughed below bends of the road, the cities, like many-coloured +nosegays on a pale chain, the intimate sweetness of lemon gardens by day +and night, the happy morning on the hills and sea.</p> + +<p>For these—Peter analysed the distinction—are, or may be, for all +alike. There is no grabbing here; a man may share the overflowing sun not +with one but with all. The down-at-heels, limping, broken, army of the +Have-Nots are not denied such beauty and such peace as this, if they will +but take it and be glad. The lust to possess here finds no fulfilment; +having nothing, yet possessing all things, the empty-handed legion laughs +along its way. The last, the gayest, the most hilarious laughter begins +when, destitute utterly, the wrecked pick up coloured shells upon the lee +shore. For there are shells enough and to spare for all; there is no +grasping here.</p> + +<p>Peter, with a mind at ease and Francesco grinning at his heels, sauntered +down the warm, dusty road to find Thomas and have lunch.</p> + +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<hr class="full" /> +<p>***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE LEE SHORE***</p> +<p>******* This file should be named 16612-h.txt or 16612-h.zip *******</p> +<p>This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:<br /> +<a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/6/6/1/16612">https://www.gutenberg.org/1/6/6/1/16612</a></p> +<p>Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed.</p> + +<p>Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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For +example an eBook of filename 10234 would be found at: + +https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/0/2/3/10234 + +or filename 24689 would be found at: +https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/2/4/6/8/24689 + +An alternative method of locating eBooks: +<a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/GUTINDEX.ALL">https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/GUTINDEX.ALL</a> + +*** END: FULL LICENSE *** +</pre> +</body> +</html> diff --git a/16612.txt b/16612.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6ac1e69 --- /dev/null +++ b/16612.txt @@ -0,0 +1,10244 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Lee Shore, by Rose Macaulay + + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + + + + +Title: The Lee Shore + + +Author: Rose Macaulay + + + +Release Date: August 28, 2005 [eBook #16612] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII) + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE LEE SHORE*** + + +E-text prepared by Suzanne Shell, Mary Meehan, and the Project Gutenberg +Online Distributed Proofreading Team (https://www.pgdp.net/ + + + +THE LEE SHORE + +by + +R. MACAULAY + +1912 + + + + + + + +TO P.R. + + + + +That division, the division of those who have and those who have not, +runs so deep as almost to run to the bottom. + + + + +CONTENTS + +CHAPTER I +A Hereditary Bequest + +CHAPTER II +The Choice of a Career + +CHAPTER III +The Hopes + +CHAPTER IV +The Complete Shopper + +CHAPTER V +The Splendid Morning + +CHAPTER VI +Hilary, Peggy, and the Boarders + +CHAPTER VII +Diana, Actaeon, and Lord Evelyn + +CHAPTER VIII +Peter Understands + +CHAPTER IX +The Fat in the Fire + +CHAPTER X +The Loss of a Profession + +CHAPTER XI +The Loss of an Idea + +CHAPTER XII +The Loss of a Goblet and Other Things + +CHAPTER XIII +The Loss of the Single State + +CHAPTER XIV +Peter, Rhoda, and Lucy + +CHAPTER XV +The Loss of a Wife + +CHAPTER XVI +A Long Way + +CHAPTER XVII +Mischances in the Rain + +CHAPTER XVIII +The Breaking-Point + +CHAPTER XIX +The New Life + +CHAPTER XX +The Last Loss + +CHAPTER XXI +On the Shore + + + + +THE LEE SHORE + + + + +CHAPTER I + +A HEREDITARY BEQUEST + + +During the first week of Peter Margerison's first term at school, +Urquhart suddenly stepped, a radiant figure on the heroic scale, out of +the kaleidoscopic maze of bemusing lights and colours that was Peter's +vision of his new life. + +Peter, seeing Urquhart in authority on the football field, asked, "Who is +it?" and was told, "Urquhart, of course," with the implication "Who else +could it be?" + +"Oh," Peter said, and blushed. Then he was told, "Standing right in +Urquhart's way like that! Urquhart doesn't want to be stared at by all +the silly little kids in the lower-fourth." But Urquhart was, as a +matter of fact, probably used to it. + +So that was Urquhart. Peter Margerison hugged secretly his two pieces of +knowledge; so secret they were, and so enormous, that he swelled visibly +with them; there seemed some danger that they might even burst him. That +great man was Urquhart. Urquhart was that great man. Put so, the two +pieces of knowledge may seem to have a certain similarity; there was in +effect a delicate discrimination between them. If not wholly distinct one +from the other, they were anyhow two separate aspects of the same +startling and rather magnificent fact. + +Then there was another aspect: did Urquhart know that he, Margerison, was +in fact Margerison? He showed no sign of such knowledge; but then it was +naturally not part of his business to concern himself with silly little +kids in the lower-fourth. Peter never expected it. + +But a few days after that, Peter came into the lavatories and +found Urquhart there, and Urquhart looked round and said, "I say, +you--Margerison. Just cut down to the field and bring my cap. You'll find +it by the far goal, Smithson's ground. You can bring it to the lavatories +and hang it on my peg. Cut along quick, or you'll be late." + +Peter cut along quick, and found the velvet tasselled thing and brought +it and hung it up with the care due to a thing so precious as a fifteen +cap. The school bell had clanged while he was down on the field, and he +was late and had lines. That didn't matter. The thing that had emerged +was, Urquhart knew he was Margerison. + +After that, Urquhart did not have occasion to honour Margerison with his +notice for some weeks. It was, of course, a disaster of Peter's that +brought them into personal relations. Throughout his life, Peter's +relations were apt to be based on some misfortune or other; he always had +such bad luck. Vainly on Litany Sundays he put up his petition to be +delivered "from lightning and tempest, from plague, pestilence, and +famine, from battle and murder, and from sudden death." Disasters seemed +to crowd the roads on which he walked; so frequent were they and so +tragic that life could scarcely be lived in sober earnest; it was, for +Peter the comedian, a tragi-comic farce. Circumstances provided the +tragedy, and temperament the farce. + +Anyhow, one day Peter tumbled on to the point of his right shoulder and +lay on his face, his arm crooked curiously at his side, remarking that he +didn't think he was hurt, only his arm felt funny and he didn't think he +would move it just yet. People pressed about him; suggested carrying him +off the field; asked if he thought it was broken; asked him how he felt +now; asked him all manner of things, none of which Peter felt competent +to answer. His only remark, delivered in a rather weak and quavering +voice, was to the effect that he would walk directly, only he would like +to stay where he was a little longer, please. He said it very politely. +It was characteristic of Peter Margerison that misfortune always made him +very polite and pleasant in his manners, as if he was saying, "I am sorry +to be so tiresome and feeble: do go on with your own businesses, you more +fortunate and capable people, and never mind me." + +As they stood in uncertainty about him, someone said, "There's Urquhart +coming," and Urquhart came. He had been playing on another ground. He +said, "What is it?" and they told him it was Margerison, his arm or his +shoulder or something, and he didn't want to be moved. Urquhart pushed +through the crowd that made way for him, and bent over Margerison and +felt his arm from the shoulder to the wrist, and Margerison bit at the +short grass that was against his face. + +"That's all right," said Urquhart. "I wanted to see if it was sprained or +broken anywhere. It's not; it's just a put-out shoulder. I did that once, +and they put it in on the field; it was quite easy. It ought to be done +at once, before it gets stiff." He turned Peter over on his back, and +they saw that he was pale, and his forehead was muddy where it had +pressed on the ground, and wet where perspiration stood on it. Urquhart +was unlacing his own boot. + +"I'm going to haul it in for you," he told Peter. "It's quite easy. It'll +hurt a bit, of course, but less now than if it's left. It'll slip in +quite easily, because you haven't much muscle," he added, looking at the +frail, thin, crooked arm. Then he put his stockinged foot beneath Peter's +arm-pit, and took the arm by the wrist and straightened it out. The other +thin arm was thrown over Peter's pale face and working mouth. The muddy +forehead could be seen getting visibly wetter. Urquhart threw himself +back and pulled, with a long and strong pull. Sharp gasps came from +beneath the flung-up left arm, through teeth that were clenched over a +white jersey sleeve. The thin legs writhed a little. Urquhart desisted, +breathing deeply. + +"Sorry," he said; "one more'll do it." The one more was longer and +stronger, and turned the gasps into semi-groans. But as Urquhart had +predicted, it did it. + +"There," said Urquhart, resting and looking pleased, as he always did +when he had accomplished something neatly. "Heard the click, didn't +you? It's in all right. Sorry to hurt you, Margerison; you were jolly +sporting, though. Now I'm going to tie it up before we go in, or it'll +be out again." + +So he tied Peter's arm to Peter's body with his neck scarf. Then he took +up the small light figure in his arms and carried it from the field. + +"Hurt much now?" he asked, and Peter shook an untruthful head and grinned +an untruthful and painful grin. Urquhart was being so inordinately decent +to him, and he felt, even in his pain, so extremely flattered and exalted +by such decency, that not for the world would he have revealed the fact +that there had been a second faint click while his arm was being bound +to his side, and an excruciating jar that made him suspect the abominable +thing to be out again. He didn't know how the mechanism worked, but he +was sure that the thing Urquhart had with such labour hauled in had +slipped out and was disporting itself at large in unlawful territory. He +said nothing, a little because he really didn't think he could quite make +up his mind to another long and strong pull, but chiefly because of +Urquhart and his immense decency. Success was Urquhart's role; one did +not willingly imagine him failing. If heroes fail, one must not let them +know it. Peter shut his eyes, and, through his rather sick vision of +trespassing rabbits popping in and out through holes in a fence, knew +that Urquhart's arms were carrying him very strongly and easily and +gently. He hoped he wasn't too heavy. He would have said that he could +walk, only he was rather afraid that if he said anything he might be +sick. Besides, he didn't really want to walk; his shoulder was hurting +him very much. He was so white about the cheeks and lips that Urquhart +thought he had fainted. + +After a little while, Urquhart was justified in his supposition; it was +characteristic of Peter to convert, as promptly as was feasible, any +slight error of Urquhart's into truth. So Peter knew nothing when +Urquhart carried him indoors and delivered him into other hands. He +opened his eyes next on the doctor, who was untying his arm and cutting +his sleeve and saying cheerfully, "All right, young man, all right." + +The next thing he said was, "I was told it had been put in." + +"Yes," said Peter languidly. "But it came out again, I think." + +"So it seems. Didn't they discover that down there?" + +Peter moved his head limply, meaning "No." + +"But you did, did you? Well, why didn't you say so? Didn't want to have +it hauled at again, I suppose? Well, we'll have it in directly. You won't +feel it much." + +So the business was gone through again, and this time Peter not only half +but quite groaned, because it didn't matter now. + +When the thing was done, and Peter rigid and swathed in bed, the doctor +was recalled from the door by a faint voice saying, "Will you please not +tell anyone it came out again?" + +"Why not?" The doctor was puzzled. + +"Don't know," said Peter, after finding that he couldn't think of a +reason. But then he gave the true one. + +"Urquhart thought he'd got it in all right, that's all." + +"Oh." The doctor was puzzled still. "But that's Urquhart's business, not +yours. It wasn't your fault, you know." + +"Please," said Peter from the bed. "Do you mind?" + +The doctor looked and saw feverish blue lamps alight in a pale face, and +soothingly said he did not mind. "Your shoulder, no one else's, isn't +it?" he admitted. "Now you'd better go to sleep; you'll be all right +directly, if you're careful not to move it or lie on it or anything." + +Peter said he would be careful. He didn't at all want to move it or lie +on it or anything. He lay and had waking visions of the popping rabbits. +But they might pop as they liked; Peter hid a better thing in his inmost +soul. Urquhart had said, "Sorry to hurt you, Margerison. You were jolly +sporting, though." In the night it seemed incredible that Urquhart had +stooped from Valhalla thus far; that Urquhart had pulled in his arm with +his own hands and called him sporting to his face. The words, and the +echo of the soft, pleasant, casual voice, with its unemphasised +intonations, spread lifting wings for him, and bore him above the aching +pain that stayed with him through the night. + +Next morning, when Peter was wishing that the crumbs of breakfast that +got between one's back and one's pyjamas were less sharp-cornered, and +wondering why a dislocated shoulder should give one an aching bar of pain +across the forehead, and feeling very sad because a letter from home had +just informed him that his favourite guinea-pig had been trodden on by +the gardener, Urquhart came to see him. + +Urquhart said, "Hullo, Margerison. How are you this morning?" and Peter +said he was very nearly all right now, thanks very much. He added, +"Thanks awfully, Urquhart, for putting it in, and seeing after me and +everything." + +"Oh, that's all right." Urquhart's smile had the same pleasant quality as +his voice. He had never smiled at Peter before. Peter lay and looked at +him, the blue lamps very bright in his pale face, and thought what a +jolly voice and face Urquhart had. Urquhart stood by the bed, his hands +in his pockets, and looked rather pleasantly down at the thin, childish +figure in pink striped pyjamas. Peter was fourteen, and looked less, +being delicate to frailness. Urquhart had been rather shocked by his +extreme lightness. He had also been pleased by his pluck; hence the +pleasant expression of his eyes. He was a little touched, too, by the +unmistakable admiration in the over-bright blue regard. Urquhart was not +unused to admiration; but here was something very whole-hearted and +rather pleasing. Margerison seemed rather a nice little kid. + +Then, quite suddenly, and still in his pleasant, soft, casual tones, +Urquhart dragged Peter's immense secret into the light of day. + +"How are your people?" he said. + +Peter stammered that they were quite well. + +"Of course," Urquhart went on, "I don't remember your mother; I was only +a baby when my father died. But I've always heard a lot about her. Is +she..." + +"She's dead, you know," broke in Peter hastily, lest Urquhart should make +a mistake embarrassing to himself. "A long time ago," he added, again +anxious to save embarrassment. + +"Yes--oh yes." Urquhart, from his manner, might or might not have known. + +"I live with my uncle," Peter further told him, thus delicately and +unobstrusively supplying the information that Mr. Margerison too was +dead. He omitted to mention the date of this bereavement, having always +a delicate sense of what did and did not concern his hearers. The decease +of the lady who had for a brief period been Lady Hugh Urquhart, might be +supposed to be of a certain interest to her stepson; that of her second +husband was a private family affair of the Margerisons. + +(The Urquhart-Margerison connection, which may possibly appear +complicated, was really very simple, and also of exceedingly little +importance to anyone but Peter; but in case anyone feels a desire to have +these things elucidated, it may here be mentioned that Peter's mother had +made two marriages, the first being with Urquhart's father, Urquhart +being already in existence at the time; the second with Mr. Margerison, a +clergyman, who was also already father of one son, and became Peter's +father later. Put so, it sounds a little difficult, chiefly because they +were all married so frequently and so rapidly, but really is simplicity +itself.) + +"I live with my uncle too," Urquhart said, and the fact formed a shadowy +bond. But Peter's tone had struck a note of flatness that faintly +indicated a lack of enthusiasm as to the menage. This note was, to +Peter's delicately attuned ears, absent from Urquhart's voice. Peter +wondered if Lord Hugh's brother (supposing it to be a paternal uncle) +resembled Lord Hugh. To resemble Lord Hugh, Peter had always understood +(till three years ago, when his mother had fallen into silence on that +and all other topics) was to be of a charm.... One spoke of it with a +faint sigh. And yet of a charm that somehow had lacked something, the +intuitive Peter had divined; perhaps it had been too splendid, too +fortunate, for a lady who had loved all small, weak, unlucky things. +Anyhow, not long after Lord Hugh's death (he was killed out hunting) she +had married Mr. Margerison, the poorest clergyman she could find, and the +most devoted to the tending of the unprosperous. + +Peter remembered her--compassionate, delicate, lovely, full of laughter, +with something in the dance of her vivid dark-blue eyes that hinted at +radiant and sad memories. She had loved Lord Hugh for a glorious and +brief space of time. The love had perhaps descended, a hereditary +bequest, with the deep blue eyes, to her son. Peter would have understood +the love; the thing he would not have understood was the feeling that +had flung her on the tide of reaction at Mr. Margerison's feet. Mr. +Margerison was a hard liver and a tremendous giver. Both these things +had come to mean a great deal to Sylvia Urquhart--much more than they +had meant to the girl Sylvia Hope. + +And hence Peter, who lay and looked at Lord Hugh Urquhart's son with +wide, bright eyes. With just such eyes--only holding, let us hope, an +adoration more masked--Sylvia Hope had long ago looked at Lord Hugh, +seeing him beautiful, delicately featured, pale, and fair of skin, built +with a strong fineness, and smiling with pleasant eyes. Lord Hugh's +beauty of person and charm of manner had possibly (not certainly) meant +more to Sylvia Hope than his son's meant to her son; and his prowess at +football (if he had any) had almost certainly meant less. But, apart from +the glamour of physical skill and strength and the official glory of +captainship, the same charm worked on mother and son. The soft, quick, +unemphasised voice, with the break of a laugh in it, had precisely the +same disturbing effect on both. + +"Well," Urquhart was saying, "when will they let you play again? You must +buck up and get all right quickly.... I shouldn't wonder if you made a +pretty decent three-quarter sometime.... You ought to use your arm as +soon as you can, you know, or it gets stiff, and then you can't, and +that's an awful bore.... Hurt like anything when I hauled it in, didn't +it? But it was much better to do it at once." + +"Oh, much," Peter agreed. + +"How does it feel now?" + +"Oh, all right. I don't feel it much. I say, do you think I ought to use +it at once, in case it gets stiff?" Peter's eyes were a little anxious; +he didn't much want to use it at once. + +But Urquhart opined that this would be over-great haste. He departed, and +his last words were, "You must come to breakfast with me when you're up +again." + +Peter lay, glorified, and thought it all over. Urquhart knew, then; he +had known from the first. He had known when he said, "I say, you, +Margerison, just cut down to the field ..." + +Not for a moment did it seem at all strange to Peter that Urquhart should +have had this knowledge and given no sign till now. What, after all, was +it to a hero that the family circle of an obscure individual such as he +should have momentarily intersected the hero's own orbit? School has this +distinction--families take a back place; one is judged on one's own +individual merits. Peter would much rather think that Urquhart had come +to see him because he had put his arm out and Urquhart had put it in +(really though, only temporarily in) than because his mother had once +been Urquhart's stepmother. + +Peter's arm did not recover so soon as Urquhart's sanguineness had +predicted. Perhaps he began taking precautions against stiffness too +soon; anyhow he did not that term make a decent three-quarter, or any +sort of a three-quarter at all. It always took Peter a long time to get +well of things; he was easy to break and hard to mend--made in Germany, +as he was frequently told. So cheaply made was he that he could perform +nothing. Defeated dreams lived in his eyes; but to light them there +burned perpetually the blue and luminous lamps of undefeated mirth, and +also an immense friendliness for life and mankind and the delightful +world. Like the young knight Agenore, Peter the unlucky was of a mind +having no limits of hope. Over the blue and friendly eyes that lit the +small pale face, the half wistful brows were cocked with a kind of +whimsical and gentle humour, the same humour that twitched constantly +at the corners of his wide and flexible mouth. Peter was not a beautiful +person, but one liked, somehow, to look at him and to meet his +half-enquiring, half-amused, wholly friendly and sympathetic regard. +By the end of his first term at school, he found himself unaccountably +popular. Already he was called "Margery" and seldom seen by himself. He +enjoyed life, because he liked people and they liked him, and things in +general were rather jolly and very funny, even with a dislocated +shoulder. Also the great Urquhart would, when he remembered, take a +little notice of Peter--enough to inflate the young gentleman's spirit +like a blown-out balloon and send him soaring skywards, to float gently +down again at his leisure. + +Towards the end of the term, Peter's half-brother Hilary came to visit +him. Hilary was tall and slim and dark and rather beautiful, and he lived +abroad and painted, and he told Peter that he was going to be married to +a woman called Peggy Callaghan. Peter, who had always admired Hilary from +afar, was rather sorry. The woman Peggy Callaghan would, he vaguely +believed, come between Hilary and his family; and already there were more +than enough of such obstacles to intercourse. But at tea-time he saw the +woman, and she was large and fair and laughing, and called him, in her +rich, amused voice "little brother dear," and he did not mind at all, +but liked her and her laugh and her mirthful, lazy eyes. + +Peter was a large-minded person; he did not mind that Hilary wore no +collar and a floppy tie. He did not mind this even when they met Urquhart +in the street. Peter whispered as he passed, "_That's_ Urquhart," and +Hilary suddenly stopped and held out his hand, and said pleasantly, "I am +glad to meet you." Peter blushed at that, naturally (for Hilary's cheek, +not for his tie), and hoped that Urquhart wasn't much offended, but that +he understood what half-brothers who lived abroad and painted were, and +didn't think it was Peter's fault. Urquhart shook hands quite pleasantly, +and when Hilary added, "We shared a stepmother, you and I; I'm Peter's +half-brother, you know," he amiably agreed. Peter hoped he didn't think +that the Urquhart-Margerison connection was being strained beyond due +bounds. Hilary said further, "You've been very good to my young brother, +I know," and it was characteristic of Peter that, even while he listened +to this embarrassing remark, he was free enough from self-consciousness +to be thinking with a keen though undefined pleasure how extraordinarily +nice to look at both Hilary and Urquhart, in their different ways, were. +(Peter's love of the beautiful matured with his growth, but in intensity +it could scarcely grow.) Urquhart was saying something about bad luck and +shoulders; it was decent of Urquhart to say that. In fact, things were +going really well till Hilary, after saying, "Good-bye, glad to have met +you," added to it the afterthought, "You must come and stay at my uncle's +place in Sussex some time. Mustn't he, Peter?" At the same time--fitting +accompaniment to the over-bold words--Peter saw a half-crown, a round, +solid, terrible _half-crown_, pressed into Urquhart's unsuspecting hand. +Oh, horror! Which was the worse, the invitation or the half-crown? Peter +could never determine. Which was the more flagrant indecency--that he, +young Margerison of the lower fourth, should, without any encouragement +whatever, have asked Urquhart of the sixth, captain of the fifteen, head +of his house, to come and stay with him; or that his near relative should +have pressed half-a-crown into the great Urquhart's hand as if he +expected him to go forthwith to the tuck-shop at the corner and buy +tarts? Peter wriggled, scarlet from his collar to his hair. + +Urquhart was a polite person. He took the half-crown. He murmured +something about being very glad. He even smiled his pleasant smile. And +Peter, entirely unexpectedly to himself, did what he always did in the +crises of his singularly disastrous life--he exploded into a giggle. So, +some years later, he laughed helplessly and suddenly, standing among the +broken fragments of his social reputation and his professional career. He +could not help it. When the worst had happened, there was nothing else +one could do. One laughed from a sheer sense of the completeness of the +disaster. Peter had a funny, extremely amused laugh; hardly the laugh of +a prosperous person; rather that of the unhorsed knight who acknowledges +the utterness of his defeat and finds humour in the very fact. It was as +if misfortune--and this misfortune of the half-crown and the invitation +is not to be under-estimated--sharpened all the faculties, never blunt, +by which he apprehended humour. So he looked from Hilary to Urquhart, +and, mentally, from both to his cowering self, and exploded. + +Urquhart had passed on. Hilary said, "What's the matter with _you_?" and +Peter recovered himself and said "Nothing." He might have cried, with +Miss Evelina Anvill, "Oh, my dear sir, I am shocked to death!" He did +not. He did not even say, "Why did you stamp us like that?" He would not +for the world have hurt Hilary's feelings, and vaguely he knew that this +splendid, unusual half-brother of his was in some ways a sensitive +person. + +Hilary said, "The Urquharts ought to invite you to stay. The connection +is really close. I believe your mother was devoted to that boy as a baby. +You'd like to go and stay there, wouldn't you?" + +Peter looked doubtful. He was nervous. Suppose Hilary met Urquhart +again.... Dire possibilities opened. Next time it might be "Peter must go +and stay at _your_ uncle's place in Berkshire." That would be worse. Yes, +the worst had not happened, after all. Urquhart might have met Peggy. +Peggy would in that case have said, "You nice kind boy, you've been such +a dear to this little brother of ours, and I hear you and these boys used +to share a mamma, so you're really brothers, and so, of course, _my_ +brother too; and _what_ a nice face you've got!" There were in fact, +no limits to what Peggy might say. Peggy was outrageous. But it was +surprising how much one could bear from her. Presumably, Peter used to +reflect in after years, when he had to bear from her a very great deal +indeed, it was simply by virtue of her being Peggy. It was the same with +Hilary. They were Hilary and Peggy, and one took them as such. Indeed, +one had to, as there was certainly no altering them. And Peter loved both +of them very much indeed. + +When Peter went home for the holidays, he found that Hilary's alliance +with the woman Peggy Callaghan was not smiled upon. But then none of +Hilary's projects were ever smiled upon by his uncle, who always said, +"Hilary must do as he likes. But he is acting with his usual lack of +judgment." For four years he had been saying so, and he said it again +now. To Hilary himself he further said, "You can't afford a wife at all. +You certainly can't afford Miss Callaghan. You have no right whatever to +marry until you are earning a settled livelihood. You are not of the +temperament to make any woman consistently happy. Miss Callaghan is the +daughter of an Irish doctor, and a Catholic." + +"It is," said Hilary, "the most beautiful of all the religions. If +I could bring myself under the yoke of any creed at all ..." + +"Just so," said his uncle, who was a disagreeable man; "but you can't," +and Hilary tolerantly left it at that, merely adding, "There will be no +difficulty. We have arranged all that. Peggy is not a bigot. As to the +rest, I think we must judge for ourselves. I shall be earning more now, +I imagine." + +Hilary always imagined that; imagination was his strong point. His +initial mistake was to imagine that he could paint. He did not think that +he had yet painted anything very good; but he knew that he was just about +to do so. He had really the artist's eye, and saw keenly the beauty that +was, though he did not know it, beyond his grasp. His uncle, who knew +nothing about art, could have told him that he would never be able to +paint, simply because he had never been, and would never be, able to +work. That gift he wholly lacked. Besides, like young Peter, he seemed +constitutionally incapable of success. A wide and quick receptiveness, +a considerable power of appreciation and assimilation, made such genius +as they had; the power of performance they desperately lacked; their +enterprises always let them through. Failure was the tragi-comic note +of their unprosperous careers. + +However, Hilary succeeded in achieving marriage with the cheerful Peggy +Callaghan, and having done so they went abroad and lived an uneven and +rather exciting life of alternate squalor and luxury in one story of what +had once been a glorious roseate home of Venetian counts, and was now +crumbling to pieces and let in flats to the poor. Hilary and his wife +were most suitably domiciled therein, environed by a splendid dinginess +and squalor, pretentious, tawdry, grandiose, and superbly evading the +common. Peggy wrote to Peter in her large sprawling hand, "You dear +little brother, I wish you'd come and live with us. We have _such_ +fun...." That was the best of Peggy. Always and everywhere she had such +fun. She added, "Give my sisterly regards to the splendid hero who shared +your mamma, and tell him we too live in a palace." That was so like +Peggy, that sudden and amused prodding into the most secret intimacies +of one's emotions. Peggy always discerned a great deal, and was blind +to a great deal more. + + + + +CHAPTER II + +THE CHOICE OF A CAREER + + +Hilary, stretching his slender length wearily in Peter's fat arm-chair, +was saying in his high, sweet voice: + +"It's the merest pittance, Peter, yours and mine. The Robinsons have it +practically all. The _Robinsons_. Really, you know ..." + +The sweet voice had a characteristic, vibrating break of contempt. Hilary +had always hated the Robinsons, who now had it practically all. Hilary +looked pale and tired; he had been settling his dead uncle's affairs for +the last week. The Margerisons' uncle had not been a lovable man; Hilary +could not pretend that he had loved him. Peter had, as far as he had been +permitted to do so; Peter found it possible to be attached to most of the +people he came across; he was a person of catholic sympathies and +gregarious instincts. Even when he heard how the Robinsons had it +practically all, he bore no resentment either against his uncle or the +Robinsons. Such was life. And of course he and Hilary did not make wise +use of money; that they had always been told. + +"You'll have to leave Cambridge," Hilary told him. "You haven't enough to +keep you here. I'm sorry, Peter; I'm afraid you'll have to begin and try +to earn a living. But I can't imagine how, can you? Has any paying line +of life ever occurred to you as possible?" + +"Never," Peter assured him. "But I've not had time to think it over yet, +of course. I supposed I should be up here for two years more, you see." + +At Hilary's "You'll have to leave Cambridge," his face had changed +sharply. Here was tragedy indeed. Bother the Robinsons.... But after +a moment's pause for recovery he answered Hilary lightly enough. Such, +again, was life. A marvellous two terms and a half, and then the familiar +barred gate. It was an old story. + +Hilary's thoughts turned to his own situation. They never, to tell the +truth, dwelt very long on anybody else's. + +"We," he said, "are destitute--absolutely. It's simply frightful, the +wear and strain of it. Peggy, of course," he added plaintively, "is _not_ +a good manager. She likes spending, you know--and there's so seldom +anything to spend, poor Peggy. So life is disappointing for her. The +babies, I needn't say, are growing up little vagabonds. And they will +bathe in the canals, which isn't respectable, of course; though one is +relieved in a way that they should bathe anywhere." + +"If he was selling any pictures," Peter reflected, "he would tell me," so +he did not enquire. Peter had tact as to his questions. One rather needed +it with Hilary. But he wondered vaguely what the babies had, at the +moment, to grow up upon, even as little vagabonds. Presently Hilary +enlightened him. + +"I edit a magazine," he said, and Peter perceived that he was both proud +and ashamed of the fact. "At least I am going to. A monthly publication +for the entertainment and edification of the Englishman in Venice. Lord +Evelyn Urquhart is financing it. You know he has taken up his residence +in Venice? A pleasant crank. Venice is his latest craze. He buys glass. +And, indeed, most other things. He shops all day. It's a mania. When he +was young I believe he had a very fine taste. It's dulled now--a fearful +life, as they say. Well, his last fancy is to run a magazine, and I'm to +edit it. It's to be called 'The Gem.' 'Gemm' Adriatica,' you know, and +all that; besides, it's more or less appropriate to the contents. It's to +be largely concerned with what Lord Evelyn calls 'charming things.' +Things the visiting Englishman likes to hear about, you know. It aims at +being the Complete Tourist's Guide. I have to get hold of people who'll +write articles on the Duomo mosaics, and the galleries and churches and +palaces and so on, and glass and lace and anything else that occurs to +them, in a way calculated to appeal to the cultivated British resident or +visitor. I detest the breed, I needn't say. Pampered hotel Philistines +pretending to culture and profaning the sanctuaries, Ruskin in hand. +_Ruskin_. Really, you know.... Well, anyhow, my mission in life for +the present is to minister to their insatiable appetite for rhapsodising +over what they feel it incumbent on them to admire." + +"Rather fascinating," Peter said. It was a pity that Hilary always +so disliked any work he had to do. Work--a terrific, insatiable god, +demanding its hideous human sacrifices from the dawn of the world till +twilight--so Hilary saw it. The idea of being horrible, all the concrete +details into which it was translated were horrible too. + +"If it was me," said Peter, "I should minister to my own appetite, no one +else's. Bother the cultivated resident. He'd jolly well have to take what +I gave him. And glass and mosaic and lace--what glorious things to write +about.... I rather love Lord Evelyn, don't you." + +Peter remembered him at Astleys, in Berkshire--Urquhart's uncle, tall +and slim and exquisite, with beautiful waistcoats and white, attractive, +nervous hands, that played with a monocle, and a high-pitched voice, and +a whimsical, prematurely worn-out face, and a habit of screwing up +short-sighted eyes and saying, with his queer, closed enunciation, "Quate +charming. Quate." He had always liked Peter, who had been a gentle and +amused boy and had reminded him of Sylvia Hope, lacking her beauty, but +with a funny touch of her charm. Peter had loved the things he loved, +too--the precious and admirable things he had collected round him through +a recklessly extravagant life. Peter at fifteen, in the first hour of his +first visit to Astleys, had been caught out of the incredible romance of +being in Urquhart's home into a new marvel, and stood breathless before a +Bow rose bowl of soft and mellow paste, ornamented with old Japan May +flowers in red and gold and green, and dated "New Canton, 1750." + +"Lake it?" a high voice had asked behind his shoulder. "Lake the sort +of thing?" and there was the tall, funny man swaying on his heels and +screwing his glass into his eye and looking down on Peter with whimsical +interest. Little Peter had said shyly that he did. + +"Prefer chaney to cricket?" asked Urquhart's uncle, with his agreeable +laugh that was too attractive to be described as a titter, a name that +its high, light quality might have suggested. But to that Peter said +"No." He had been asked to Astleys for the cricket week; he was going to +play for Urquhart's team. Not that he was any good; but to scrape through +without disgrace (of course he didn't) was at the moment the goal of +life. + +Lord Evelyn had seemed disappointed. "If I could get you away from +Denis," he said, "I'll be bound cricket wouldn't be in the 'also rans.'" + +And at that moment Denis had sauntered up, and Peter's worshipping regard +had turned from Lord Evelyn's rose bowl to his nephew, and it was Bow +china that was not among the also rans. At that too Lord Evelyn had +laughed, with his queer, closed mirth. + +"Keep that till you fall in love," he had inwardly admonished Peter's +back as the two walked away together. "I daresay she won't deserve it any +better--but that's a law of nature, and this is sheer squandering. My +word, how that boy does lake things--and people!" After all, it was +hardly for any Urquhart to condemn squandering. + +That was Lord Evelyn, as he lived in Peter's memory--a generous, +whimsical, pleasant crank, touched with his nephew's glamour of charm. + +When Peter said, "I rather love him, don't you," Hilary replied, "He's a +fearful old spendthrift." + +Peter demurred at the old. It jarred with one's conceptions of Lord +Evelyn. "I don't suppose he's much over fifty," he surmised. + +"No, I daresay," Hilary indifferently admitted. "He's gone the pace, of +course. Drugs, and all that. He soon won't have a sound faculty left. Oh, +I'm attached to him; he's entertaining, and one can really talk to him, +which is exceptional in Venice, or, indeed, anywhere else. Is his nephew +still up here, by the way?" + +"Yes. He's going down this term." + +"You see a good deal of him, I suppose?" + +"Off and on," said Peter. + +"Of course," said Hilary, "you're almost half-brothers. I do feel that +the Urquharts owe us something, for the sake of the connexion. I shall +talk to Lord Evelyn about you. He was very fond of your mother.... I am +very sorry about you, Peter. We must think it over sometime, seriously." + +He got up and began to walk about the room in his nervous, restless way, +looking at Peter's things. Peter's room was rather pleasing. Everything +in it had the air of being the selection of a personal and discriminating +affection. There was a serene self-confidence about Peter's tastes; he +always knew precisely what he liked, irrespective of what anyone else +liked. If he had happened to admire "The Soul's Awakening" he would +beyond doubt have hung a copy of it in his room. What he had, as a matter +of fact, hung in his room very successfully expressed an aspect of +himself. The room conveyed restfulness, and an immense love, innate +rather than grafted, of the pleasures of the eye. The characteristic of +restfulness was conveyed partly by the fat green sofa and the almost +superfluous number of extremely comfortable arm-chairs, and Peter's +attitude in one of them. On a frame in a corner a large piece of +embroidery was stretched--a cherry tree in blossom coming to slow birth +on a green serge background. Peter was quite good at embroidery. He +carried pieces of it (mostly elaborately designed book-covers) about in +his pockets, and took them out at tea-parties and (surreptitiously) at +lectures. He said it was soothing, like smoking; only smoking didn't +soothe him, it made him feel ill. On days when he had been doing tiresome +or boring or jarring things, or been associating with a certain type of +person, he did a great deal of embroidery in the evenings, because, as he +said, it was such a change. The embroidery stood for a symbol, a type of +the pleasures of the senses, and when he fell to it with fervour beyond +the ordinary, one understood that he had been having a surfeit of the +displeasures of the senses, and felt need to restore the balance. + +Hilary stopped before a piece of extremely shabby, frayed and dingy +tapestry, that had the appearance of having once been even dingier and +shabbier. It looked as if it had lain for years in a dusty corner of +a dusty old shop, till someone had found it and been pleased by it and +taken possession, loving it through its squalor. + +"Rather nice," said Hilary. "Really good, isn't it?" + +Peter nodded. "Gobelin, of the best time. Someone told me that +afterwards. When I bought it, I only knew it was nice. A man wanted to +buy it from me for quite a lot." + +Hilary looked about him. "You've got some good things. How do you pick +them up?" + +"I try," said Peter, "to look as if I didn't care whether I had them or +not. Then they let me have them for very little. The man I got that +tapestry from didn't know how nice it was. I did, but I cheated him." + +"Well," Hilary said, passing his hand wearily over his forehead, "I must +go to your detestable station and catch my train.... I've got a horrible +headache. The strain of all this is frightful." + +He looked as if it was. His pale face, nervous and strained, stabbed at +Peter's affection for him. Peter's affection for Hilary had always been +and always would be an unreasoning, loyal, unspoilably tender thing. + +He went to the station to help Hilary to catch his train. The enterprise +was a failure; it was not a job at which either Margerison was good. They +had to wait in the detestable station for another. The annoyance of that +(it is really an abnormally depressing station) worked on Hilary's +nervous system to such an extent that he might have flung himself on the +line and so found peace from the disappointments of life, had not Peter +been at hand to cheer him up. There were certainly points about young +Peter as a companion for the desperate. + +Peter, having missed hall, as well as Hilary's train, went back to his +room and put an egg on to boil. He lay back in his most comfortable chair +to watch it; he needed comfort rather. He was going down. It had been so +jolly--and it was over. + +He had not got much to show for the good time he had had. Physically, he +was more of a wreck than he had been when he came up. He was slightly +lame in one leg, having broken it at football (before he had been +forbidden to play) and had it badly set. He mended so badly always. He +was also at the moment right-handed (habitually he used his left) and +that was motor bicycling. He had not particularly distinguished himself +in his work. He was good at nothing except diabolo, and not very good at +that. And he had spent more money than he possessed, having drawn +lavishly on his next year's allowance. He might, in fact, have been +described as an impoverished and discredited wreck. But for such a one +he had looked very cheerful, till Hilary had said that about going down. +That was really depressing. + +Peter, as the egg boiled, looked back rather wistfully over his year. +It seemed a very long time ago since he had come up. His had been an +undistinguished arrival; he had not come as a sandwich man between two +signboards that labelled his past career and explained his path that was +to be; he had been unaddressed to any destination. The only remark on his +vague and undistinguished label had perhaps been of the nature of +"Brittle. This side up with care." He had no fame at any game; he did not +row; he was neither a sporting nor, in any marked degree, a reading man. +He did a little work, but he was not very fond of it or very good. The +only things one could say of him were that he seemed to have an immense +faculty of enjoyment and a considerable number of friends, who knew him +as Margery and ate muffins and chocolates between tea and dinner in his +rooms. + +He had been asked at the outset by one of these friends what sort of +things he meant to "go in for." He had said that he didn't exactly know. +"Must one go in for anything, except exams?" The friend, who was +vigorously inclined, had said that one certainly ought. One could--he had +measured Peter's frail physique and remembered all the things he couldn't +do--play golf. Peter had thought that one really couldn't; it was such a +chilly game. Well, of course, one might speak at the Union, said the +persevering friend, insisting, it seemed, on finding Peter a career. +"Don't they talk about politics?" enquired Peter. "I couldn't do that, +you know. I don't approve of politics. If ever I have a vote I shall sell +it to the highest female bidder. Fancy being a Liberal or a Conservative, +out of all the nice things there are in the world to be! There are +health-fooders, now. I'd rather be that. And teetotallers. A man told me +he was a teetotaller to-day. I'll go in for that if you like, because +I don't much like wine. And I hate beer. These are rather nice +chocolates--I mean, they were." + +The indefatigable friend had further informed him that one might be a +Fabian and have a red tie, and encourage the other Fabians to wash. Or +one might ride. + +"One might--" Peter had made a suggestion of his own--"ride a motor +bicycle. I saw a man on one to-day; I mean he had been on it--it was on +him at the moment; it had chucked him off and was dancing on him, and +something that smelt was coming out of a hole. He was such a long way +from home; I was sorry about it." + +His friend had said, "Serve him right. Brute," expressing the general +feeling of the moment about men who rode motor bicycles. + +"Isn't it funny," Peter had reflectively said. "They must get such an +awful headache first--and then to be chucked off and jumped on so hard, +and covered with the smelly stuff--and then to have to walk home dragging +it, when it's deformed and won't run on its wheels. Unless, of course, +one is blown up into little bits and is at rest.... But it is so awfully, +frightfully ugly, to look at and to smell and to hear. Like your +wallpaper, you know." + +Peter's eyes had rested contentedly on his own peaceful green walls. He +really hadn't felt in the least like "going in for" anything, either +motor bicycling or examinations. + +"I suppose you'll just footle, then," his friend had summed it up, and +left him, because it was half-past six, and they had dinner at that +strange hour. That was why they were able to run it into their tea, +since obviously nothing could be done between, even by Peter's energetic +friend. This friend had little hope for Peter. Of course, he would just +footle; he always had. But one was, nevertheless, rather fond of him. +One would like him to do things, and have a sporting time. + +As a matter of fact, Peter gave his friend an agreeable surprise. He went +in, or attempted to go in, for a good many things. He plunged ardently +into football, though he had never been good, and though he always got +extremely tired over it, which was supposed to be bad for him, and +frequently got smashed up, which he knew to be unpleasant for him. This +came to an abrupt end half way through the term. Then he took, quite +suddenly, to motor bicycling. All this is merely to say that the +incalculable factor that sets temperament and natural predilection at +nought had entered into Peter's life. Of course, it was absurd. Urquhart, +being what he was, could successfully do a number of things that Peter, +being what _he_ was, must inevitably come to grief over. But still he +indomitably tried. He even profaned the roads and outraged all aesthetic +fitness in the endeavour, clacking into the country upon a hired +motor-bicycle and making his head ache badly and getting very cold, and +being from time to time thrown off and jumped upon and going about in +bandages, telling enquirers that he supposed he must have knocked against +something somewhere, he didn't remember exactly. The energetic friend had +been caustic. + +"I've no intention of sympathising with you," he had remarked; "because +you deserve all you get. You ass, you know when it's possible to get +smashed up over anything you're safe to do it, so what on earth do you +expect when you take up a thing like this?" + +"Instant death every minute," Peter had truly replied. (His nerves had +been a little shaken by his last ride, which had set his trouser-leg on +fire suddenly, and nearly, as he remarked, burnt him to death.) "But I +go on. I expect the worst, but I am resigned. The hero is not he who +feels no fear, for that were brutal and irrational." + +"What do you _do_ it for?" his friend had querulously and superfluously +demanded. + +"It's so frightfully funny," Peter had said, reflecting, "that I should +be doing it. That's why, I suppose. It makes me laugh. You might take to +the fiddle if you wanted a good laugh. I take to my motor-bicycle. It's +the only way to cheer oneself up when life is disappointing, to go and do +something entirely ridiculous. I used to stand on my head when I'd been +rowed or sat upon, or when there was a beastly wind; it cheered me a lot. +I've given that up now; so I motor-bicycle. Besides," he had added, "you +said I must go in for something. You wouldn't like it if I did my +embroidery all day." + +But on the days when he had been motor-bicycling, Peter had to do a great +deal of embroidery in the evenings, for the sake of the change. + +"I don't wonder you need it," a friend of the more aesthetically cultured +type remarked one evening, finding him doing it. "You've been playing +round with the Urquhart-Fitzmaurice lot to-day, haven't you? Nice man, +Fitzmaurice, isn't he? I like his tie-pins. You know, we almost lost him +last summer. He hung in the balance, and our hearts were in our mouths. +But he is still with us. You look as if he had been very much with you, +Margery." + +Peter looked meditative and stitched. "Old Fitz," he murmured, "is one of +the best. A real sportsman.... Don't, Elmslie; I didn't think of that, I +heard Childers say it. Childers also said, 'By Jove, old Fitz knocks +spots out of 'em every time,' but I don't know what he meant. I'm trying +to learn to talk like Childers. When I can do that, I shall buy a tie-pin +like Fitzmaurice's, only mine will be paste. Streater's is paste; he's +another nice man." + +"He certainly is. In fact, Margery, you really are _not_ particular +enough about the company you keep. You shun neither the over-bred nor the +under-bred. Personally I affect neither, because they don't amuse me. You +embrace both." + +"Yes," Peter mildly agreed. "But I don't embrace Streater, you know. I +draw the line at Streater. Everyone draws the line at Streater; he's of +the baser sort, like his tie-pins. Wouldn't it be vexing to have people +always drawing lines at you. There'd be nothing you could well do, except +to draw one at them, and they wouldn't notice yours, probably, if they'd +got theirs in first. You could only sneer. One can always sneer. I +sneered to-day." + +"You can't sneer," Elmslie told him brutally; "and you can't draw lines; +and what on earth you hang about with so many different sorts of idiots +for I don't know.... I think, if circumstances absolutely compelled me to +make bosom friends of either, I should choose the under-bred poor rather +than the over-bred rich. That's the sort of man I've no use for. The sort +of man with so much money that he has to chuck it all about the place to +get rid of it. The sort of man who talks to you about beagles. The sort +of man who has a different fancy waistcoat for each day of the week." + +"Well," said Peter, "that's nice. I wish I had." + +His friend turned a grave regard on him. "The sort of man who rides a +motor-bicycle.... You really should, Margery," he went on, "learn to be +more fastidious. You mustn't let yourself be either dazzled by fancy +waistcoats or sympathetically moved by unclean collars. Neither is +interesting." + +"I never said they were," Peter said. "It's the people inside them...." + +Peter, in brief, was a lover of his kind, and the music life played to +him was of a varied and complex nature. But, looking back, it was easy to +see how there had been, running through all the variations, a dominant +motive in the piece. + +As Peter listened to the boiling of his egg, and thought how hard it +would be when he took it off, the dominant motive came in and stood by +the fire, and looked down on Peter. He jingled things in his pockets and +swayed to and fro on his heels like his uncle Evelyn, and he was slim in +build, and fair and pale and clear-cut of face, and gentle and rather +indifferent in manner, and soft and casual in voice, and he was in his +fourth year, and life went extremely well with him. + +"It boils," he told Peter, of the egg. + +Peter took it off and fished it out with a spoon, and began rummaging for +an egg-cup and salt and marmalade and buns in the locker beneath his +window seat. Having found these things, he composed himself in the fat +arm-chair to dine, with a sigh of satisfaction. + +"You slacker," Urquhart observed. "Well, can you come to-morrow? The drag +starts at eleven." + +"It's quite hard," said Peter, unreasonably disappointed in it. "Oh, yes, +rather; I'll come." How short the time for doing things had suddenly +become. + +Urquhart remarked, looking at the carpet, "What a revolting mess. Why?" + +"My self-filling bath," Peter explained. "I invented it myself. Well--it +did fill itself. Quite suddenly and all at once, you know. It was a very +beautiful sight. But rather unrestrained at present. I must improve +it.... Oh, this is my last term." + +"Sent down?" Urquhart sympathetically enquired. It was what one might +expect to happen to Peter. + +"Destitute," Peter told him. "The Robinsons have it practically all. +Hilary told me to-day. I am thrown on the world. I shall have to work. +Hilary is destitute too, and Peggy has nothing to spend, and the babies +insist on bathing in the canals. Bad luck for us, isn't it. Oh, and +Hilary is going to edit a magazine called 'The Gem,' for your uncle in +Venice. That seems rather a nice plan. The question is, what am I to +apply _my_ great gifts to?" + +Urquhart whistled softly. "As bad as all that, is it?" + +"Quite as bad. Worse if anything.... The only thing in careers that I +can fancy at the moment is art dealing--picking up nice things cheap and +selling them dear, you know. Only I should always want to keep them, of +course. If I don't do that I shall have to live by my needle. If they +pass the Sweated Industries Bill, I suppose one will get quite a lot. +It's the only Bill I've ever been interested in. My uncle was extremely +struck by the intelligent way I took notice of it, when I had +disappointed him so much about Tariff Reform and Education." + +"You'd probably be among the unskilled millions whom the bill turns out +of work." + +"Then I shall be unemployed, and march with a flag. I shall rather like +that.... Oh, I suppose somehow one manages to live, doesn't one, whether +one has a degree or not. And personally I'd rather not have one, because +it would be such a mortifying one. Besides," Peter added, after a +luminous moment of reflection, "I don't believe a degree really matters +much, in my profession. You didn't know I had a profession, I expect; +I've just thought of it. I'm going to be a buyer for the Ignorant Rich. +Make their houses liveable-in. They tell me what they want--I get hold +of it for them. Turn them out an Italian drawing-room--Della Robbia +mantel-piece, Florentine fire-irons, Renaissance ceiling, tapestries and +so on. Things they haven't energy to find for themselves or intelligence +to know when they see them. I love finding them, and I'm practised at +cheating. One has to cheat if one's poor but eager.... A poor trade, +but my own. I can grub about low shops all day, and go to sales at +Christie's. What fun." + +Urquhart said, "You'd better begin on Leslie. You're exactly what he +wants." + +"Who's Leslie?" Peter was eating buns and marmalade, in restored spirits. + +"Leslie's an Ignorant Rich. He's a Hebrew. His parents weren't called +Leslie, but never mind. Leslie rolls. He also bounds, but not +aggressively high. One can quite stand him; in fact, he has his good +points. He's rich but eager. Also he doesn't know a good thing when he +sees it. He lacks your discerning eye, Margery. But such is his eagerness +that he is determined to have good things, even though he doesn't know +them when he sees them. He would like to be a connoisseur--a collector of +world-wide fame. He would like to fill his house with things that would +make people open their eyes and whistle. But at present he's got no guide +but price and his own pure taste. Consequently he gets hopelessly let in, +and people whistle, but not in the way he wants. He's quite frank; he +told me all about it. What he wants is a man with a good eye, to do his +shopping for him. It would be an ideal berth for a man with the desire +but not the power to purchase; a unique partnership of talent with +capital. There you are. You supply the talent. He'd take you on, for +certain. It would be a very nice little job for you to begin with. By +the time you've decorated his town house and his country seat and his +shooting-box and all his other residences, you'll be fairly started in +your profession. I'll write to him about you." + +Peter chuckled. "How frightfully funny, though. I wonder why anyone +should want to have things unless they like to have them for themselves. +Just as if I were to hire Streater, say, to buy really beautiful +photographs of actresses for me!... Well, suppose he didn't like the +things I bought for him? Suppose our tastes didn't agree? Should I have +to try and suit his, or would he have to put up with mine?" + +"There's only one taste in the matter," Urquhart told him. "He hasn't got +any. You could buy him any old thing and tell him it was good and he'd +believe you, provided it cost enough. That's why he has to have a buyer +honest though poor--he couldn't check him in the least. I shall tell him +that, however many the things you might lie about, you are a George +Washington where your precious bric-a-brac is concerned, because it's +the one thing you care about too much to take it flippantly." + +Peter chuckled again. Life, having for a little while drifted perilously +near to the shores of dullness, again bobbed merrily on the waters of +farce. What a lot of funny things there were, all waiting to be done! +This that Urquhart suggested should certainly, if possible, be one of +them. + +A week later, when Mr. Leslie had written to engage Peter's services, +Urquhart's second cousin Rodney came into Peter's room (a thing he had +never done before, because he did not know Peter much) and said, "But why +not start a curiosity shop of your own? Or be a travelling pedlar? It +would be so much more amusing." + +Peter felt a little flattered. He liked Rodney, who was in his third year +and had never before taken any particular notice of him. Rodney was a +rather brilliant science man; he was also an apostle, a vegetarian, a +fine football player, an ex-Fabian, and a few other things. He was a +large, emaciated-looking person, with extraordinarily bright grey eyes, +inspiring a lean, pale, dark-browed face--the face of an ascetic, lit by +a flame of energising life. He looked as if he would spend and be spent +by it to the last charred fragment, in pursuit of the idea. There was +nothing in his vivid aspect of Peter Margerison's gentle philosophy of +acquiescence; he looked as if he would to the end dictate terms to life +rather than accept them--an attitude combined oddly with a view which +regarded the changes and chances of circumstance as more or less +irrelevant to life's vital essence. + +Peter didn't know why Rodney wanted him to be a travelling pedlar--except +that, as he had anyhow once been a Socialist, he presumably disliked the +rich (ignorant or otherwise) and included Leslie among them. Peter always +had a vague feeling that Rodney did not wholly appreciate his cousin +Urquhart, for this same reason. A man of means, Rodney would no doubt +have held, has much ado to save his soul alive; better, if possible, be +a bricklayer or a mendicant friar. + +"Some day," said Peter politely, "I may have to be a travelling pedlar. +This is only an experiment, to see if it works." + +He was conscious suddenly of two opposing principles that crossed swords +with a clash. Rodney and Urquhart--poverty and wealth--he could not +analyse further. + +But Rodney was newly friendly to him for the rest of that term. Urquhart +commented on it. + +"Stephen always takes notice of the destitute. The best qualification for +his regard is to commit such a solecism that society cuts you, or such a +crime that you get a month's hard. Short of that, it will do to have a +hole in your coat, or paint a bad picture, or produce a yesterday's +handkerchief. He probably thinks you're on the road to that. When you +get there, he'll swear eternal friendship. He can't away with the +prosperous." + +"What a mistake," Peter said. It seemed to him a singularly perverse +point of view. + + + + +CHAPTER III + +THE HOPES + + +It was rather fun shopping for Leslie. Leslie was a stout, quiet, +ponderous person between thirty and forty, and he really did not bound +at all; Urquhart had done him less than justice in his description. There +was about him the pathos of the very rich. He was generous in the +extreme, and Peter's job proved lucrative as well as pleasant. He grew +curiously fond of Leslie; his attitude towards him was one of respect +touched with protectiveness. No one should any more "do" Leslie, if he +could help it. + +"He's let me," Peter told his cousin Lucy, "get rid of all his horrible +Lowestoft forgeries; awful things they were, with the blue hardly dry on +them. Frightful cheek, selling him things like that; it's so insulting. +Leslie's awfully sweet-tempered about being gulled, though. He's very +kind to me; he lets me buy anything I like for him. And he recommends me +to his friends, too. It's a splendid profession; I'm so glad I thought +of it. If I hadn't I should have had to go into a dye shop, or be a +weaver or something. It wouldn't have been good form; it wouldn't even +have been clean. I should have had a day-before-yesterday's handkerchief +and Rodney would have liked me more, but Denis would probably have cut +me. As it is I'm quite good form and quite clean, and I move in the best +circles. I love the Ignorant Rich; they're so amusing. I know such +a nice lady. She buys potato rings. She likes them to be Dublin +hall-marked and clearly dated seventeen hundred and something--so, +naturally, they always were till I began to buy them for her. I've +persuaded her to give away the most blatant forgeries to her god-children +at their baptisms. Babies like them, sham or genuine." + +Peter was having tea with his cousin Lucy and Urquhart in the White City. +Peter and Lucy were very fond of the White City. Peter's cousin Lucy was +something like a small, gay spring flower, with wide, solemn grey eyes +that brimmed with sudden laughters, and a funny, infectious gurgle of a +laugh. She was a year younger than Peter, and they had all their lives +gone shares in their possessions, from guinea-pigs to ideas. They admired +the same china and the same people, with unquestioning unanimity. Lucy +lived in Chelsea, with an elder sister and a father who ran at his own +expense a revolutionary journal that didn't pay, because those who would +have liked to buy it couldn't, for the most part, afford to, and because +those who could have afforded to didn't want to, and because, in short, +journals run by nice people never do pay. + +Lucy played the 'cello, the instrument usually selected by the small +in stature. In the intervals of this pursuit, she went about the world +open-eyed to all new-burnished joys that came within her vision, and +lived by admiration, hope and love, and played with Peter at any game, +wise or foolish, that turned up. Often Urquhart played with them, and +they were a happy party of three. Peter and Lucy shared, among other +things, an admiration of Urquhart. + +Peter was finding the world delightful just now. This first winter in +London was probably the happiest time he ever had. He hardly missed +Cambridge; he certainly didn't miss the money that the Robinsons had. +His profession was to touch and handle the things he loved; the Ignorant +Rich were delightful; the things he bought for them were beyond all +words; the sales he attended were revels of joy; it was all extremely +entertaining, and Leslie a dear, and everyone very kind. The affection +that always found its way to Peter through his disabilities spoke for +something in him that must, it would seem, be there; possibly it was +merely his friendly smile. He was anyhow of the genus comedian, that +readily endears itself. + +He and Urquhart and Lucy all knew how to live. They made good use of +most of the happy resources that London offers to its inhabitants. They +went in steamers to and fro between Putney and Greenwich, listening to +concertinas and other instruments of music. They looked at many sorts of +pictures, talked to many sorts of people, and attended many sorts of +plays. Urquhart and Peter had even become associates of the Y.M.C.A. +(representing themselves as agnostics seeking for light) on account of +the swimming-baths. As Peter remarked, "Christian Young Men do not +bathe very much, and it seems a pity no one should." On the day when they +had tea at the White City, they had all had lunch at a very recherche +cafe in Soho, where the Smart Set like to meet Bohemians, and you can +only get in by being one or the other, so Peter and Lucy went as the +Smart Set, and Urquhart as a Bohemian, and they liked to meet each other +very much. + +The only drawback to Peter's life was the bronchitis that sprang at him +out of the fogs and temporarily stopped work. He had just recovered from +an attack of it on the day when he was having tea at the White City, and +he looked a weak and washed-out rag, with sunken blue eyes smiling out of +a very white face. + +"You would think, to look at him," Urquhart said to Lucy, "that he had +been going in extensively for the flip-flap this afternoon. It's a pity +Stephen can't see you, Margery; you look starved enough to satisfy even +him. You never come across Stephen now, I suppose? You wouldn't, of +course. He has no opinion of the Ignorant Rich. Nor even of the +well-informed rich, like me. He's blindly prejudiced in favour of the +Ignorant Poor." + +Lucy nodded. "I know. He's nice to me always. I go and play my 'cello to +his friends." + +"I always keep him in mind," said Peter, "for the day when my patrons get +tired of me. I know Rodney will be kind to me directly I take to street +peddling or any other thoroughly ill-bred profession. The kind he +despises most, I suppose, are my dear Ignorant Rich--the ill-bred but by +no means breadless. (That's my own and not very funny, by the way.) Did +I tell you, Denis, that Leslie is going to begin educating the People in +Appreciation of Objects of Art? Isn't it a nice idea? I'm to help. +Leslie's a visionary, you know. I believe plutocrats often are. They've +so much money and are so comfortable that they stop wanting material +things and begin dreaming dreams. I should dream dreams if I was a +plutocrat. As it is my mind is earthly. I don't want to educate anyone. +Well, anyhow we're going to Italy in the spring, to pick things up, as +Leslie puts it. That always sounds so much as if we didn't pay for them. +Then we shall bring them home and have free exhibits for the Ignorant +Poor, and I shall give free and instructive lectures. Isn't it a pleasant +plan? We're going to Venice. There's a Berovieri goblet that some +Venetian count has, that Leslie's set his heart on. We are to acquire +it, regardless of expense, if it turns out to be all that is rumoured." + +Urquhart scoffed here. + +"Nice to be infallible, isn't it. You and your goblets and your Ignorant +Rich. And your brother Hilary and my uncle Evelyn. Your great gifts seem +to run in the family. My uncle, I hear, is ruining himself with buying +the things your brother admires. My poor uncle, Miss Hope, is getting so +weak-sighted that he can't judge for himself as he used, so he follows +the advice of Margery's brother. It keeps him very happy and amused, +though he'll soon be bankrupt, no doubt." + +Lucy, as usual, laughed at the Urquhart family and the Margerison family +and the world at large. When she laughed, she opened her grey eyes wide, +while they twinkled with dancing light. + +Then she said, "Oh, I want to go on the flip-flap. Peter mustn't come, +because it always makes him sick; so will you?" + +Urquhart said he would, so they did, and Peter watched them, hoping +Urquhart didn't mind much. Urquhart never seemed to mind being ordered +about by Lucy. And Lucy, of course, had accepted him as an intimate +friend from the first, because Peter had said she was to, and because, as +she remarked, he was so astonishingly nice to look at and to listen to. + +Among the visitors who frequented Lucy's home, people whom she considered +astonishingly pleasant to look at and to listen to did not abound; so +Lucy enjoyed the change all the more. + +The first time Peter took Urquhart down to Chelsea to call on his Hope +uncle and cousins, one Sunday afternoon, he gave him a succinct account +of the sort of people they would probably meet there. + +"They have oddities in, you know--and particularly on Sunday afternoons. +They usually have one or two staying in the house, too. They keep open +house for wastrels. A lot of them are aliens--Polish refugees, Russian +anarchists, oppressed Finns, massacred Armenians who do embroidery; +violinists who can't earn a living, decayed chimney-sweeps and so forth. +'Disillusioned (or still illusioned) geniuses, would-bes, theorists, +artistic natures, failed reformers, knaves and fools incompetent or +over-old, broken evangelists and debauchees, inebriates, criminals, +cowards, virtual slaves' ... Anyhow it's a home for Lost Hopes. (Do you +see that?) My uncle is keen on anyone who tries to revolt against +anything--governments, Russians, proprieties, or anything else--and +Felicity is keen on anyone who fails." + +"And your other cousin--what is she keen on?" + +"Oh, Lucy's too young for the Oddities, like me. She and I sit in a +corner and look on. It's my uncle and Felicity they like to talk to. They +talk about Liberty to them, you know. My uncle is great on Liberty. And +they give them lemon in their tea, and say how wicked Russians are, and +how stupid Royal Academicians are, and buy the Armenians' embroidery, +and so forth. Lucy and I don't do that well. I disapprove of liberty for +most people, I think, and certainly for them; and I don't like lemon in +my tea, and though I'm sure Russians are wicked, I believe oppressed +Poles are as bad--at least their hair is as bushy and their nails as +long--and I prefer the embroidery I do myself; I do it quite nicely, I +think. And I don't consider that Celtic poets or Armenian Christians wash +their hands often enough.... They nearly all asked me the time last +Sunday. I was sorry about it." + +"You feared they were finding their afternoon tedious?" + +"No; but I think their watches were up the spout, you see. So I was +sorry. I never feel so sorry for myself as when mine is. I'm really +awfully grateful to Leslie; if it wasn't for him I should never be able +to tell anyone the time. By the way, Leslie's awfully fond of Felicity. +He writes her enormous cheques for her clubs and vagabonds and so on. But +of course she'll never look at him; he's much too well-off. It's not low +to tell you that, because he makes it so awfully obvious. He'll probably +be there this afternoon. Oh, here we are." + +They found the Hopes' small drawing-room filled much as Peter had +predicted. Dermot Hope was a tall, wasted-looking man of fifty-five, with +brilliant eyes giving significance to a vague face. He had very little +money, and spent that little on "Progress," whose readers were few and +ardent, and whose contributors were very cosmopolitan, and full of zeal +and fire; several of them were here this afternoon. Dermot Hope himself +was most unconquerably full of fire. He could be delightful, and +exceedingly disagreeable, full of genial sympathy and appreciation, and +of a biting irony. He looked at Urquhart, whom he met for the first time, +with a touch of sarcasm in his smile. He said, "You're exactly like your +father. How do you do," and seemed to take no further interest in him. +He had certainly never taken much in Lord Hugh, during the brief year of +their brotherhood. + +For Peter his glance was indulgent. Peter, not being himself a reformer, +or an idealist, or a lover of progress, or even, according to himself, of +liberty, but an acceptor of things as they are and a lover of the good +things of this world, was not particularly interesting to his uncle, of +course; but, being rather an endearing boy, and the son of a beloved +sister, he was loved; and, even had he been a stranger, his position +would have been regarded as more respectable than Urquhart's, since he +had so far failed to secure many good things. + +Felicity, a gracious and lovely person of twenty-nine, gave Peter and +Urquhart a smile out of her violet eyes and murmured "Lucy's in the +corner over there," and resumed the conversation she was trying to divide +between Joseph Leslie and a young English professor who was having a +holiday from stirring up revolutions at a Polish university. The division +was not altogether easy, even to a person of Felicity's extraordinary +tact, particularly as they both happened to be in love with her. Felicity +had a great deal of listening to do always, because everyone told her +about themselves, and she always heard them gladly; if she hastened the +end a little sometimes, gently, they never knew it. She, in fact, wanted +to hear about them as much--really as much, though the desire in these +proportions is so rare as to seem incredible--as they wanted to let her +hear. Her wish to hear was a temptation to egotism; those who disliked +egotism in themselves had to fight the temptation, and seldom won. +She did not believe--no one but a fool (and she was not that) could have +believed--all the many things that were told her; the many things that +must always, while pity and the need to be pitied endure, be told to the +pitiful; but she seldom said so. She merely looked at the teller with her +long and lovely violet eyes, that took in so much and gave out such +continual friendship, and saw how, behind the lies, the need dwelt +pleading. Then she gave, not necessarily what the lies asked for, but +what, in her opinion, pity owed to that which pleaded. She certainly +gave, as a rule, quite too much, in whatever coin she paid. That was +inevitable. + +"You give from the emotions," Joseph Leslie told her, "instead of +from reason. How bad for you: how bad for them. And worse when it is +friendship than when it is coin that you can count and set a limit to. +Yes. Abominably bad for everyone concerned." + +"Should one," wondered Felicity, "give friendship, as one is supposed to +give money, on C.O.S. principles? Perhaps so; I must think about it." + +But her thinking always brought her back to the same conclusion as +before. Consequently her circle of friends grew and grew. She even +included in it a few of the rich and prosperous, not wishing her chain +of fellowship, whose links she kept in careful repair, to fail anywhere. +But it showed strain there. It was forged and flung by the rich and +prosperous, and merely accepted by Felicity. + +Leslie, though rich and prosperous, stepped into the linked circle led +by Peter, who was neither. Having money, and a desire to make himself +conscious of the fact by using it, he consulted Miss Hope as to how +best to be philanthropic. He wanted, it seemed, to be a philanthropist as +well as a collector, and felt incapable of being either otherwise than +through agents. His personal share in both enterprises had to be limited +to the backing capital. + +Miss Hope said, "Start a settlement," and he had said, "I can't unless +you'll work it for me. Will you?" So he started a settlement, and she +worked it for him, and he came about the place and got in the way and +wrote heavy cheques and adored Felicity and suggested at suitable +intervals that she should marry him. + +Felicity had no intention of marrying him. She called him a rest. No one +likes being called a rest when they desire to be a stimulant, or even a +gentle excitement. Felicity was an immense excitement to Mr. Leslie +(though he concealed it laboriously under a heavy and matter-of-fact +exterior) and it is of course pleasanter when these things are +reciprocal. But Mr. Leslie perceived that she took much more interest +even in her young cousin Peter than in him. "Do you find him a useful +little boy?" she asked him this afternoon, before Peter and Urquhart +arrived. + +Leslie nodded. "Useful boy--very. And pleasant company, you know. I don't +know much about these things, but he seems to have a splendid eye for a +good thing. Funny thing is, it works all round--in all departments. +Native genius, not training. He sees a horse between a pair of shafts in +a country lane; looks at it; says 'That's good. That would have a fair +chance for the Grand National'--Urquhart buys it for fifty pounds +straight away--and it _does_ win the Grand National. And he knows nothing +special about horses, either. That's what I call genius. It's the same +eye that makes him spot a dusty old bit of good china on a back shelf of +a shop among a crowd of forged rubbish. I've none of that sort of sense; +I'm hopeless. But I like good things, and I can pay for them, and I give +that boy a free rein. He's furnishing my house well for me. It seems to +amuse him rather." + +"He loves it," said Felicity. "His love of pleasant things is what he +lives by. Including among them Denis Urquhart, of course." + +"Yes." Leslie pursed thoughtful lips over Denis Urquhart. He was perhaps +slightly touched with jealousy there. He was himself rather drawn towards +that tranquil young man, but he knew very well that the drawing was +one-sided; Urquhart was patently undrawn. + +"Rather a flash lot, the Urquharts, aren't they?" he said; and Peter, who +liked him, would have had to admit that the remark was perilously near to +a bound. "Seem to have a sort of knack of dazzling people." + +"He's an attractive person, of course," Miss Hope replied; and she didn't +say it distantly; she was so sorry for people who bounded, and so many of +her friends did. "It's pleasing to see, isn't it--such whole-souled +devotion?" + +Mr. Leslie grunted. "I won't say pearls before swine--because Urquhart +isn't a swine, but a very pleasant, ordinary young fellow. But worship +like that can't be deserved, you know; not by anyone, however +beautifully he motors through life. Margerison's too--well, too nice, +to put it simply--to give himself to another person, body and soul, like +that. It's squandering." + +"And irritates you," she reflected, but merely said, "Is squandering +always a bad thing, I wonder?" + +It was at this point that Peter and Urquhart came in. Directed by +Felicity to Lucy in an obscure corner, they found her being talked to by +one of the Oddities; he looked rather like an oppressed Finn. He was +talking and she was listening, wide-eyed and ingenuous, her small hands +clasped on her lap. Peter and Urquhart sat down by her, and the oppressed +Finn presently wandered away to talk to Lucy's father. + +Lucy gave a little sigh of relief. + +"_Wish_ they wouldn't come and talk to me," she said. "I'm no good to +them; I don't understand; and I hate people to be unhappy. I'm dreadfully +sorry they are. I don't want to have to think about them. Why can't they +be happy? There are so many nice things all about. 'Tis such _waste_." +She looked up at Urquhart, and her eyes laughed because he was happy and +clean, and shone like a new pin. + +"It's nicest," she said, "to be happy and clean. And it's not bad to be +happy and dirty; or _very_ bad to be unhappy and clean; but ..." She shut +her lips with a funny distaste on the remaining alternative. "And I'm +horribly afraid Felicity's going to get engaged to Mr. Malyon, that young +one talking to her, do you see? He helps with conspiracies in Poland." + +"But he's quite clean," said Urquhart, looking at him. + +Lucy admitted that. "But he'll get sent to Siberia soon, don't you see, +and Felicity will go too, I know." + +Peter said, "If I was Felicity I'd marry Leslie; I wouldn't hesitate for +a moment. I wish it was me he loved so. Fancy marrying into all those +lovely things I'm getting for him. Only I hope she won't, because then +she'd take over the shopping department, and I should be left unemployed. +Oh, Lucy, he's let me buy him the heavenliest pair of Chelsea +_jardinieres_, shaped like orange-tubs, with Cupids painted on blue +panels. You must come and see them soon." + +Lucy's eyes, seeing the delightful things, widened and danced. She loved +the things Peter bought. + +Suddenly Peter, who had a conscience somewhere, felt a pang in it, and, +to ease it, regretfully left the corner and wandered about among his +uncle's friends, being pleasant and telling them the time. He did that +till the last of them had departed. Urquhart then had to depart also, and +Peter was alone with his relatives. It was only after Urquhart had gone +that Peter realised fully what a very curious and incongruous element he +had been in the room. Realising it suddenly, he laughed, and Lucy laughed +too. Felicity looked at them indulgently. + +"Babies. What's the matter now?" + +"Only Denis," explained Peter. + +"That young man," commented Dermot Hope, without approbation, "is +remarkably well-fed, well-bred, and well-dressed. Why do you take him +about with you?" + +"That's just why, isn't it, Peter," put in Lucy. "Peter and I _like_ +people to be well-fed and well-bred and well-dressed." + +Felicity touched her chin, with her indulgent smile. + +"Baby again. You like no such thing. You'd get tired of it in a week." + +"Oh, well," said Lucy, "a week's a long time." + +"He's got no fire in all his soul and body," complained Dermot Hope. +"He's a symbol of prosperous content--of all we're fighting. It's people +like him who are the real obstructionists; the people who don't see, not +because they're blind, but because they're too pleased with their own +conditions to look beyond them. It's people like him who are pouring +water on the fires as they are lit, because fires are such bad form, +and might burn up their precious chattels if allowed to get out of hand. +Take life placidly; don't get excited, it's so vulgar; that's their +religion. They've neither enthusiasm nor imagination in them. And so ..." + +And so forth, just as it came out in "Progress" once a month. Peter +didn't read "Progress," because he wasn't interested in the future, being +essentially a child of to-day. Besides, he too hated conflagrations, +thinking the precious chattels they would burn up much too precious for +that. Peter was no lover either of destruction or construction; perhaps +he too was an obstructionist; though not without imagination. His uncle +knew he had a regrettable tendency to put things in the foreground and +keep ideas very much in the background, and called him therefore a +phenomenalist. Lucy shared this tendency, being a good deal of an artist +and nothing at all of a philosopher. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +THE COMPLETE SHOPPER + + +Six months later Peter called at the Hopes' to say good-bye before he +went to Italy. He found Lucy in, and Urquhart was there too, talking +to her in a room full of leaping fire-shadows. Peter sat down on the +coal-scuttle (it was one of those coal-scuttles you can sit on +comfortably) and said, "Leslie's taking me to Italy on Sunday. Isn't +it nice for me. I wish he was taking you too." + +Lucy, clasping small hands, said, "Oh, Peter, I wish he was!" + +Urquhart, looking at her said, "Do you want to go?" and she nodded, with +her mouth tight shut as if to keep back floods of eloquence on that +subject. "So do I," said Urquhart, and added, in his casual way, "Will +you and your father come with me?" + +"You paying?" said Lucy, in her frank, unabashed way like a child's; and +he smiled down at her. + +"Yes. Me paying." + +"'Twould be nice," she breathed, her grey eyes wide with wistful +pleasure. "I would love it. But--but father wouldn't, you know. He +wouldn't want to go, and if he did he'd want to pay for it himself, +and do it his own way, and travel third-class and be dreadfully +uncomfortable. Wouldn't he, Peter?" + +Peter feared that he would. + +"Thank you tremendously, all the same," said Lucy, prettily polite. + +"I shall have to go by myself, then," said Urquhart. "What a bore. I +really am going, you know, sometime this spring, to stay with my uncle +in Venice. I expect I shall come across you, Margery, with any luck. I +shan't start yet, though; I shall wait for better motoring weather. No, +I can't stop for tea, thanks; I'm going off for the week-end. Good-bye. +Good-bye, Margery. See you next in Venice, probably." + +He was gone. Lucy sat still in her characteristic attitude, hands clasped +on her knees, solemn grey eyes on the fire. + +"He's going away for the week-end," she said, realising it for herself +and Peter. "But it's more amusing when he's here. When he's in town, I +mean, and comes in. That's nice and funny, isn't it." + +"Yes," said Peter. + +"But one can go out into the streets and see the people go by--and that's +nice and funny too. And there are the Chinese paintings in the British +Museum ... and concerts ... and the Zoo ... and I'm going to a theatre +to-night. It's _all_ nice and funny, isn't it." + +"Yes," said Peter again. He thought so too. + +"Even when you and he are both gone to Italy," said Lucy, reassuring +herself, faintly interrogative. "Even then ... it can't be dull. It can't +be dull ever." + +"It hasn't been yet," Peter agreed. "But I wish you were coming too to +Italy. You must before long. As soon as ..." He left that unfinished, +because it was all so vague at present, and he and Lucy always lived in +the moment. + +"Well," said Lucy, "let's have tea." They had it, out of little Wedgwood +cups, and Lucy's mood of faint wistfulness passed over and left them +chuckling. + +Lucy was a little sad about Felicity, who was now engaged to the young +professor who was conspiring in Poland. + +"I knew she would, of course. I told you so long ago. He's quite sure +to get arrested before long, so that settled it. And they're going to +be married directly and go straight out there and plot. He excites the +students, you know; as if students needed exciting by their +professors.... I shall miss Felicity horribly. _'Tis_ too bad." + +Peter, to cheer her up, told her what he and Leslie were going to do in +Italy. + +"I'll write, of course. Picture post cards, you know. And if ever I've +twopence halfpenny to spare I'll write a real letter; there'll be a lot +to tell you." Peter expected Leslie to be rather funny in Italy, picking +things up. + +"A great country, I believe, for picking things up," he had said. +"Particularly for the garden." He had been referring to his country seat. + +"I see," said Peter. "You want to Italianise the garden. I'm not quite +sure.... Oh, you might, of course. Iron-work gates, then; and carved +Renaissance oil-tanks, and Venetian well-heads, and such-like. All right; +we'll see what we can steal. But it's rather easy to let an Italianised +garden become florid; you have to be extremely careful with it." + +"That's up to you," said Mr. Leslie tranquilly. + +So they went to Italy, and Peter picked things up with judgment, and +Leslie paid for them with phlegm. They picked up not only carved +olive-oil tanks and well-heads and fifteenth-century iron-work gates from +ancient and impoverished gardens, but a contemporarily copied Della +Robbia fireplace, and designs for Renaissance ceilings, and a rococo +carved and painted altar-piece from a mountain church whose _parroco_ was +hard-up, and a piece of 1480 tapestry that Peter loved very much, whereon +St. Anne and other saints played among roses and raspberries, beautiful +to behold. These things made both the picker-up and the payer exceedingly +contented. Meanwhile Peter with difficulty restrained Leslie from +"picking up" stray pieces of mosaic from tessellated pavements, and other +curios. Oddly together with Leslie's feeling for the costly went the +insane and indiscriminate avidity of the collecting tourist. + +"You can't do it," Peter would shrilly and emphatically explain. "It's +like a German tripper collecting souvenirs. Things aren't interesting +merely because you happen to have been to the places they belong to. What +do you want with that bit of glass? It isn't beautiful; when it's taken +out of the rest of its pattern like that it's merely ridiculous. I +thought you wanted _beautiful_ things." + +Leslie would meekly give in. His leaning on Peter in this matter of +what he wanted was touching. In the matter of what he admired, where no +questions of acquisition came in, he and his shopping-man agreed less. +Leslie here showed flashes of proper spirit. He also read Ruskin in the +train. Peter had small allegiance there; he even, when irritated, called +Ruskin a muddle-head. + +"He's a good man, isn't he?" Leslie queried, puzzled. "Surely he knows +what he's talking about?" and Peter had to admit that that was so. + +"He tells me what to like," the self-educator said simply. "And I try to +like it. I don't always succeed, but I try. That's right, isn't it?" + +"I don't know." Peter was puzzled. "It seems to me rather a funny way of +going about it. When you've succeeded, are you much happier? I mean, what +sort of a liking is it? Oh, but I don't understand--there aren't two +sorts really. You either like a thing, or ... well." + +At times one needed a rest from Leslie. But outside the province of art +and the pleasures of the eye he was lovable, even likeable, having here +a self-dependence and a personality that put pathos far off, and made +him himself a rest. And his generosity was limitless. It was almost an +oppression; only Peter, being neither proud nor self-conscious, was not +easily oppressed. He took what was lavished on him and did his best to +deserve it. But it was perhaps a little tiring. Leslie was a thoroughly +good sort--a much better sort than most people knew--but Italy was +somehow not the fit setting for him. Nothing could have made Peter +dislike things pleasant to look at; but Leslie's persevering, +uncomprehending groping after their pleasantness made one feel desirous +to dig a gulf between them and him. It was rather ageing. Peter missed +Urquhart and Lucy; one felt much younger with them. The thought of their +clean, light, direct touch on life, that handled its goods without +fumbling, and without the need of any intervening medium, was as +refreshing as a breath of fresh air in a close room. + +Rodney too was refreshing. They came across him at Pietrasanta; he was +walking across Tuscany by himself, and came to the station, looking very +dusty and disreputable, to put the book he had finished into his bag that +travelled by train and get out another. + +"Come out of that," he said to Peter, "and walk with me to Florence. +Trains for bags; roads for men. You can meet your patron in Florence. +Come along." + +And Peter, after a brief consultation with the accommodating Leslie, did +come along. It was certainly more than amusing. The road in Tuscany is +much better than the railway. And Rodney was an interesting and rather +attractive person. Since he left Cambridge he had been pursuing abstruse +chemical research in a laboratory he had in a Westminster slum. Peter +never saw him in London, because the Ignorant Rich do not live in slums, +and because Rodney was not fond of the more respectable quarters of the +city. + +Peter was set speculating vaguely on Rodney's vivid idealism. To Peter, +ideas, the unseen spirits of life, were remote, neither questioned nor +accepted, but simply in the background. In the foreground, for the +moment, were a long white road running through a river valley, and little +fortress cities cresting rocky hills, and the black notes of the +cypresses striking on a background of silver olives. In these Peter +believed; and he believed in blue Berovieri goblets, and Gobelin +tapestries, and in a great many other things that he had seen and saw at +this moment; he believed intensely, with a poignant vividness of delight, +in all things visible. For the rest, it was not that he doubted or +wondered much; he had not thought about it enough for that; but it was +all very remote. What was spirit, apart from form? Could it be? If so, +would it be valuable or admirable? It was the shapes and colours of +things, after all, that mattered. As to the pre-existence of things and +their hereafter, Peter seldom speculated; he knew that it was through +entering the workshop (or the play-room, he would rather have said) of +the phenomenal, where the idea took limiting lines and definite shape and +the tangible charm of the sense-apprehended, that life for him became +life. Rodney attained to his real by looking through the manifold veils +of the phenomenal, as through so much glass; Peter to his by an adoring +delight in their complex loveliness. He was not a symbolist; he had no +love of mystic hints and mist-veiled distances; he was George Herbert's + + Man who looks on glass + And on it rests his eye, + +because glass was so extremely jolly. Rodney looked with the mystic's +eyes on life revealed and emerging behind its symbols; Peter with the +artist's on life expressed in the clean and lovely shapes of things, +their colours and tangible sweetness. To Peter Rodney's idealism would +have been impossibly remote; things, as things, had a delightful concrete +reality that was its own justification. They needed to interpret nothing; +they were themselves; no veils, but the very inner sanctuary. + +Both creeds, that of things visible and that of the idea, were good, and +suited to the holders; but for those on whom fortune frequently frowns, +for those whose destiny it is to lose and break and not to attain, +Peter's has drawbacks. Things do break so; break and get lost and are no +more seen; and that hurts horribly. Remains the idea, Rodney would have +said; that, being your own, does not get lost unless you throw it away; +and, unless you are a fool, you don't throw it away until you have +something better to take its place. + +Anyhow they walked all day and slept on the road. On the third night +they slept in an olive garden; till the moon, striking in silver slants +between silver trees, lit on Rodney's face, and he opened dreamy eyes on +a pale, illumined world. At his side Peter, still in the shadows, slept +rolled up in a bag. Rodney slept with a thin plaid shawl over his knees. +He glanced for a moment at Peter's pale face, a little pathetic in sleep, +a little amused too at the corners of the lightly-closed lips. Rodney's +brief regard was rather friendly and affectionate; then he turned from +the dreaming Peter to the dreaming world. They had gone to sleep in a +dark blue night lit by golden stars, and the olive trees had stood dark +and unwhispering about them, gnarled shapes, waiting their +transformation. Now there had emerged a white world, a silver mystery, +a pale dream; and for Rodney the reality that shone always behind the +shadow-foreground dropped the shadows like a veil and emerged in clean +and bare translucence of truth. The dome of many-coloured glass was here +transcended, its stain absorbed in the white radiance of the elucidating +moon. So elucidating was the moon's light that it left no room for +confusion or doubt. So eternally silver were the still ranks of the +olives that one could imagine no transformation there. That was the pale +and immutable light that lit all the worlds. Getting through and behind +the most visible and obvious of the worlds one was in the sphere of true +values; they lay all about, shining in unveiled strangeness, eternally +and unalterably lit. So Rodney, who had his own value-system, saw them. + +Peter too was caught presently into the luminous circle, and stirred, and +opened pleased and friendly eyes on the white night--Peter was nearly +always polite, even to those who woke him--then, half apologetically, +made as if to snuggle again into sleep, but Rodney put out a long thin +arm and shoved him, and said, "It's time to get up, you slacker," and +Peter murmured: + +"Oh, bother, all right, have you made tea?" + +"No," said Rodney. "You can do without tea this morning." + +Peter sat up and began to fumble in his knapsack. + +"I see no morning," he patiently remarked, as he struck a match and lit +a tiny spirit-lamp. "I see no morning; and whether there is a morning or +merely a moon I cannot do without tea. Or biscuits." + +He found the biscuits, and apparently they had been underneath him all +night. + +"I thought the ground felt even pricklier than usual," he commented. "I +do have such dreadfully bad luck, don't I. Crumbs, Rodney? They're quite +good, for crumbs. Better than crusts, anyhow. I should think even you +could eat crumbs without pampering yourself. And if crumbs then tea, or +you'll choke. Here you are." + +He poured tea into two collapsible cups and passed one to Rodney, who had +been discoursing for some time on his special topic, the art of doing +without. + +Then Peter, drinking tea and munching crumbs, sat up in his bag and +looked at what Rodney described as the morning. He saw how the long, +pointed olive leaves stood with sharp edges against pale light; how +the silver screen was, if one looked into it, a thing of magic details +of delight, of manifold shapes and sharp little shadowings and delicate +tracery; how gnarled stems were light-touched and shadow-touched and +silver and black; how the night was delicate, marvellous, a radiant +wonder of clear loveliness, illustrated by a large white moon. Peter +saw it and smiled. He did not see Rodney's world, but his own. + +But both saw how the large moon dipped and dipped. Soon it would dip +below the dim land's rim, and the olive trees would be blurred and +twisted shadows in a still shadow-world. + +"Then," said Peter dreamily, "we shall be able to go to sleep again." + +Rodney pulled him out of his bag and firmly rolled it up. + +"Twelve kilometres from breakfast. Thirty from tea. No, we don't tea +before Florence. Go and wash." + +They washed in a copper bucket that hung beside a pulley well. It was +rather fun washing, till Peter let the bucket slip off the hook and +gurgle down to the bottom. Then it was rather fun fishing for it with +the hook, but it was not caught, and they abandoned it in sudden alarm at +a distant sound, and hastily scrambled out of the olive garden onto the +white road. + +Beneath their feet lay the thick soft dust, unstirred as yet by the day's +journeyings. The wayfaring smell of it caught at their breath. Before +them the pale road wound and wound, between the silver secrecy of the +olive woods, towards the journeying moon that dipped above a far and +hidden city in the west. Then a dim horizon took the dipping moon, and +there remained a grey road that smelt of dust and ran between shadowed +gardens that showed no more their eternal silver, but gnarled and twisted +stems that mocked and leered. + +One traveller stepped out of his clear circle of illumined values into +the shrouded dusk of the old accustomed mystery, and the road ran faint +to his eyes through a blurred land, and he had perforce to take up +again the quest of the way step by step. Reality, for a lucid space of +time emerging, had slipped again behind the shadow-veils. The ranks of +the wan olives, waiting silently for dawn, held and hid their secret. + +The other traveller murmured, "How many tones of grey do you suppose +there are in an olive tree when the moon has set? But there'll be more +presently. Listen...." + +The little wind that comes before the dawn stirred and shivered, and +disquieted the silence of the dim woods. Peter knew how the stirred +leaves would be shivering white, only in the dark twilight one could not +see. + +The dusk paled and paled. Soon one would catch the silver of up-turned +leaves. + +On the soft deep dust the treading feet of the travellers moved quietly. +One walked with a light unevenness, a slight limp. + + + + +CHAPTER V + +THE SPLENDID MORNING + + +"Listen," said Peter again; and some far off thing was faintly jarring +the soft silence, on a crescendo note. + +Rodney listened, and murmured, "Brute." He hated them more than Peter +did. He was less wide-minded and less sweet-tempered. Peter had a gentle +and not intolerant aesthetic aversion, Rodney a fervid moral indignation. + +It came storming over the rims of twilight out of an unborn dawn, and the +soft dust surged behind. Its eyes flamed, and lit the pale world. It was +running to the city in the dim west; it was in a hurry; it would be there +for breakfast. As it ran it played the opening bars of something of +Tchaichowsky's. + +Rodney and Peter leant over the low white wall and gazed into grey +shivering gardens. So could they show aloof contempt; so could they +elude the rioting dust. + +The storming took a diminuendo note; it slackened to a throbbing murmur. +The brute had stopped, and close to them. The brute was investigating +itself. + +"Perhaps," Rodney hoped, but not sanguinely, "they'll have to push it all +the way to Florence." Still contempt withheld a glance. + +Then a pleasant, soft voice broke the hushed dusk with half a laugh, and +Peter wheeled sharply about. The man who had laughed was climbing again +into his seat, saying, "It's quite all right." That remark was extremely +characteristic; it would have been a suitable motto for his whole career. + +The next thing he said, in his gentle, unsurprised voice, was to the +bare-headed figure that smiled up at him from the road. + +"You, Margery?... What a game. But what have you done with the Hebrew? +Oh, that's Stephen, isn't it. That accounts for it: but how did he get +you? I say, you can't have slept anywhere; there's _been_ nowhere, for +miles. And have you left Leslie to roam alone among the Objects of Beauty +with his own unsophisticated taste for guide? I suppose he's chucked +you at last; very decent-spirited of him, I think, don't you, Stephen?" + +"I chucked him," Peter explained, "because he bought a sham Carlo Dolci. +I drew the line at that. Though if one must have a Carlo Dolci, I suppose +it had better be a sham one, on the whole. Anyhow, I came away and took +to the road. We sleep in ditches, and we like it very much, and I make +tea every morning in my little kettle. I'm going to Florence to help +Leslie to buy bronze things for his grates--dogs, you know, and shovels +and things. Leslie will have been there for three days now; I do wonder +what he's bought." + +"You'd better come on in the car," Urquhart said. "Both of you. Why is +Stephen looking so proud? I shall be at Florence for breakfast. _You_ +won't, though. Bad luck. Come along; there's loads of room." + +Rodney stood by the wall. He was unlike Peter in this, that his +resentment towards a person who motored across Tuscany between dusk and +dawn was in no way lessened by the discovery of who it was. + +Peter stood, his feet deep in dust, and smiled at Urquhart. Rodney +watched the two a little cynically from the wall. Peter looked what he +was--a limping vagabond tramp, dust-smeared, bare-headed, very much +part of the twilight road. In spite of his knapsack, he had the air of +possessing nothing and smiling over the thought. + +Peter said, "How funny," meaning the combination of Urquhart and the +motor-car and Tuscany and the grey dawn and Rodney and himself; Urquhart +was smiling down at them, his face pale in the strange dawn-twilight. +The scene was symbolical of their whole relations; it seemed as if +Urquhart, lifted triumphantly above the road's dust, had always so smiled +down on Peter, in his vagabond weakness. + +"I don't think," Urquhart was saying, "that you ought to walk so far in +the night. It's weakening." To Urquhart Peter had always been a brittle +incompetent, who could not do things, who kept breaking into bits if +roughly handled. + +"Rodney and I don't think," Peter returned, in the hushed voice that +belonged to the still hour, "that you ought to motor so loud in the +night. It's common. Rodney specially thinks so. Rodney is sulking; he +won't come and speak to you." + +Urquhart called to his cousin: "Come with me to Florence, you and +Margery. Or do you hate them too much?" + +"Much too much," Rodney admitted, coming forwards perforce. "Thank you," +he added, "but I'm on a walking tour, and it wouldn't do to spoil it. +Margery isn't, though. You go, Margery, if you like." + +Urquhart said, "Do, Margery," and Peter looked wistful, but declined. He +wanted horribly badly to go with Urquhart; but loyalty hindered. + +Urquhart said he was going to Venice afterwards, to stay with his uncle +Evelyn. + +"Good," said Peter. "Leslie and I are going to do Venice directly we've +cleared Florence of its Objects of Beauty. You can imagine the way Leslie +will go about Florence, his purse in his hand, asking the price of the +Bargello. 'Worth having, isn't it? A good thing, I think?' If we decide +that it is he'll have it, whatever the price; he always does. He's a +sportsman; I can't tell you how attached I am to him." Peter had not told +even Urquhart that one was ever glad of a rest from Leslie. + +Urquhart said, "Well, if you _won't_ come," and hummed into the paling +twilight, and before him fled the circle of golden light and after him +swept the dust. Peter's eyes followed the golden light and the surging +whiteness till a bend in the road took them, and the world was again dim +and grey and very still. Only the little cool wind that soughed among the +olive leaves was like the hushed murmuring of quiet waves. Eastwards, +among the still, mysterious hills and silver plains, a translucent dawn +was coming. + +Peter's sigh was very unobtrusive. "After all," he murmured, "motoring +does make me feel sick." + +Rodney gave half a cynical smile with the corner of his mouth not +occupied with his short and ugly pipe. Peter was pipeless; smoking, +perhaps, had the same disastrous effect. + +"But all the same," said Peter, suddenly aggrieved, "you might be +pleasant to your own cousin, even if he is in a motor. Why be proud?" + +He was really a little vexed that Rodney should look with aloofness +on Urquhart. For him Urquhart embodied the brilliance of life, its +splendidness and beauty and joy. Rodney, with his fanatical tilting at +prosperity, would, Peter half consciously knew, have to see Urquhart +unhorsed and stripped bare before he would take much notice of him. + +"Too many things," said Rodney, indistinctly over his thick pipe. +"That's all." + +Peter, irritated, said, "The old story. The more things the better; why +not? You'd be happy on a desert island full of horrid naked savages. You +think you're civilised, but you're really the most primitive person +I know." + +Rodney said he was glad; he liked to be primitive, and added, "But +you're wrong, of course. The naked savages would like anything they could +get--beads or feathers or top hats; they're not natural ascetics; the +simple life is enforced.... St. Francis took off all his clothes in the +Piazza and began his new career without any." + +"Disgusting," murmured Peter. + +"That," said Rodney, "is what people like Denis should do. They need to +unload, strip bare, to find themselves, to find life." + +"Denis," said Peter, "is the most alive person I know, as it happens. +He's found life without needing to take his clothes off--so he scores +over St. Francis." + +Denis had rushed through the twilight vivid like a flame--he had lit it +for a moment and left it grey. Peter knew that. + +"But he hasn't," Rodney maintained, "got the key of the thing. If he +did take his clothes off, it would be a toss-up whether he found more +life or lost what he's got. That's all wrong, don't you see. That's what +ails all these delightful, prosperous people. They're swimming with +life-belts." + +"You'll be saying next," said Peter, disgusted, "that you admire +Savonarola and his bonfire." + +"I do, of course. But he'd only got hold of half of it--half the gospel +of the empty-handed. The point is to lose and laugh." For a moment Rodney +had a vision of Peter standing bare-headed in the dust and smiling. "To +drop all the trappings and still find life jolly--just because it _is_ +life, not because of what it brings. That's what St. Francis did. That's +where Italy scores over England. I remember at Lerici the beggars +laughing on the shore, with a little maccaroni to last them the day. +There was a man all done up in bandages, hopping about on crutches and +grinning. Smashed to bits, and his bones sticking out of his skin for +hunger, but there was the sun and the sea and the game he was playing +with dice, and he looked as if he was saying, '_Nihil habentes, omnia +possidentes_; isn't it a jolly day?' When Denis says that, I shall begin +to have hopes for him. At present he thinks it's a jolly day because he's +got money to throw about and a hundred and one games to play at and +friends to play them with, and everything his own way, and a new +motor.... Well, but look at that now. Isn't it bare and splendid--all +clean lines--no messing and softness; it might be cut out of rock. Oh, +I like Tuscany." + +They had rounded a bend, and a spacious country lay there stretched to +the morning, and over it the marvel of the dawn opened and blossomed like +a flower. From the basin of the shining river the hills stood back, and +up their steep sides the vine-hung mulberries and close-trimmed olives +climbed (olives south of the Serchio are diligently pruned, and lack the +generous luxuriance of the north), and against the silver background the +sentinel cypresses stood black, like sharp music notes striking abruptly +into a vague symphony; and among the mulberry gardens and the olives and +the cypresses white roads climbed and spiralled up to little cresting +cities that took the rosy dawn. Tuscany emerging out of the dim mystery +of night had a splendid clarity, an unblurred cleanness of line, an +austere fineness, as of a land hewn sharply out of rock. + +Peter would not have that fine bareness used as illustration; it was too +good a thing in itself. Rodney the symbolist saw the vision of life in +it, Peter the joy of self-sufficient beauty. + +The quiet road bore them through the hushed translucence of the +dawn-clear land. Everything was silent in this limpid hour; the little +wind that had whitened the olives and set the sea-waves whispering +there had dropped now and lay very still. + +The road ran level through the river basin. Far ahead they could see it +now, a white ribbon laid beside a long golden gleam that wound and wound. + +Peter sighed, seeing so much of it all at once, and stopped to rest on +the low white wall, but instead of sitting on it he swayed suddenly +forward, and the hill cities circled close about him, and darkened and +shut out the dawn. + +The smell of the dust, when one was close to it, was bitter and odd. +Somewhere in the further darkness a voice was muttering mild and +perplexed imprecations. Peter moved on the strong arm that was supporting +him and opened his eyes and looked on the world again. Between him and +the rosy morning, Rodney loomed large, pouring whisky into a flask. + +It all seemed a very old and often-repeated tale. One could not do +anything; one could not even go a walking-tour: one could not (of this +one was quite sure) take whisky at this juncture without feeling horribly +sick. The only thing that occurred to Peter, in the face of the dominant +Rodney, was to say, "I'm a teetotaller." Rodney nodded and held the flask +to his lips. Rodney was looking rather worried. + +Peter said presently, still at length in the dust, "I'm frightfully +sorry. I suppose I'm tired. Didn't we get up rather early and walk rather +fast?" + +"I suppose," said Rodney, "you oughtn't to have come. What's wrong, you +rotter?" + +Peter sat up, and there lay the road again, stretching and stretching +into the pink morning. + +"Thirty kilometres to breakfast," murmured Peter. "And I don't know that +I want any, even then. Wrong?... Oh ... well, I suppose it's heart. I +have one, you know, of a sort. A nuisance, it's always been. Not +dangerous, but just in the way. I'm sorry, Rodney--I really am." + +Rodney said again, "You absolute rotter. Why didn't you tell me? What in +the name of anything induced you to walk at all? You needn't have." + +Peter looked down the long road that wound and wound into the morning +land. "I wanted to," he said. "I wanted to most awfully.... I wanted to +try it.... I thought perhaps it was the one thing.... Football's off +for me, you know--and most other things.... Only diabolo left ... and +ping-pong ... and jig-saw. I'm quite good at those ... but oh, I did want +to be able to walk. Horribly I wanted it." + +"Well," said Rodney practically, "it's extremely obvious that you aren't. +You ought to have got into that thing, of course. Only then, as you +remarked, you would have felt sick. Really, Margery...." + +"Oh, I know," Peter stopped him hastily. "_Don't_ say the usual things; +I really feel too unwell to bear them. I know I'm made in Germany and all +that--I've been hearing so all my life. And now I should like you to go +on to Florence, and I'll follow, very slow. It's all very well, Rodney, +but you were going at about seven miles an hour. Talk of motors--I +couldn't see the scenery as we rushed by. That's such a Vandal-like +way of crossing Tuscany." + +"Well, you can cross the rest of Tuscany by train. There's a station at +Montelupo; we shall be there directly." + +Peter, abruptly renouncing his intention of getting up, lay back giddily. +The marvellous morning was splendid on the mountains. + +"How extremely lucky," remarked Peter weakly, "that I wasn't in this +position when Denis came by. Denis usually does come by at these crucial +moments you know--always has. He probably thinks by now that I am an +escaped inhabitant of the Permanent Casualty Ward. Bother. I wish he +didn't." + +"Since it's obvious," said Rodney, "that you can't stand, let alone walk, +I had better go on to Montelupo and fetch a carriage of sorts. I wonder +if you can lie there quietly till I come back, or if you'll be having +seizures and things? Well, I can't help it. I must go, anyhow. There's +the whisky on your left." + +Peter watched him go; he went at seven miles an hour; the dust ruffled +and leapt at his heels. + +Peter sat very still leaning back against the rough white wall, and +thought what a pity it all was. What a pity, and what a bore, that one +could not do things like other people. Short of being an Urquhart, who +could do everything and had everything, whose passing car flamed +triumphant and lit the world into a splendid joy, and was approved under +investigation with "quite all right"--short of that glorious competence +and pride of life, one might surely be an average man, who could walk +from San Pietro to Florence without tumbling on the road at dawn. Peter +sighed over it, rather crossly. The marvellous morning was insulted by +his collapse; it became a remote thing, in which he might have no share. +As always, the inexorable "Not for you" rose like a barred gate between +him and the lucid country the white road threaded. + +Peter in the dust began to whistle softly, to cheer himself, and because +he was really feeling better, and because anyhow, for him or not for him, +the land at dawn was a golden and glorious thing, and he loved it. What +did it matter whether he could walk through it or not? There it lay, +magical, clear-hewn, bathed in golden sunrise. + +Round the turn of the road a bent figure came, stepping slowly and with +age, a woodstack on his back. Heavier even than a knapsack containing a +spirit kettle and a Decameron and biscuit remainders in a paper bag, it +must be. Peter watched the slow figure sympathetically. Would he sway and +topple over; and if he did would the woodstack break his fall? The whisky +flask stood ready on Peter's left. + +Peter stopped whistling to watch; then he became aware that once more the +hidden distances were jarring and humming. He sat upright, and waited; a +little space of listening, then once again the sungod's chariot stormed +into the morning. + +Peter watched it grow in size. How extremely fortunate.... Even though +one was again, as usual, found collapsed and absurd. + +The woodstack pursued its slow advance. The music from Tchaichowsky +admonished it, as a matter of form, from far off, then sharply, +summarily, from a lessening distance. The woodstack was puzzled, vaguely +worried. It stopped, dubiously moved to one side, and pursued its +cautious way a little uncertainly. + +Urquhart, without his chauffeur this time, was driving over the +speed-limit, Peter perceived. He usually did. But he ought to slacken +his pace now, or he would miss Peter by the wall. He was nearing the +woodstack, just going to pass it, with a clear two yards between. It was +not his doing: it was the woodstack that suddenly lessened the distance, +lurching over it, taking the middle of the road. + +Peter cried, "Oh, don't--oh, _don't_," idiotically, sprawling on hands +and knees. + +The car swung sharply about like a tugged horse; sprang to the other side +of the road, hung poised on a wheel, as near as possible capsized. A less +violent jerk and it would have gone clean over the woodstack that lay in +the road on the top of its bearer. + +By the time Peter got there, Urquhart had lifted the burden from the old +bent figure that lay face downwards. Gently he turned it over, and they +looked on a thin old face gone grey with more than age. + +"He can't be," said Urquhart. "He can't be. I didn't touch him." + +Peter said nothing. His eyes rested on the broken end of a chestnut-stick +protruding from the faggot, dangling loose by its bark. Urquhart's glance +followed his. + +"I see," said Urquhart quietly. "That did it. The lamp or something must +have struck it and knocked him over. Poor old chap." Urquhart's hand +shook over the still heart. Peter gave him the whisky flask. Two minutes +passed. It was no good. + +"His heart must have been bad," said Urquhart, and the soft tones of his +pleasant voice were harsh and unsteady. "Shock, I suppose. How--how +absolutely awful." + +How absolutely incongruous, Peter was dully thinking. Urquhart and +tragedy; Urquhart and death. It was that which blackened the radiant +morning, not the mercifully abrupt cessation of a worn-out life. For +Peter death had two sharply differentiated aspects--one of release to +the tired and old, for whom the grasshopper was a burden; the other of +an unthinkable blackness of tragedy--sheer sharp loss that knew no +compensation. It was not with this bitter face that death had stepped +into their lives on this clear morning. One could imagine that weary +figure glad to end his wayfaring so; one could even imagine those steps +to death deliberately taken; and one did imagine those he left behind +him accepting his peace as theirs. + +Peter said, "It wasn't your fault. It was his doing--poor chap." + +The uncertain quaver in his voice brought Urquhart's eyes for a moment +upon his face, that was always pale and was now the colour of putty. + +"You're ill, aren't you?... I met Stephen.... I was coming back anyhow; +I knew you weren't fit to walk." + +He muttered it absently, frowning down on the other greyer face in the +grey dust. Again his hand unsteadily groped over the still heart, and lay +there for a moment. + +Abruptly then he looked up, and met Peter's shadow-circled eyes. + +"I was over-driving," he said. "I ought to have slowed down to pass him." +He stood up, frowning down on the two in the road. + +"We've got to think now," he said, "what to do about it." + +To that thinking Peter offered no help and no hindrance. He sat in the +road by the dead man and the bundle of wood, and looked vaguely on the +remote morning that death had dimmed. Denis and death: Peter would have +done a great deal to sever that incredible connection. + +But it was, after all, for Denis to effect that severing, to cut himself +loose from that oppressing and impossible weight. + +He did so. + +"I don't see," said Denis, "that we need ... that we can ... do anything +about it." + +Above the clear mountains the sun swung up triumphant, and the wide river +valley was bathed in radiant gold. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +HILARY, PEGGY, AND HER BOARDERS + + +When Leslie and Peter went to Venice to pick up Berovieri goblets and +other things, Leslie stayed at the Hotel Europa and Peter in the Palazzo +Amadeo. The Palazzo Amadeo is a dilapidated palace looking onto the Rio +delle Beccarie; it is let in flats to the poor; and in the sea-story +suite of the great, bare, dingy, gilded rooms lived Hilary and Peggy +Margerison, and three disreputable infants who insisted on bathing in the +canals, and the boarders. The boarders were at the moment six in number; +Peter made seven. The great difficulty with the boarders, Peggy told him, +was to make them pay. They had so little money, and such a constitutional +reluctance to spend that little on their board. + +"The poor things," said Peggy, who had a sympathetic heart. "I'm sure I'm +sorry for them, and I hate to ask them for it. But one's got to try and +live." + +She was drying Illuminato (baptized in that name by his father's +desire, but by his mother called Micky) before the stove in the great +dining-room. Illuminato had just tumbled off the bottom step into the +water, and had been fished out by his uncle Peter; he was three, and had +humorous, screwed-up eyes and a wide mouth like a frog's, so that Hilary, +who detested ugliness, could really hardly be fond of him. Peggy was; but +then Peggy always had more sense of humour than Hilary. + +A boarder looked in to see if lunch was ready. It was not, but Peggy +began preparations by screaming melodiously for Teresina. They heard the +boarder sigh. He was a tall young man with inspired eyes and oily hair. +Peter had observed him the night before, with some interest. + +"That's Guy Vyvian," Peggy told him, looking for Illuminato's dryer suit +in the china cupboard. + +"Fancy," said Peter. + +"Yes," said Peggy, pulling out a garment and dropping a plate out of its +folds on the polished marble floor. "There now! Micky, you're a tiresome +little ape and I don't love you. Guy Vyvian's an ape, too, entirely; his +one merit is that he writes for 'The Gem,' so that Hilary can take the +rent he won't pay out of the money he gives him for his articles. It +works out pretty well, on the whole, I fancy; they're neither of them +good at paying, so it saves them both bother. ("E pronto, Teresina?" +"Subito, subito," cried Teresina from the kitchen.) "I can't abide +Vyvian," Peggy resumed. "The babies hate him, and he makes himself horrid +to everyone, and lets Rhoda Johnson grovel to him, and stares at the +stains on the table-cloth, as if his own nails weren't worse, and turns up +his nose at the food. Poor little Rhoda! You saw her? The little thin +girl with a cough, who hangs on Vyvian's words and blushes when her +mother speaks. She's English governess to the Marchesa Azzareto's +children. Mrs. Johnson's a jolly old soul; I'm fond of her; she's the +best of the boarders, by a lot. Now, precious, if you tumble in again +this morning, you shall sit next to Mr. Vyvian at dinner. You go and tell +the others that from me. It isn't respectable, the way you all go on. +Here's the minestra at last." + +Teresina, clattering about the marble floor with the minestra, screamed +"Pronto," very loud, and the boarders trailed in one by one. First came +Mr. Guy Vyvian, sauntering with resignedly lifted brows, and looking as +if it ought to have been ready a long time ago; he was followed by Mrs. +Johnson, a stout and pleasant lady, who looked as if she was only too +delighted that it was ready now, and the more the better; her young +daughter, Rhoda, wearing a floppy smocked frock and no collar but a bead +necklace, coughed behind her; she looked pale and fatigued, and as if it +didn't matter in the least if it was never ready at all. She was being +talked to by a round-faced, fluffy-haired lady in a green dress and +pince-nez, who took an interest in the development of her deplorably +uncultured young mind--a Miss Barnett, who was painting pictures to +illustrate a book to be called "Venice, Her Spirit." The great hope for +young Rhoda, both Miss Barnett and Mr. Vyvian felt, was to widen the gulf +between her and her unspeakable mother. They, who quarrelled about +everything else, were united in this enterprise. The method adopted +was to snub Mrs. Johnson whenever she spoke. That was no doubt why, as +Peggy had told Peter, Rhoda blushed on those frequent occasions. + +The party was completed by a very young curate, and an elderly spinster +with mittens and many ailments, the symptoms of which she lucidly +specified in a refined undertone to any lady who would listen; with +gentlemen, however, she was most discreet, except with the curate, who +complained that his cloth was no protection. Finally Hilary came in and +took the head of the table, and Peggy and the children took the other +end. Peter found himself between Mrs. Johnson and Miss Barnett, and +opposite Mr. Vyvian and Rhoda. + +Mrs. Johnson began to be nice to him at once, in her cheery way. + +"Know Venice?" and when Peter said, "Not yet," she told him, "Ah, you'll +like it, I know. So pleasant as it is. Particlerly for young people. It +gives me rheumatics, so much damp about. But my gel Rhoder is that fond +of it. Spends all her spare time--not as she's got much, poor gel--in the +gall'ries and that. Art, you know. She goes in for it, Rhoder does. I +don't, now. I'm a stupid old thing, as they'll all tell you." She nodded +cheerfully and inclusively at Mr. Vyvian and Rhoda and Miss Barnett. They +did not notice. Vyvian, toying disgustedly with his burnt minestra, was +saying in his contemptuous voice, "Of course, if you like _that_, you may +as well like the Frari monuments at once and have done." + +Rhoda was crimson; she had made another mistake. Miss Barnett, who +disputed the office of mentor with Vyvian, whom she jealously disliked, +broke in, in her cheery chirp, "I don't agree with you, Mr. Vyvian. I +consider it a very fine example of Carpaccio's later style; I think you +will find that some good critics are with me." She addressed Peter, +ignoring the intervening solidity of Mrs. Johnson. "Do you support me, +Mr. Margerison?" + +"I've not seen it yet," Peter said rather timidly. "It sounds very nice." + +Miss Barnett gave him a rather contemptuous look through her pince-nez +and turned to Hilary. + +"Lor!" whispered Mrs. Johnson to Peter. "They do get so excited about +pictures. Just like that they go on all day, squabblin' and peckin' each +other. Always at Rhoder they are too, tellin' her she must think this and +mustn't think that, till the poor gel don't know if she's on her head or +her heels. She don't like _me_ to interfere, or it's all I can do +sometimes not to put in my word and say, 'You stick to it, Rhoder my +dear; you stand up to 'em and your mother'll back you.' But Rhoder don't +like that. 'Mother,' she says, quite sharp, 'Mother, you don't know a +thing about Art, and they do. You let be, and don't put me to shame +before my friends.' That's what she'd like to say, anyhow, if she's too +good a gel to say it. Rhoder's ashamed of my ignorance, that's what it +is." This was a furtive whisper, for Peter's ear alone. Having thus +unburdened herself Mrs. Johnson cleared her throat noisily and said very +loud, "An' what do you think of St. Mark's?" That was a sensible and +intelligent question, and she hoped Rhoda heard. + +Peter said he thought it was very nice. That Rhoda certainly heard, and +she looked at him with a curious expression, in which hope predominated. +Was this brother of the Margerisons another fool, worse than her? Would +he perhaps make her folly shine almost like wisdom by comparison? She +exchanged a glance with Vyvian; it was extraordinarily sweet to be able +to do that; so many glances had been exchanged apropos of _her_ remarks +between Vyvian and Miss Barnett. But here was a young man who thought St. +Mark's was very nice. "The dear Duomo!" Miss Barnett murmured, protecting +it from Tourist Insolence. + +Mrs. Johnson agreed enthusiastically with Peter. + +"I call it just sweet. You should see it on a Sunday, Mr. Margerison--Mr. +Peter, as I should say, shouldn't I?--all the flags flying, and the sun +shining on the gilt front an' all, and the band playing in the square; +an' inside half a dozen services all at once, and the incense floatin' +everywhere. Not as I'm partial to incense; it makes me feel a bit +squeamish--and Miss Gould there tells me it affects her similarly, don't +it, Miss Gould? Incense, I say--don't it give you funny feelin's within? +Seem to upset you, as it were?" + +Miss Gould, disturbed in her intimate conversation with the curate, held +up mittened hands in deprecating horror, either at the delicacy of the +question called across the table with gentlemen present, or at the memory +it called up in her of the funny feelings within. + +Mrs. Johnson took it as that, and nodded. "Just like me, she is, in that +way. But I like to see the worship goin' on, all the same. Popish, you +know, of course," she added, and then, bethinking herself, "But perhaps +you're a Roman, Mr. Peter, like your dear brother and sister? Well, Roman +or no Roman, I always say as how Mrs. Margerison is one of the best. A +dear, cheery soul, as has hardships to contend with; and if she finds the +comforts of religion in graven images an' a bead necklace, who am I to +say her no?" + +"Peggy," said Hilary wearily across the table, "Illuminato is making a +little beast of himself. Put him out." + +Peggy scrubbed Illuminato's bullet head dry with her handkerchief (it had +been lying in his minestra bowl), slapped him lightly on the hands, and +said absently, "Don't worry poor Daddy, who's so tired." She was wishing +that the _risotto_ had been boiled a little; one gathered from the +hardness of the rice that that process had been omitted. Vyvian, who +was talking shop with Hilary, sighed deeply and laid down his fork. He +wondered why he ever came in to lunch. One could get a much better one +nearly as cheap at a restaurant. + +Miss Barnett, with an air of wishing to find out how bad a fool Peter +was, leaned across Mrs. Johnson and said, "What are you to Venice, Mr. +Margerison, and Venice to you? What, I mean, are you going to get out +of her? Which of her aspects do you especially approach? She has so +infinitely many, you know. What, in fact, is your connecting link?" She +waited with some interest for what Peter would say. She had not yet +"placed" him. + +Peter said, "Oh, well ... I look at things, you know ... much the same +as anyone else, I expect. And I go in gondolas; and then there are the +things one would like to buy." + +Mrs. Johnson approved this. "Lovely, ain't they! Only one never has the +money to spend." + +"I watch other people spending theirs," said Peter, "which is the next +best thing, I suppose ... I'm sorry I'm stupid, Miss Barnett--but it's +all so jolly that I don't like to be invidious." + +"Do you write?" she enquired. + +"Sometimes," he admitted. "You're illustrating a book about Venice, +aren't you? That must be awfully interesting." + +"I am trying," she said, "to catch the most elusive thing in the +world--the Spirit of Venice. It breaks my heart, the pursuit. Just +round the corner, always; you know Browning's 'Love in a Life'? + + Heart, fear nothing, for heart, thou shalt find her, + Next time herself!--not the trouble behind her ... + Still the same chance! she goes out as I enter. + Spend my whole day in the quest;--who cares? ... + +It's like that with me and my Venice. It hurts rather--but I have to go +on." + +"You shouldn't, my dear," Mrs. Johnson murmured soothingly. "I'm sure you +should be careful. We mustn't play tricks with our constitutions." + +Rhoda kicked Peter under the table in mistake for her mother, and never +discovered the error. + +"Can you tell me," Miss Barnett added abruptly, in her cheerful voice, +"where it hides?" + +Peter looked helpful and intelligent, and endeared himself to her +thereby. She thought him a sympathetic young man, with possibilities, +probably undeveloped. + +Vyvian, who regarded Miss Barnett and "Venice, Her Spirit," with +contemptuous jealousy, thought that Rhoda was paying them too much +attention, and effectually called her away by saying, "If you care to +come with me to the Schiavoni, I can better explain to you what I mean." + +Rhoda kindled and flushed and looked suddenly pretty. Peter heard a +smothered sigh on his left. + +"I don't like it," Mrs. Johnson murmured to him. "No, I don't. If it was +you, now, as offered to take her--But there, I daresay you wouldn't be +clever enough to suit Rhoder; she's so partic'lar. You and me, now--we +get on very well; seems as if we liked to talk on the same subjects, as +it were; but Rhoder's different. When we go about together, it's always, +'Mother, not so loud! Oh, mother, you mustn't! Mother, that ain't really +beautiful at all, and you're givin' of us away. Mother, folks are +listening.' Let 'em listen is what I say. They won't hear anything that +could hurt 'em from me. But Rhoder's so quiet; she hates a bit of notice. +Not that she minds when she's with _him_; he talks away at the top of his +voice, and folks do turn an' listen--I've seen 'em. But I suppose that's +clever talk, so Rhoder don't mind." + +She raised her voice from the thick and cautious whisper which she +thought suitable for these remarks, and addressed Peggy. + +"Well, we've had a good dinner, my dear--plenty of it, if the rice _was_ +a bit underdone." + +"A grain," Miss Gould was murmuring to the curate, "a single grain would +have had unspeakable effects...." + +Peggy was endeavouring to comb Caterina's exceedingly tangled locks with +the fingers of one hand, while with the other she slapped Silvio's +(Larry's) bare and muddy feet to make him take them off the table-cloth. +Not that they made much difference to the condition of the table-cloth; +but still, there are conventions. + +"It is a disgrace," Hilary remarked mechanically, "that my children can't +behave like civilised beings at a meal ... Peter, what are you going to +do this afternoon?" + +The boarders rose. Mrs. Johnson patted Peter approvingly on the arm, and +said, "I'm glad to of had the pleasure. One day we'll go out together, +you and me. Seem as if we look at things from the same point of view, as +it were. You mayn't be so clever as some, but you suit me. Now, my dear, +I'm goin' to help you about the house a bit. The saloon wants dustin', I +noticed." + +Peggy sighed and said she was sure it did, and Teresina was hopeless, and +Mrs. Johnson was really too kind, but it was a shame to bother her, and +the saloon could go another while yet. She was struggling with the +children's bibs and rather preoccupied. + +The boarders went out to pursue their several avocations; Rhoda and Mr. +Vyvian to the church of San Giorgio degli Schiavoni, that Mr. Vyvian +might the better explain what he meant; Miss Barnett, round-about and +cheerful, sketch-book in hand, to hunt for "Venice, Her Spirit," in the +Pescaria; Miss Gould to lie down on her bed and recover from lunch; the +curate to take the air and photographs for his magic lantern lectures +to be delivered in the parish-room at home; and Mrs. Johnson to find a +feather broom. + +Hilary sat down and lit a cigar, and Illuminato crawled about his legs. + +"I'm going out with Leslie," said Peter. "We're going to call on the +prince and see the goblet and begin the haggling. We must haggle, though +as a matter of fact Leslie means to have it at any price. It must be a +perfectly ripping thing.... Now let me have a number of 'The Gem' to +read. I've not seen it yet, you know." + +"It's very dull, my dear," Peggy murmured, rinsing water over the place +on the table-cloth where Silvio's feet had been. + +Hilary was gazing into the frog-like countenance of his youngest son. It +gave him a disappointment ever new, that Illuminato should be so plain. +"But your mother's handsome, frog," he murmured, "and I'm not worse than +my neighbours to look at." (But he knew he was better than most of them). +"Let's hope you have intellect to make up. Now crawl to your uncle Peter, +since you want to." + +Illuminato did want to. He adored his uncle Peter. + +"The Gem, Peter?" said Hilary. "Bother the Gem. As Peggy remarks, it's +very dull, and you won't like it. I don't know that I want you to read +it, to say the truth." + +Peter was in the act of doing so. He had found three torn pages of it on +the floor. He was reading an article called "Osele." Hilary glanced at +it, with the slight nervous frown frequent with him. + +"What have you got hold of?... Oh, that." His frown seemed to relax +a little. "I really don't recommend the thing for your entertainment, +Peter. It'll bore you. I have to provide two things--food for the +interested visitor, and guidance for Lord Evelyn's mania for purchasing." + +"So I am gathering," Peter said. "I'm reading about _osele_, marked with +the Mocenigo rose. Signor Antonio Sardi seems to be a man worth a visit. +I must take Leslie there. That's just the sort of thing he likes. And +sixteenth-century visiting cards. Yes, he'd like those too. By all means +we'll go to your friend Sardi. You wrote this, I suppose?" + +Hilary nodded. His white nervous fingers played on the arm of his chair. +It seemed to be something of an ordeal to him, this first introduction of +Peter to the Gem. + +Peggy, assisting Teresina to bundle the crockery off the table, shot a +swift glance at the group--at Hilary lying back smoking, with slightly +knitted forehead, one unsteady hand playing on his chair; at Peter +sitting on the marble floor with the torn fragments of paper in his hands +and Illuminato astride on his knee. Peggy's grey, Irish eyes were at the +moment a little speculative, touched with a dispassionate curiosity and a +good deal of sisterly and wifely and maternal and slightly compassionate +affection. She was so fond of them all, the dear babes. + +Peter had gone on from _osele_ to ivory plaques. He was not quite so much +interested in reading about them because he knew more about them for +himself, but he took down the name of a dealer who had, according to +the Gem, some good specimens, and said he should take Leslie there too. + +Hilary got up rather suddenly, and jerked his cigar away into a corner +(marble floors are useful in some ways) and said, "Is Leslie going to buy +the whole place up? I'm sick of these wealthy Jews. They're ruining +Venice. Buying all the palaces, you know. I suppose Leslie'll be wanting +to do that next. There's altogether too much buying in this forsaken +world. Why can't people admire without wanting to acquire? Lord Evelyn +can't. The squandering old fool; he's ruining himself over things he's +too blind even to look at properly. And this Leslie of yours, who can't +even appreciate, still must get and have, of course; and the more he gets +the more he wants. Can't you stop him, Peter? It's such a monstrous +exhibition of the vice of the age." + +"It's not my profession to stop him," Peter said. "And, after all, why +shouldn't they? If it makes them happy--well--" His finality conveyed his +creed; if it makes them happy, what else is there? To be happy is to have +reached the goal. Peter was a little sad about Hilary, who seemed as far +as ever from that goal. Why? Peter wondered. Couldn't one be happy in +this lovable water-city, which had, after all, green ways of shadow and +gloom between the peeling brick walls of ancient houses, and, beyond, the +broad spaces of the sea? Couldn't one be happy here even if the babies +did poise muddy feet on a table-cloth, not, after all, otherwise clean; +and even if the poor boarders wouldn't pay their rent and the rich Jews +would buy palaces and plaques? Bother the vice of the age, thought Peter, +as he crossed the sun-bathed piazza and suddenly smelt the sea. There +surely never was such a jolly world made as this, which had Venice in it +for laughter and breathless wonder and delight, and her Duomo shining +like a jewel. + +"An' the sun shinin' on the gilt front an' all," murmured Peter. "I call +it just sweet." + +He went in (he was to meet Leslie there), and the soft dusk rippled about +him, and beyond the great pillars stretched the limitless, hazy horizons +of a dream. + +Presently Leslie came. He had an open "Stones of Venice" in his hand, and +said, "Now for those mosaics." Leslie was a business-like person, who +wasted no time. So they started on the mosaics, and did them for an hour. +Leslie said, "Good. Capital," with the sober, painstaking, conscientious +appreciation he was wont to bestow on unpurchasable excellence; and Peter +said, "How jolly," and felt glad that there were some excellences +unpurchasable even by rich Jews. + +They then went to the Accademia and looked at pictures. There Leslie had +a clue to merit. "Anything on hinges, I presume," he remarked, "is worth +inspection. Only why don't they hinge _more_ of the good ones? They ought +to give us a hint; they really ought. How's a man to be sure he's on the +right tack?" + +After an hour of that they went to see the prince who had the goblet. +Half an hour's conversation with him, and the goblet belonged to Leslie. +It was a glorious thing of deep blue glass and translucent enamel and +silver, with the Berovieri signature cut on it. Peter looked at it much +as he had seen a woman in the Duomo look up at her Lady's shrine, much +as Rodney had looked on the illumined reality behind the dreaming silver +world. + +Peter said, "My word, suppose it broke!" It was natural that he should +think of that; things so often broke. Only that morning his gold watch +had broken, in Illuminato's active hands. Only that afternoon his +bootlace had broken, and he had had none to replace it because Caterina +had been sailing his other boots in the canal. Peter sighed over the +lovely and brittle world. + +Then he and Leslie visited Signor Sardi's shop and looked at _osele_ and +sixteenth-century visiting cards. Peter said he knew nothing about either +personally, but quoted Hilary in the Gem, to Leslie's satisfaction. + +"Your brother's a good man," said Leslie. "Knows what's what, doesn't he? +If he says these are good _osele_, we may take it that they _are_ good +_osele_, though we don't know one _osele_ from another. That's right, +isn't it?" + +Peter said he supposed it was, if one wanted _osele_ at all, which +personally he didn't care about; but one never knew, of course, what +might come in useful. Anyhow Leslie bought some, and a visiting card +belonging to the Count Amadeo Vasari, which gave him much satisfaction. +Then they visited the person who, the Gem had said, had good plaques, and +inspected them critically. Then they had tea at Sant' Ortes' tearoom, and +then Peter went home. + +Hilary, who was looking worried, said, "Lord Evelyn wants us to dine with +him to-night," and passed Peter a note in delicate, shaky handwriting. + +"Good," said Peter. Hilary wore a bored look and said, "I suppose we must +go," and then proceeded to question Peter concerning Leslie's shopping +adventures. He seemed on the whole more interested in the purchase of +_osele_ than of the Berovieri goblet. + +"But," said Peter presently, "your plaque friend wasn't in form to-day. +He had only shams. Rather bright shams, but still--So we didn't get any, +which, I suppose, will please you to hear. Leslie was disappointed. I +told your friend we would look in on a better day, when he had some of +the real thing. He wasn't pleased. I expect he passes off numbers of +those things on people as antiques. You ought to qualify your remarks +in the Gem, Hilary--add that Signor Leroni has to be cautiously dealt +with--or you'll be letting the uncritical plaque-buyer through rather +badly." + +"I daresay they can look after themselves," Hilary said, easily; and +Peggy added: + +"After all, so long as they _are_ uncritical, it can't matter to them +what sort of a plaque they get!" which of course, was one point of view. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +DIANA, ACTAEON, AND LORD EVELYN + + +Hilary and Peter gondoled to Lord Evelyn Urquhart's residence, a rather +exquisite little old palace called Ca' delle Gemme, and were received +affectionately by the tall, slim, dandified-looking young-old man, with +his white ringed hands and high sweet voice and courtly manner. He had +aged since Peter remembered him; the slim hands were shakier and the +near-sighted eyes weaker and the delicate face more deeply lined with the +premature lines of dissipation and weak health. He put his monocle in his +left eye and smiled at Peter, with the old charming smile that was like +his nephew's, and tilted to and fro on his heels. + +"Not changed at all, as far as I can see," he said to Peter, with the +same mincing, finicking pronunciation that had pleased the boy Peter +eight years ago. "Only my sight isn't what it was. _Are_ you changed at +all? Do you still like Bow rose-bowls better than anything except Denis? +Denis is coming here soon, you know, so I shall be able to discover. Oh, +I beg pardon--Mr. Peter Margerison, Mr. Cheriton." + +Mr. Cheriton was a dark, sturdy young man with an aggressive jaw, who +bowed without a smile and looked one rather hard in the face. Peter was +a little frightened of him--these curt, brisk manners made him nervous +always--and felt a desire to edge behind Hilary. He gathered that Hilary +and Cheriton did not very much like one another. He knew what that slight +nervous contraction of Hilary's forehead meant. + +Dinner was interesting. Lord Evelyn told pleasant and funny stories in +his high, tittering voice, addressing himself to all his guests, but +looking at Peter when he came to his points. (People usually looked at +Peter when they came to the points of their stories.) Hilary talked a +good deal and drank a good deal and ate very little, and was obviously +on very friendly terms with Lord Evelyn and on no terms at all with Mr. +Cheriton. Cheriton looked a good deal at Peter, with very bright and +direct eyes, and flung into the conversation rather curt and spasmodic +utterances in a slightly American accent. He seemed a very decided and +very much alive young man, a little rude, thought Peter, but possibly +that was only his trans-Atlantic way, if, as his voice hinted, he came +from America. Once or twice Peter met the direct and vivid regard fixed +upon him, and nearly was startled into "I beg your pardon," for there +seemed to him an odd element of accusation in the look. + +"But it isn't my fault," he told himself reassuringly. "I've not done +anything, I'm sure I haven't. It's just the way he's made, I expect. Or +else people have done him badly once or twice, and he's always thinking +it's going to happen again. Rough luck on him; poor chap." + +After dinner they went into what Lord Evelyn called the saloon. "Where +I keep my especial treasures," he remarked to Peter. "You'd like to walk +round and look at some of them, I expect. These bronzes, now--," he +indicated two statuettes on brackets by the door. + +Peter looked at them, then swiftly up at Lord Evelyn, who swayed at his +side, his glass screwed into one smiling eye. + +Lord Evelyn touched the near statuette with his light, unsteady, +beautifully-ringed hand. + +"Rather lovely, isn't she," he said, caressing her. "We found her and the +Actaeon in a dusty hole of a place in a miserable little _calle_ off the +Campo delle Beccarie, kept by a German Jew. Quite a find, the old sinner. +What an extortioner, though! Eh, Margerison? How much has the old +Schneller got out of my pocket? It was your brother who discovered him +for me, young Peter. He took me there, and we found the Diana together. +Like her? Giacomo Treviso, a pupil of Verrocchio's. Heard of him? The +Actaeon's not so good now. Same man, but not so happy." + +He turned the Diana about; he posed her for Peter's edification. Peter +looked from her to the Actaeon, from the Actaeon to Lord Evelyn's face. He +opened his lips to say something, and closed them on silence. He looked +past Lord Evelyn to Hilary, who stood in the background, leaning a little +against a chair. It seemed to Peter that there was a certain tensity, a +strain, in his face. + +Then Peter met full the bright, hard, vivid gaze of the alert Cheriton. +It had an odd expression at this moment; unmistakably inimical, +observantly curious, distinctly sardonic. A faint ironic smile just +touched the corners of his determined mouth. Peter returned the look +with his puzzled, enquiring eyes that sought to understand. + +This much, anyhow, he seemed to understand: his role was silence. If +Cheriton didn't speak (and Cheriton's expression showed that he knew) and +if Hilary didn't speak ... well, he, Peter, couldn't speak either. He +must acquiesce in what appeared to be a conspiracy to keep this pathetic, +worn-out dilettante in a fool's paradise. + +The pathos of it gripped Peter's heart. Lord Evelyn had once known so +well. What havoc was this that one could apparently make of one's +faculties? It wasn't only physical semi-blindness; it was a blindness of +the mind, a paralysis of the powers of discrimination and appreciation, +which, was pitiful. Peter was angry. He thought Hilary and Cheriton so +abominably, unmitigatedly wrong. And yet he himself had said, "If it +makes them happy"--and left that as the indubitable end. Ah, but one +didn't lie to people, even for that. + +Peter was brought up sharply, as he had often been before, against +Hilary's strange Hilaryish, perverted views of the conduct of life's +businesses. Then, as usual when he should have felt furthest from +mirth, he abruptly collapsed into sudden helpless laughter. + +Lord Evelyn turned the eye-glass on him. + +"Eh?" he queried. "Why so? But never mind; you always suffered in that +way, I remember. Get it from your mother, I think; she did, too. Never +explain jokes; they lose so in the telling. Now I want to show you +something over here." + +Peter crossed the room, his laughter dead. After all, funny wasn't what +it really was. Mainly, it was perplexing. Till he could have it out with +Hilary, he couldn't understand it at all. + +He saw more of Lord Evelyn's treasures, and perplexity grew. He did not +laugh again; he was very solemn and very silent and very polite where he +could not admire. Where he could he did; but even here his admiration was +weighed down to soberness by the burden of the things beyond the pale. + +Lord Evelyn found him lukewarm, changed and dulled from the vivid +devotee of old, who had coloured up all over his pale face at the sight +of a Bow rose-bowl. He coloured indeed now, when Lord Evelyn said "Like +it?"--coloured and murmured indistinguishable comments into his collar. +He coloured most when Lord Evelyn said, as he frequently did, "Your +brother's find. A delicious little man in some _sotto-portico_ or +other--quite an admirable person. Eh, Margerison?" + +Hilary in the background would vaguely assent. Peter, who looked at him +no more, felt the indefinable challenge of his tone. It meant either, +"I've as much right to my artistic taste as you have, Peter, and I'm +not ashamed of it," or, "Speak out, if you want to shatter the illusions +that make the happiness of his ridiculous life; if not, be silent." + +And all the time the vivid stare of Jim Cheriton was turned like a +search-light on Peter's face, and his odd smile grew and grew. Cheriton +was watching, observing, taking in something new, trying to solve some +problem. + +At the end of half an hour Lord Evelyn said, "Peter Margerison, you've +lost some of the religious fervour of your youth. The deceitfulness of +riches and the cares of this world--is that it? What's come to you that +you're so tepid about this Siena chalice? Don't be tepid, young Peter; +it's the symptom of a ruined soul." + +He polished his glass, screwed it into his left eye, and looked down on +Peter with his whimsical, kindly scrutiny. Peter did not return the look; +he stood with bent head, looking vaguely down at the Sienese chalice. +That too was one of Hilary's finds. Hilary it seemed, had approved its +seller in an article in the Gem. + +"Damme," said Lord Evelyn suddenly, with unusual explosiveness, "if I +didn't like you better when you were fifteen! Now, you _blase_ and +soulless generation, I suppose you want to play bridge. Do you play as +badly as ever, Peter? A remarkable player you were, I remember--quite +remarkable. Denis always told you so. Now Cheriton will tell you so, +because he's rude." + +Bridge was a relief to Peter, though he was still a rather remarkable +player. He played with Cheriton, who was not rude, because he was +absolutely silent. It was an absurd game. Cheriton was a brilliant +player, even when he was only giving half his mind to it, as he seemingly +was to-night. Lord Evelyn had been a brilliant player once, and was now +brilliant with alternations of eccentricity; he talked most of the time, +making the game the centre of his remarks, from which he struck out along +innumerable paths of irrelevancy. The Margerisons too were irrelevant; +Hilary thought bridge a bore, and Peter, who thought nothing a bore, was +always a little alarmed by anything so grown-up. But to-night he didn't +much mind what he did, so long as he stopped looking at Lord Evelyn's +things. Peter only wanted to get away; he was ashamed and perplexed and +sorry and angry, and stabbed through with pity. He wanted to get out of +Lord Evelyn's house, out of the range of his kindly, whimsical smile and +Cheriton's curious hostile stare; he wanted to be alone with Hilary, and +to understand. + +The irony of Cheriton's look increased during bridge; it was certainly +justified by the abstraction of Peter's play. + +Lord Evelyn laughed at him. "You need Denis to keep you in order, young +Peter. Lord, how frightened you used to be when Denis was stern. Smiled +and pretended you weren't, but I knew...." He chuckled at the painted +ceiling. "Knew a man at Oxford, Peter ... well, never mind that story +now, you're too young for it.... Anyhow I make it no trumps." + +At eleven o'clock Hilary and Peter went home. Lord Evelyn shook hands +with Peter rather affectionately, and said, "Come and see me again soon, +dear boy. Lunch with me at Florian's to-morrow--you and your wealthy +friend. Busy sight-seeing, are you? How banal of you. Morning in the +Duomo, afternoon on the Lido, and the Accademia to fill the spare hours; +I know the dear old round. Never could be worried with it myself; too +much else to do. But one manages to enjoy life even without it, so don't +overwork. And come and see my toys again by daylight, and try to enthuse +a little more over them next time. You're too young to be _blase_. +You'd better read the Gem, to encourage yourself in simple pleasures. +Good-night. Good-night, Margerison." + +He shook hands with them both again, possibly to make up for Cheriton, +who did not shake hands at all, but stood with his own in his pockets, +leaning against the wall, his eyes still on Peter's face. + +"Queer manners you have, dear Jim," was what they heard Lord Evelyn say +as they stepped into the Ca' delle Gemme gondola, that was taking them +back to the Rio delle Beccarie. + +They swung out into the faintly-shining darkness of the water-road, into +which the climbing moon could not look--a darkness crossed and flecked by +the red gleamings of the few gondola and sandolo lights abroad at this +hour in the quiet street. They sent their own red path before them as +they softly travelled; and round it the stars flickered and swam, deep +down. Peter could have sworn he heard their thin, tinkling, submerged, +funny song, somewhere above or beneath the soft and melodious "Cherie +Birri-Bim," that someone (not Lord Evelyn's beautifully trained and +taciturn _poppe_) was crooning near at hand. + +The velvet darkness of a bridge drowned the stars for a moment; then, +with a musical, abrupt cry of "Sta--i!" they swung round a corner into +a narrow way that was silver and green in the face of the climbing moon. + +The musically lovely night, the peace of the dim water-ways, the +shadowing mystery of the steep, shuttered houses, with here and there a +lit door or window ajar, sending a slant of yellow light across the deep +green lane full of stars and the moon, the faint crooning of music far +off, made a cool marvel of peace for strung nerves. Peter sat by Hilary +in silence, and no longer wanted to ask questions. In the strange, +enveloping wonder of the night, minor wonders died. What did it matter, +anyhow? Hilary and Venice--Venice and Hilary--give them time, and one +would explain the other. + +It was Hilary who began to talk, and he talked about Cheriton, his +nervous voice pitched on a high note of complaint. + +"I do intensely dislike that man. The sort of person I've no use for, you +know. So horribly on the spot; such sharp, unsoftened manners. All the +terrible bright braininess of the Yankee combined with the obstreperous +energy of the Philistine Briton. His mother is a young American, about to +be married for the third time. The sort of exciting career one would +expect from a parent of the delightful Jim. I cannot imagine why Lord +Evelyn, who is a person of refinement, encourages him. Really, you know!" + +He grew very plaintive over it. Peter really did not wonder. + +Peter's subconscious mind registered a dim impression that this was +defensive talk, to fill the silence. Hilary was a nervous person, easily +agitated. Probably the evening had agitated him. But he was no good at +defence. His complaint of Jim Cheriton broke weakly on an unsteady laugh. +Peter nodded assent, and looked up the street of dim water, his chin +propped in his hands, and thought how extraordinarily pleasant was the +red light that slanted across the dark water from green doors ajar in +steep house-walls. + +Hilary tried to light a cigar, and flung broken matches into spluttering +darkness. At last he succeeded; and then, when he had smoked in silence +for two minutes, he turned abruptly on Peter and said, "Well?" + +Peter, dreamily turning towards him, felt the nervous challenge of his +tone, and read it in his pale, tired face. + +Peter pulled himself together and collected his thoughts. After all, one +might as well know. + +"Oh, well ... what? Yes, what about those ghastly statuettes, and all the +rest of them? Why, when, how ... and what on earth for?" + +Hilary, after a moment of silence, said, with a rather elaborate +carelessness, "I saw you didn't like them." + +At that Peter started a little, and the dreaminess of the night fell away +from him. + +"You saw ... oh." For a moment he couldn't think of anything else to say. +Then he laughed a little. "Why, yes, I imagine you did.... But what's the +object of it all? Have you and Cheriton (by the way, why does he glare at +us both so?) come to the conclusion that it's worth while playing that +sort of game? If you have, I can't tell you how utterly wrong I think you +are. Make him happy--oh, I know--but what extraordinary cheek on your +part! I as near as possible gave you away--I did really. Besides, what +did he mean by saying you'd advised him to buy the things--praised them +in the Gem, and all that? You can't have gone so far as that--did you?" + +After a moment of silence, Hilary turned abruptly and looked Peter in the +face, taking the long cigar out of his mouth and holding it between two +white, nervous fingers. + +"Upon my word," said Hilary, speaking rather slowly, "Talk of cheek! +Do you know what you're accusing me of? You and your precious taste! +Leslie and your other fool patrons seem to have given you a fair +opinion of yourself. Because you, in your omniscience, think a thing bad, +which I ... which I obviously consider good, and have stated so in +print ... you don't so much as deign to argue the question, but get upon +your pedestal and ask me why I tell lies. You think one thing and I think +another; of course, you must know best, but I presume I may be allowed to +hold my misguided and ill-informed opinion without being accused blankly +of fraud. Upon my word, Peter ... it's time you took to some other line +of life, I think." + +His high, unsteady voice trailed away into silence. Peter, out of all the +dim beauty of the night, saw only the pale, disturbed, frowning face, the +quivering hand that held the lean cigar. All the strangeness and the +mystery of the mysterious world were here concentrated. Numbly and dully +he heard the soft, rhythmic splashing of the dipping oar, the turning +cry of "Premie!" Then, sharper, "Sciar, Signori, sciar!" as they nearly +jostled another gondola, swinging round sharply into a moonless lane of +ancient palaces. + +Peter presently said, "But ..." and there stopped. What could he say, +beyond "but?" + +Hilary answered him sharply, "Well?" and then, after another pause, +Peter pulled himself together, gave up trying to thread the maze of his +perplexity, and said soberly, "I beg your pardon, Hilary. I'm an ass." + +Hilary let out his breath sharply, and resumed his cigar. + +"It's possible, of course," he said, more quietly, "that you may be right +and I wrong about the things. That's another question altogether. I may +be a fool: I only resent being called a knave. _Really_, you know!" + +"I never meant that," Peter hopelessly began to explain. And, indeed, now +that Hilary disclaimed it, it did seem a far too abominable thing that he +had implied. He had hurt Hilary; he deserved to be kicked. His anger with +himself rose. To hurt anyone was atrocious; to hurt Hilary unforgivable. +He would have done a great deal now to make amends. + +He stammered over it. "I did think, I'm afraid, that you and Cheriton +were doing it to make him happy or something. I'm awfully sorry; I was +an ass; I ought to have known. But it never occurred to me that you +didn't kn--that you had a different opinion of the things. I say, +Hilary--Cheriton knows! I saw him know. He knew, and he was wondering +what I was going to say." + +"Knew, knew, knew!" Hilary nervously exploded. "There you go again. +You're intolerable, Peter, really. All the spoiling you've had has gone +to your head." + +"I beg your pardon," said Peter again. "I meant, Cheriton agreed with me, +I'm sure.... But, Hilary--those statuettes--you can't really.... They're +mid-Victorian, and positively offensive!" His voice rose shrilly. They +had been so horrible, Diana and Actaeon. He couldn't forget them, in their +podgy sentimentality. "And--and that chalice ..." he shuddered over +it--"and--" + +"That'll do, thanks," Hilary broke in. "You can say at once that you +disagree with me about everything I admire, and leave it there. But, if +I may ask you, don't say so to Lord Evelyn, if you can resist the +temptation to show me up before him. It will only bother and disturb him, +whichever of us he ends by agreeing with. He's shown that he trusts my +taste more or less, by giving me his paper to edit, and I should think +we might leave it at that." + +"Yes, the paper"--Peter was reminded of it, and it became a distracting +puzzle. Hilary thought Diana and Actaeon and the Siena chalice good +things--and Hilary edited an art paper. What in the name of all that was +horrible did he put in it? A light was shed on Signor Leroni, who was, +said the Gem, a good dealer in plaques, and who was, Peter had thought, +a bare-faced purveyor of shams. Peter began to question the quality of +the _osele_, that Leslie had purchased from Signor Sardi. + +How curious it was; and rather tragic, too. For Hilary, like Lord Evelyn, +had known once. Had Hilary too, in ruining much else of himself, ruined +his critical faculties? And could one really do that and remain ignorant +of the fact? Or would one rather have a lurking suspicion, and therefore +be all the more defiantly corroborative of one's own judgment? In either +case one was horribly to be pitied; but--but one shouldn't try to edit +art papers. And yet this couldn't be conveyed without a lacerating of +feelings that was unthinkable. There was always this about Hilary--one +simply couldn't bear to hurt him. He was so easily hurt and so often; +life used him so hardly and he felt it so keenly, that it behoved Peter, +at least, to insert as many cushions as possible between him and the +sharp edges of circumstance. Peter was remorseful. He had taken what +he should have seen before was an unforgivable line; he had failed +abominably in comprehension and decent feeling. Poor Hilary. Peter +was moved by the old impulse to be extraordinarily nice to him. + +They turned out of the Rio della Madonnetta into the narrow rio that was +the back approach to the Palazzo Amadeo. It is a dark little canal, a rio +of the poor. The doors that stood open in the peeling brick walls above +the water let out straggling shafts of lamplight and quarrelling voices +and singing and the smell of wine. The steep house walls leant to meet +one another from either side; from upper windows the people who hadn't +gone to bed talked across a space of barely six feet. + +The gondola crept cautiously under two low bridges, then stopped outside +the water-washed back steps of the Palazzo Amadeo. + +One pleasant thing about Lord Evelyn's exquisitely mannered _poppe_ was +that one didn't feel that he was thinking "I am not accustomed to taking +my master's visitors to such low haunts." In the first place, he probably +was. In the second, he was not an English flunkey, and not a snob. He was +no more a snob than the Margerisons were, or Lord Evelyn himself. He +deposited them at the Palace back door, politely saluted, and slipped +away down the shadowy water-street. + +Hilary and Peter stepped up two water-washed steps to the green door, and +Peggy opened it from within. Peggy (Peter occasionally wondered when, if +ever, she went to bed) was in the hall, nursing Illuminato, who couldn't +sleep--a small bundle of scarlet night-shirt and round bullet head, +burrowing under his mother's left arm and staring out from that place of +comfort with very bright and wakeful eyes. When, indeed, it might have +been asked, did any of the Margerison family take their rest? No one of +them ever felt or expressed any surprise at finding any other awake and +active at any hour of the night. + +Peggy looked at her three male infants with her maternal serenity touched +with mirth. There were nearly always those two elements in Peggy's +look--a motherly sympathy and desire to cheer and soothe, and a glint +from some rich and golden store of amusement. + +She patted Peter on the arm, softly. + +"Was it a nice evening, then? No, not very, I think. Dear, dear! You both +look so unutterably tired. I wonder had you better go to bed, quite +straight?" + +It seemed to be suggested as a last resource of the desperate, though the +hour was close on midnight. + +"And the children have been pillow-fighting, till Mr. Vyvian--the +creature--came down with nothing in particular on, to complain to me +that he couldn't sleep. Sleep, you know! It wasn't after ten--but it +seems he had a headache, as usual, because Mrs. Johnson had insisted +on going to look at pictures with him and Rhoda, and her remarks were +such--Nervous prostration, poor Mr. Vyvian. So I've had Illuminato +down here with me since then. He wants to go to you, Peter, as usual." + +Peter took the scarlet bundle, and it burrowed against his shirt-front +with a contented sigh. Peggy watched the two for a moment, then said to +the uncle, "You poor little boy, you're tireder than Hilary even. You +must surely go to bed. But isn't Lord Evelyn rather a dear?" + +"Quite a dear," Peter answered her, his face bent over the round cropped +head. "Altogether charming and delightful. Do you know, though, I'm not +really fond of bridge. Jig-saw is my game--and we didn't have it. That's +why I'm tired I expect. And because there was a Mr. Cheriton, who stared, +and seemed somehow to have taken against us--didn't he, Hilary? Or +perhaps it was only his queer manners, dear Jim. Anyhow, he made me feel +shy. It takes it out of one, not being liked. Nervous prostration, like +poor Mr. Vyvian. So let's go to bed, Hilary, and leave these two to watch +together." + +"Give me the froglet." She took it from his arms, gently, and kissed +first one then the other. + +"Good night, little Peter. You are a darling entirely, and I love you. +And don't worry, not over not being liked or anything else, because it +surely isn't worth it." + +She was always affectionate and maternal to Peter; but to-night she was +more so than usual. Looking at her as she stood in her loose, slatternly +_neglige_, beneath the extravagantly blazing chandelier, the red bundle +cuddling a round black head into her neck, her grey eyes smiling at him, +lit with love and laughter and a pity that lay deeper than both, Peter +was caught into her atmosphere of debonair and tranquil restfulness, that +said always, "Take life easy; nothing's worth worrying over, not problems +or poverty or even one's sins." How entirely true. Nothing _was_ worth +worrying over; certainly other people's strange points of view weren't. +It was a gospel of ease and _laissez-faire_ well suited to Peter's +temperament. He smiled at Peggy and Hilary and their son, and went up +the marble stairs to bed. He was haunted till he slept by the memory of +Hilary's nervous, tired face as he had seen it in the moonlight in the +gondola, and again in the hall as he said good night. Hilary wasn't +coming to bed yet. He stayed to talk to Peggy. If anything could be good +for Hilary's moods of depression, thought Peter, Peggy would. How jolly +for Hilary to be married to her! She was such a refreshment always. She +was so understanding; and was there a lapse somewhere in that very +understandingness of her that made it the more restful--that made her +a relaxation to strained minds? To those who were breaking their moral +sense over some problem, she would return simply, "There isn't any +problem. Take things as they come and make the best of them, and don't, +don't worry!" "I'm struggling with a temptation to steal a purse," Peter +imagined himself saying to her, "What can I do about it?" And her swift +answer came, with her indulgent, humorous smile, "Dear little boy, if it +makes you any happier--do it!" And then she would so well understand +the ensuing remorse; she would be so sympathetic, so wholly dear and +comforting. She would say anything in the world to help, except "Put it +back." Even that she would say if one's own inclinations were tending in +that direction. But never if they weren't. She would never be so hard, so +unkind. That sort of uncongenial admonition might be left to one's +confessor; wasn't that what confessors were there for? + +But why think of stealing purses so late at night? No doubt merely +because it was late at night. Peter curled himself up and drew the sheet +over his ears and sighed sleepily. He seemed to hear the rich, pleasant +echoes of Peggy's best nursery voice far off, and Hilary's high, +plaintive tones rising above it. + +But above both, dominant and insistent, murmured the lapping voice of the +wonderful city at night. A faint rhythm of snoring beyond a thin wall +somehow suggested Mrs. Johnson, and Peter laughed into his pillow. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +PETER UNDERSTANDS + + +On the shores of the Lido, three days later, Peter and Leslie came upon +Denis Urquhart. He was lying on the sand in the sun on the Adriatic side, +and building St. Mark's, rather well. Peter stood and looked at it +critically. + +"Not bad. But you'd better let us help you. We've been studying the +original exhaustively, Leslie and I." + +"A very fine and remarkable building," said Leslie, ponderously, and +Peter laughed for the sheer pleasure of seeing Urquhart's lazy length +stretched on the warm sand. + +"Cheriton's somewhere about," said Urquhart. "But he wouldn't help me +with St. Mark's. He was all for walking round the island at a great pace +and seeing how long it took him. So superfluously energetic, isn't he? +Fancy being energetic in Venice." + +Peter was thankful that he was. The thought of Cheriton's eyes upon him +made him shudder. + +"He has his good points," Urquhart added; "but he excites himself too +much. Always taking up some violent crusade against something or other. +Can't live and let live. Another dome here, I think." + +Peter wondered if Cheriton's latest crusade was against Hilary's taste +in art, and if so what Urquhart thought on that subject. It was an +uncomfortable thought. He characteristically turned away from it. + +"The intense blue of the sea, contrasted with the fainter blue of the +Euganean Hills," said Leslie suddenly, "is most remarkable and beautiful. +What?" + +He was proud of having noticed that. He was always proud of noticing +beauty unaided. He made his remark with the simple pleasure of a child +in his own appreciation. His glance at Peter said, "I am getting on, I +think?" + +The others agreed that he was correct. He then bent his great mind to the +completion of St. Mark's, and Urquhart discovered what Peter had long +known, that he could really play in earnest. The reverse art--handling +serious issues with a light touch--he was less good at. Grave subjects, +like the blue of the sea or the shape of a goblet, he approached with the +same solidity of earnestness which he brought to bear on sand cathedrals. +It was just this that made him a little tiring. + +But the three together on the sands made a happy and congruous party of +absorbed children, till Cheriton the energetic came swinging back over +the sand-hills. Peter saw him approaching, watched the resolute lunge +of his stride. His mother was about to be married for the third time: one +could well believe it. + +"I hope he is going to be nicer to me to-day," Peter thought. Even as he +hoped it, and before Cheriton saw the party on the sands, Peter saw the +determined face stiffen, and into the vivid eyes came the blank look of +one who is cutting somebody. Peter turned and looked behind him to see +who it was, and saw Mr. Guy Vyvian approaching. It was obvious from his +checked recognition that he thought he knew Cheriton, and that Cheriton +did not share the opinion. Peter saw Vyvian's mortified colour rise; he +was a vain and sensitive person. + +Cheriton came and sat down among them. His words as he did so, audibly +muttered, were, "The most unmitigated cad!" He looked angry. Then he saw +Peter, and seemed a little surprised, but did not cut him; he hardly +could. Peter supposed that he owed this only to the accident of +Urquhart's presence, since this young man seemed to go about the world +ignoring everyone who did not please his fastidious fancy, and Peter +could not hope that he had done that. + +Peter looked after Vyvian's retreating figure. He could detect injured +pride in his back. + +He got up and brushed the sand from him. + +"I must go and talk to that man," he said. "He's lodging with my +brother." + +The situation for a moment was slightly difficult. Leslie and Urquhart +had both heard Cheriton's description of Peter's brother's lodger. +Besides, they had seen him, and that was enough. + +It was unlike Peter to make awkward situations. He ended this one +abruptly by leaving it to itself, and walking away after his brother's +lodger. + +Vyvian greeted him huffily. It needed all Peter's feeling for a hurt man +to make him anything but distantly aloof. Cheriton's description was so +manifestly correct. The man was a cad--an oily bounder with a poisonous +mind. Peter wondered how Hilary could bear to have his help on the Gem. + +Vyvian broke out about Cheriton. + +"Did you see that grand fellow who was too proud to know me? Driven you +away too, has he? We don't know people in boarding-houses--we're in our +private flat ourselves! It makes me sick!" + +But his vulgarity when he was angry was a shade less revolting, because +more excusable, than when he wasn't. So Peter bore it, and even tried to +be comforting, and to talk about pictures. Vyvian really knew something +about art; Peter was a little surprised to find that he knew so much, +remembering certain curious blunders of his in the Gem. + +He did not talk about the Gem to Vyvian; instinctively he avoided it. +Peter had a rather useful power of barring his mind against thoughts that +he did not desire to have there; without reasoning about it, he had +placed the Gem in this category. + +He was absently watching the dim blue of the Euganean Hills against the +clearer blue of the sky when he discovered that Vyvian was talking about +Rhoda Johnson. + +"A dear little gurl, with real possibilities, if one could develop them. +I do my best. She's fond enough of me to let me mould her atrocious +taste. But what can one do to fight the lifelong influence of a home like +that--a mother like that? Oh, frightful! But she _is_ fond of me, and +there's her hope--" + +"Good-bye," said Peter. "I must go." He could not for the life of him +have said any of the other things he was thinking. He would have given +a lot to have been Cheriton for the moment, so that he wouldn't mind +being rude and violent. It was horribly feeble; all he could say was +"Good-bye." Having said it, he went abruptly. + +He sighed as he went back to Urquhart and Leslie. Things were so +difficult to manage. One left one's friends to comfort a hurt bounder; +that was all very well, but what if the bounder comforted was much more +offensive than the bounder hurt? However, it was no good reasoning about +these things. Peter knew that one had to try and cheer up the hurt, in +the face of all reason, simply because one felt so uncomfortable +oneself if one didn't. + +But it was almost worth while to have a few rather revolting people +about; they threw the others into such glorious relief. As long as there +were the nice people, who laughed at life and themselves, playing about +the world, nothing else in particular mattered. And it was really +extraordinarily good luck that Urquhart should happen to be playing about +Venice at the same time as Peter. In spite of Cheriton, they would have +a good time together. And Cheriton would perhaps become friendly in +time--dear Jim, with his queer manners. People mostly did become +friendly, in quite a short time, according to Peter's experience. + +That the time, as far as Cheriton was concerned, had not yet arrived, was +rather obvious, however. His manners to Peter on the sands were still +quite queer--so queer that Peter and Leslie only stayed a few minutes +more. Peter refused Urquhart's suggestion that they should have tea +together on the island, and they crossed over to the lagoon side and got +into their waiting gondola. + +The lagoon waters were smooth like glass, and pale, and unflushed as yet +with the coming sunset. Dark lines of stakes marked the blue ship-ways +that ran out to open sea, and down them plied the ships, spreading +painted wings to the evening breeze. + +Leslie said, "I see in the Gem that there is a good old well-head to be +had from a man on the Riva Ca' di Dio. I want well-heads, as you know. +We'll go and see, shall we?" + +The crystal peace of the lagoon was shattered for Peter. He had been +getting into a curious mood of late; he almost disliked well-heads, and +other purchasable forms of beauty. After all, when one had this limpid +loveliness of smooth water and men walking on its surface like St. Peter, +why want anything more? Because, Leslie would say, one wants to possess, +to call beauty one's own. Bother, said Peter, the vice of the age, which +was certainly acquisitiveness. He was coming to the conclusion that he +hated buying things. And it was so awkward to explain to Leslie about +Hilary and the Gem. He had spent the last few days in trying, without too +much giving Hilary away, to restrain Leslie from following his advice. He +said now, "All right; we'll go and see. But, to say the truth, I'm not +sure that Hilary is a very good authority on well-heads." He blushed a +little as he said it; it seemed to him that he had been saying that sort +of thing very often of late. Leslie was so persistent, so incorrigibly +intent on his purpose. + +Leslie looked at him now over his large cigar a little speculatively. + +"According to you," he remarked placidly after a moment, "your brother +is uncommonly little of an authority on anything he mentions. Fraternal +scepticism developed to its highest point." + +Peter nodded. "Our family way," he said; and added, "Besides, that Vyvian +man does as much of the Gem as Hilary. There's a young man, Leslie! My +word, what a dog! Talks about gurls. So I left him. I turned upon him and +said, 'Sir, this is no talk for a gentleman to listen to.' I said it +because I knew it was what he would expect. Then I turned on my heel +and left him without a word. He ground his teeth and hissed, 'A time will +come.' But Cheriton seems rather a rude man, all the same. He hurts my +feelings too, whenever I meet him. I too hiss, 'A time will come.' But +I don't believe it ever will. Do you suppose the water is shallow over +there, or that the men walking on it are doing miracles? It must be fun, +either way. Let's do it instead of buying well-heads, Leslie. The fact +is, buying so many things is rather demoralising, I think. Let's decide +to buy no more. I'm beginning to believe in the simple life, like Rodney. +Rodney hates men like you and Urquhart--rolling plutocrats. He wanted me +to leave you and the other plutocrats and be a travelling pedlar. I'm not +sure that I shan't, before long." + +"Can't spare you," Leslie grunted. + +Peter flattered himself that he had successfully turned the conversation +from well-heads. + +When, after having tea with Leslie at Florian's, he returned to the +Palazzo Amadeo, Teresina told him that someone had called to see the +Signore, and the Signore, being out, was waiting in the saloon. Peter +went to the saloon to see if he would do instead of the Signore, and +found a stout gentleman with a black moustache and up-brushed hair, +spitting on the saloon floor. A revolting habit, as Hilary was wont +wearily to remark; but Peter always accepted it with anyhow outward +equanimity. + +"My brother is unfortunately away from the house," he explained, with +his polite smile and atrocious Italian. "But perhaps I can give him a +message?" + +The visitor gave him a sharp look, bowed ceremoniously, and said, "Ah! +The Signore is the brother of Signor Margerison? Truly the brother?" + +Peter assured him, not even halving the relationship; and indeed, he +seldom did that, even in his thoughts. + +The visitor gave him a card, bearing the name of Signor Giacomo Stefani, +sat down, at Peter's request, spat between his feet, and said, "I have +had various affairs with your Signor brother before. I am come to solicit +his patronage in the matter of a pair of vases. If he would recommend +them for me in his paper, as before. They are good; they might easily be +antiques." + +"You wish my brother to mention them in his paper?" Peter gathered. He +was correct. + +"Exactly so," Signor Stefani told him. "Of course, on the same terms as +before, if the Signor would be satisfied with them." + +"Terms?" Peter repeated after him. + +Signor Stefani became more explicit. He named the terms. + +"That was what I paid Signor Margerison before, for an article on a +pseudo-Sienese chalice. But the vases are better; they are good; they +might deceive an expert. Truly, they might be antiques!" + +He continued to talk, while Peter listened. He was taking it in rather +slowly. But at last, not being stupid, he no longer thought Hilary so. He +understood. + +He stood up presently, looking a little dazed. + +"It appears," he said slowly, in his broken Italian, to Signor Stefani, +"that you are making a rather bad mistake, which is a pity. I think you +had better go home." + +Signor Stefani gave a startled upward twist to his moustache, and stood +up too. + +"Excuse me," he said rather angrily, "there is no mistake. Your brother +and I have very frequently had affairs together." + +Peter looked at him, frowning doubtfully as he collected his words. + +"I am right, I think," he said slowly, "that you are offering my brother +a bribe to publish a fraudulent article on fraudulent goods of yours? +That is so? Then, as I said, you are making a very serious mistake, +and ... and you had better go home. Will you come this way, please?" + +Signor Stefani continued to talk, but so rapidly and loudly now that +Peter couldn't follow him. He merely shook his head and opened the door, +saying, "This way, please. I can't understand you when you talk so fast." + +Signor Stefani, with a final angry shrug and expectoration, permitted +himself to be ushered out of the room. + +On the stairs outside they met Vyvian coming up, who nodded affably to +both of them. Signor Stefani, as he passed, shrugged his shoulders up to +his ears and spread his two hands wide, with a look of resigned despair +over his shoulder at Peter, and Vyvian's brows went up at the gesture. +Peter ushered his guest out at the street entrance. Signor Stefani's last +words were, "I shall return shortly and see your brother in person. I +have made a foolish mistake in thinking that you were in his confidence. +Good evening." + +So they parted, more in sorrow than in anger. + +Peter met Vyvian again on the stairs. He was passing on, but Vyvian +stopped and said, "What have you been doing to Stefani to put him out +so?" + +Peter stopped and looked at him for a moment. He felt rather dazed, as +if someone had hit him a blow on the head. He had to remember what was +this funny bounder's place in the newly-revealed scheme of things. Not +merely a funny bounder after all, it seemed, but just what Cheriton had +called him. But one couldn't let him know that one thought so; one was +ostensibly on Hilary's side, against honesty, against decency, against +all the world. + +So Peter, having located Vyvian and himself in this matter, said nothing +at all, but went on upstairs. + +Vyvian, staring after him in astonishment (none of Hilary's boarders had +seen Peter discourteous before), raised his eyebrows again, and whistled +beneath his breath. + +"So we're too fine for our brother's dirty jobs! I'm dashed if I don't +believe it's that!" + +Peter went upstairs rather too quickly for his heart. He returned to the +saloon and collapsed suddenly into a chair, feeling giddy. Mrs. Johnson +came in a moment later and found him leaning back with closed eyes. She +was disturbed about his complexion. + +"The colour of putty, poor Mr. Peter! You've bin excitin' yourself, +tearin' about sight-seein', _I_ know. Tell me now just how you feel. I'm +blest if I don't believe you've a-bin in the Cathedral, smellin' at that +there choky incense! It takes me like that, always; and Miss Gould says +she's just the same. Funny feelin's within, haven't you now?" + +"Yes," said Peter, "just exactly that"; and they so overcame him that he +began to laugh helplessly. + +"I'm sorry, Mrs. Johnson," he said presently. "I'm an ass. But I'm all +right now. I came upstairs in a hurry, that's all. And before that a man +talked so loud and so fast that it took my breath away. It may be silly, +but I _am_ like that, as Miss Barnett says. My brother and sister-in-law +are both out, aren't they?" + +Mrs. Johnson, sitting down opposite him and studying the returning tints +of his complexion, nodded. + +"That's it," she said, more cheerfully. "You're gettin' a wholesome white +again now. I didn't like that unhealthy greeny-grey. But you've none of +you any colour, you gentlemen--not you nor your brother nor that pasty +Vyvian. None of you but the little curate; he had a nice little pink +face. I'm sure I wish some gals cared more for looks, and then they +wouldn't go after some as are as well let alone." This cryptic remark was +illuminated by a sigh. Mrs. Johnson, now that she saw Peter improving in +complexion, reverted to her own troubles. + +Peter replied vaguely, "No, I suppose they wouldn't. People ought to +care for looks, of course. They matter so much more than anything else, +really." + +"Without goin' all that way with you, Mr. Peter," said Mrs. Johnson, "and +with all due respect to Great Minds (which I haven't got and never shall +have, and nor had my poor dear that's gone, so I'm sure I don't know +where Rhoder got her leanin's from), I will say I do like to see a young +man smart and well-kept. It means a respect for himself, not to mention +for those he takes out, that is a stand-by, at least for a mother. And +the young fellows affect the gals, too. Rhoder, now--she'd take some +pains with herself if she went out with a smart fellow, that was nicely +turned out himself and expected her to be the same. But as it is--hair +dragged and parted like a queer picture, and a string of green beads for +a collar, as if she was a Roman with prayers to say--and her waist, Mr. +Peter! But there, I oughtn't to talk like this to a gentleman, as Miss +Gould would say; (I do keep on shockin' Miss Gould, you know!) But I find +it hard to rec'lect that about you, Mr. Peter; you're so sympathetic, you +might be a young lady. An' I feel it's all safe with you, an' I do +believe you'd help me if you could." + +"I should be glad to," said Peter, wondering whether it was for the +improvement of Rhoda's hair, waist, or collar that his assistance might +be acceptable. + +Mrs. Johnson was looking at him very earnestly; it was obvious that +something was seriously amiss, and that she was wondering how much she +could venture to say to this sympathetic young man who might be a +young lady. She made a sudden gesture with her stout hands, as if +flinging reticence to the winds, and leant forward towards him. + +"Mr. Peter ... I don't hardly like to say it ... but could you take my +gal out sometimes? It does sound a funny thing to ask--but I can't abide +it that she should be for ever with that there Vyvian. I don't like him, +and there it is. And Rhoder does ... And he's just amusin' himself, and +I can't bear it for my little gal, that's where it is.... Mr. Peter, I +hate the fellow, though you may say I'm no Christian for it, and of +course one is bidden not to judge but to love all men. But he fair gives +me the creeps, like a toad.... Do you know that feelin'?" + +"Oh, yes," said Peter readily. "And of course, I should like immensely to +go out with Miss Rhoda sometimes, if she'll let me. But do you think she +will? I'm afraid she would be dreadfully bored with me. I haven't a Great +Mind, you know." + +"Rhoder likes you," said Mrs. Johnson, a smile of relief overspreading +her jolly face. "She was sayin' so only the other day. She has a great +respect for your knowledge of art, too. 'You wouldn't think it just to +talk with him,' she said, 'but he knows the most surprisin' things. Knows +them for himself'--that was how she put it--'without needin' to depend on +any books, or what anyone else says. I wish I was like that, mother,' she +says, and sighs. And of course, I knew why she wished that, and I said to +her, 'Rhoder, my dear, never you mind about knowin' things; gals don't +need to bother their heads about that. You look after the _outside_ of +your head,' I said, chaffing her about her hair, you know, 'and leave the +inside to look after itself.' I made her cross, of course; I'm for ever +makin' Rhoder cross without meanin' it. But that just shows what she +feels towards you, you see. And you'd talk healthy-like to her, which +is more than some does, if I know anythin'. One feels that of you, Mr. +Peter, if you'll excuse my sayin' it, that your talk is as innocent as +a baby's prattle, though it mayn't always mean much." + +"Thank you very much," said Peter. "I will certainly prattle to Miss +Rhoda whenever she will let me. I should enjoy it, of course." + +"Then that's settled." Mrs. Johnson rose, and shook out her skirts with +relief. "And a weight off my mind it will be.... You could make a third +with Rhoder and that Vyvian to-morrow afternoon, if you were so good and +not otherwise employed. They're off together somewhere, I know." + +"Making a third" was a little beyond even Peter's readiness to be +helpful, and he looked dubious. + +"I wonder if Mr. Vyvian would let me do that. You see, he doesn't much +like me. I expect I give him the creeps, like a toad...." Then, seeing +Mrs. Johnson's relieved face cloud, he added, "Oh, well, I'll ask them to +take me," and she smiled at him as at a good child. "I knew you would!" + +Hilary didn't come in to dinner. That was as well; it gave Peter more +time. Perhaps it would be easier late at night to speak of the hopeless, +weary, impossible things that had suddenly risen in the way; easier to +think of things to say about them that wouldn't too much hurt Hilary or +himself. + +At dinner Peter was very quiet and polite to everyone. Vyvian's demeanour +towards him was touched with irony; his smile was a continual reference +to the fellowship of secrecy that bound them. Rhoda was very silent; +Peter supposed that Vyvian had been snubbing her. + +Hilary came home late. Peter and Peggy and Vyvian were sitting in the +dimly-lighted saloon, and the ubiquitous Illuminato was curled up, a +sleepy ball, on the marble top of a book-case. Peggy had a habit of +leaving him lying about in convenient corners, as a little girl her doll. + +"You look tired to death, my dear," she commented, as Hilary came in. Her +kindly grey eyes turned from him to Peter, who had looked up from the +book he was reading with a nervous movement. Peter's sweet-tempered +companionableness had been oddly obscured this evening. Perhaps he too +was tired to death. And poor little Rhoda had been so unmercifully +snubbed all the evening that at last she had crept up to bed all but in +tears. Peggy felt very sorry for everyone to-night; they all seemed to +need it so much. + +Vyvian, as usual, had a headache. When Hilary came in, he rose and said +he was going upstairs to try and get some sleep--an endeavour seldom +successful in this noisy and jarring world, one gathered. Before he +embarked on it he said to Peter, squirting soda into a large tumbler +of whisky, "Stefani want anything particular to-day?" + +He had waited to say it till Hilary came in. Peter supposed that he said +it merely out of his general desire to be unpleasant, and perhaps to +revenge himself for that unanswered enquiry on the stairs. Or possibly he +merely wished to indicate to Peter how entirely he was privy to Stefani's +business with Hilary, and that it might just as well be discussed in his +presence. Or again, he might be desirous of finding out how far Peter +himself was in the know. + +Peter said, "Nothing very particular," and bent over Illuminato, that +he might not meet Hilary's eyes or Peggy's. He knew that Hilary was +violently startled, and he heard Peggy's softly let out breath, that +might have been a sigh or a gentle whistle, and that conveyed in either +case dismay touched with a laugh. + +Vyvian, who had been watching the three with a covert smile, drained his +glass and said, "Well, it's supposed to be partly my business, you know. +But since you don't think so, I'll say good-night." + +He included the three in a supercilious nod, and left the room. + +He left a queer silence behind him. When it had lasted for a moment, +Peter looked up from his inspection of Illuminato's screwed-up face, with +an effort, and met Hilary's eyes searching his own. Peggy was in the +background; later she would be a comforting, easing presence; but for the +moment the situation held only these two, and Peter's eyes pleaded to +Hilary's, "Forgive me; I am horribly sorry," and in Hilary's strained +face shame intolerably grew, so that Peter looked away from it, bending +over Illuminato in his arms. + +It was Peggy who broke the silence with a tearful laugh. + +"Oh, don't look like that, you poor darling boys! Peter, little dear +Peter ... you must try and understand! You're good at understanding, you +know. Oh, take it easy, my dear! Take it easy, and see how it's nothing +to matter, how it's all one great joke after all!" Her arm was round his +shoulders as he sat on the table's edge; she was comforting him like a +child. To her he was always about Illuminato's age, a most beloved +infant. + +Peter smiled a little at her. "Why, yes, of course it's a joke. +Everything is, isn't it. But ... but...." + +He was more than ever a child, stammering unwordable protest, blindly +reaching out for help. + +Hilary stood before him now, with his hands in his pockets, nervous, +irritable, weary, shame now masked by self-defence. That was better; but +still Peter kept his eyes for the curled-up child. + +"My dear boy," said Hilary, in his sweet, plaintive tones, edged with +irritation, "if people like to be taken in, is it my business?" + +And Peggy echoed, "Yes, Peter darling, _is_ it Hilary's business?" + +Then Peter laughed suddenly. After all, it was all too hopeless, and too +absurd, for anything else. + +"You can't go on, you know," he said then. "You've got to resign." And +Peggy looked at him in surprise, for he spoke now like a man instead of +a child, with a man's finality. He wasn't giving a command, but stating +an obvious fact. + +"Darling--we've got to live!" Peggy murmured. + +"You mayn't see the necessity," Hilary ironically put the approved answer +into Peter's mouth, "but we, unfortunately, do." + +"Oh, don't be silly," said Peter unusually. "You _are_ being silly, you +know; merely absurd. Because, of course, it's simply a question between +resigning and being chucked out before long. You can't go on with this +sort of thing indefinitely. You see," he explained, apologetic now, "it +isn't even as if you did it well. You really don't. And it's an awfully +easy thing to see through, if once anyone gets on the track. All that +rubbish you've saddled Lord Evelyn with--anyone who isn't as blind as +a bat can spot it in a minute. I did; Cheriton has (that's why he's so +queer-mannered, by the way, I suppose); probably Denis has. Well, with +everyone knowing about it like that, someone is bound before long to +ferret out the real facts. Cheriton won't be long, I fancy, before he +gets hold of it all. And then--and then it will be so frightfully +awkward. Oh, you can't go on, Hilary; you've got to drop it." + +"You're talking very lightly," said Hilary, "of throwing up one's entire +income." + +Peter sighed. "Not lightly; I'm really not. I know what a bore it will +be--but not such a bore as the other thing.... Well, then, don't throw it +up: simply chuck Stefani and the rest, and run the thing on different +lines. I'd help, if you'd let me. I'd chuck Leslie and stay on here and +write for you. I would love to. I made a start to-day, you see; I told +Stefani he was out of his reckonings, so he'll be prepared. We'll tell +all the rest the same.... I suppose Vyvian's in it, too? Can't you get +rid of the man? I do so dislike him, you know. Well, never mind; anyhow, +we'll tell him he's got to run on new lines now. Oh, we'll make a decent +thing of the Gem after all; Hilary, do let's. Peggy, don't you think that +would be jolly?" + +He looked up into his sister-in-law's face, and met smiling eyes suddenly +tear-dimmed. She smiled down at him. + +"Very jolly, you beloved child.... So you'll chuck your Mr. Leslie and +your own profession and help to run the Gem? I don't think we can let him +do that, Hilary, can we?" + +Hilary's strained face had softened and relaxed. + +"I confess," he said, "that it would be in many ways a great relief to me +to drop that side of the business, if I could see my way to it. But it +won't be easy now, Peter. It will mean a certain amount of going back on +former statements, for one thing." + +"Oh, that'll be all right. Papers are always doing that. We'll manage all +right and put a good face on it. And we'll make the thing sell--make it +funny and interesting and nice. Of course, if Leslie is willing for me to +give part of my time to it, there's no reason why I should leave him, as +long as he stays in Venice. It will be all in his interests really, +because he can get tips from the Gem. I've warned him off it lately +because I thought you were such an awful muddler, Hilary. By the way, +it's rather a relief that you aren't quite so wanting as I was beginning +to fear; seriously, I was wondering how on earth you were going to get +through this difficult world. There's no remedy for a muddler; he can't +mend." + +But a swindler can; a swindler certainly must, that was conveyed by the +appeal in Peter's tired face. So tired it was that Peggy gently took +Illuminato from his uncle's arms and said, "And now we'll all go to bed. +My beloved little brother--you're an angel in the house, and we'll all do +just as you say, if it's only to make you smile again. Won't we, Hilary?" + +She leant a soft cheek against Hilary's shoulder, smiling at Peter; but +Peter waited for Hilary's reply before he smiled back. + +Hilary's reply came after a moment. + +"Of course, if Peter can contrive a way of keeping our heads above water +without having recourse to these detestable methods, I shall be only too +relieved. I loathe having to traffic with these dirty swindlers; it's +too insufferably wearying and degrading.... By the way, Peter, what did +Stefani want to-day?" + +Peter said, "Oh, bother Stefani. I'm tired of him. Really, I can't +remember--oh, yes, it was antique vases, that might deceive an expert. +But let's stop thinking about Stefani and go to bed. I'm so awfully +sleepy; do let's go upstairs and try to get a little rest, as Vyvian +puts it." + +Peggy patted him softly on the cheek as he passed her, and her smile for +him was curiously pitiful. + +"We'll do our best to mend, my dear; we'll do our best," was what she +soothingly murmured; and then, to Illuminato, "There, my froglet; cuddle +up and sleep," and to Hilary, "You poor old dear, will we let the little +brother have his way, because he's a darling entirely, and quite +altogether in the right?" + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +THE FAT IN THE FIRE + + +Peter, self-appointed sub-editor to the Gem, was revising a dissertation +of Vyvian's on lace. It was a difficult business, this. Vyvian, in +Peter's opinion, needed so much expurgation; and yet one couldn't be +unkind. Peter wished very much that Hilary would get rid of Vyvian. +Vyvian often wrote such tosh; though he was clever, too. Came of being a +bounder, perhaps. Peter had often noticed that bounders were apt to write +tosh, even clever bounders. Such a sensitive bounder, too; that made it +extraordinarily difficult to edit him satisfactorily. Decidedly Hilary +ought to get rid of him, gently but finally. That would have the added +advantage of freeing Peter from the obligation of "making a third" with +him and Rhoda Johnson. Also, one would feel safer; one didn't really +trust Vyvian not to be doing little private deals of his own; so little, +in fact, did one trust him that the names of dealers were rigorously +taboo now on the Gem. + +Peter sighed over this rather tiresome article on lace. He wanted to be +finishing one of his own on well-heads; and then he wanted to go out with +Leslie and look for stone lions for Leslie's gate-posts; and then he and +Leslie were going to dine with Lord Evelyn Urquhart. There were a lot of +jolly things to be done, when he had finished with Vyvian's lace. + +Peter was quite enjoying life just now; it was interesting trying to set +the Gem on its legs; there were immense potentialities in the Gem now +that toshery with dealers had been put an end to. And to be allowed to +write _ad infinitum_ about well-heads or anything else was simply +splendid. + +Peter heard, with a small, abstracted part of his mind, someone talking +to Hilary in the hall. The low-toned conversation vaguely worried his +subconscious self; he wished people would converse more audibly. But +probably it was private.... Peter suddenly frowned irritably and sat +upright, biting at his pen. He was annoyed with himself. It was so +impertinent, so much the sort of thing he most disliked, to be +speculating, as he had suddenly found himself doing, on the nature of +another person's private business. Had he come to that? It must be some +emanation from that silly, syrupy article of Vyvian's; Vyvian, Peter felt +sure, would have towards a private conversation just such an attitude +that he had detected in himself. He settled himself to his job again, +and made a rather savage excision of two long sentences. + +The outer door shut. Peter heard Hilary's steps crossing the hall alone, +rather slowly, till they stopped at the door of the saloon. Hilary came +in; his head was thoughtfully bent, and he didn't at first see Peter at +the table in a corner. When he did see him, he started violently. Hilary +had such weak nerves; he was always starting for no reason. + +Peter said, "Things going on all right?" and Hilary said, "Yes, quite," +and stood silent for a moment, his mobile face flickering nervously, as +it did when he was tired or embarrassed. + +"I was looking for Peggy," he added, and went out. He had forgotten, +apparently, that Peggy had told them an hour ago that she was going +shopping and would be out all the afternoon. + +Peter sat quite still in his chair and bit his pen. From his expression, +Mrs. Johnson might have inferred that he had been in the Cathedral again, +smelling at the choky incense, and had got "funny feelin's" within. They +were like the nauseating reminiscence of an old sickness. He tried to +ignore them. He said to himself, "I'm an ass. I'm a suspicious, +low-minded ass." + +But he was somehow revolted by the thought of going on with the work for +"The Gem" just then. He was glad when Leslie called to fetch him out. + +Leslie said, "What's the matter, my son?" + +Leslie had, with all his inapprehensiveness of things, an extraordinary +amount of discernment of people; he could discern feelings that had no +existence. Or, if they had any existence in this case, they must have +been called into it by Vyvian's sugary periods. Peter conceded that to +that extent he ailed. + +"A surfeit of Vyvian. Let's come out and take the air and look for little +stone lions." + +Leslie was restful and refreshing, with his direct purposes and solid +immobility. You could be of use to Leslie, because he had a single eye; +he knew what he wanted, and requested you to obtain it for him. That +was simple; he didn't make your task impossible by suddenly deciding that +after all he didn't really want what you were getting for him. He was a +stable man, and perhaps it is only the stable who are really susceptible +of help, thought Peter vaguely. + +At seven o'clock Peter and Leslie went to the Ca' delle Gemme. They +found Cheriton there. Cheriton was talking when they arrived, in his +efficient, decisive, composed business tones. Lord Evelyn was pacing up +and down the room, his fine, ringed hands clasped behind his back. He +looked extraordinarily agitated; his delicate face was flushed crimson. +Denis was lying back in a low chair, characteristically at ease. + +When Leslie and Peter came in, Cheriton stopped speaking, and Lord Evelyn +stopped pacing, and absolute silence momentarily fell. + +Then Denis gave his pleasant, casual "Hullo." + +Cheriton's silence continued. But Lord Evelyn's did not. Lord Evelyn, +very tall and thin, and swaying to and fro on his heels, looked at Peter, +turning redder than before; and Peter turned red too, and gave a little +apprehensive, unhappy sigh, because he knew that the fat was at last in +the fire. + +There ensued an uncomfortable scene, such as may readily be imagined. + +Lord Evelyn said, and his sweet voice quavered distressingly up and down, +"I suppose it's been a good joke. But I wouldn't have thought it of you, +Peter Margerison; I wouldn't have thought it of you. Of your brother I +say nothing; it's a dishonest world, and he's like the rest, and I can't +say he ever gave me any reason to trust him, so I've myself to blame. But +you--I did trust you. I thought you were a nice boy, and cared too much +for nice things to lie about them." He broke off, and looked round the +room--at the Diana and Actaeon, at the Siena chalice, at all the monstrous +collection. They weren't nearly all monstrous, either--not even most--but +he didn't know that; they might be for all he could tell. He looked at +them all with the same bewildered, hurt, inimical eyes, and it was that +which gave Peter his deepest stab of pitiful pain. + +"You've made a fool of me between you," said Lord Evelyn, and suddenly +sat down, as if very tired. Leslie sat down too, ponderous and silent +in the shadowed background. But Peter remained standing before them all, +his head a little bent, his eyes on Denis Urquhart's profile. He was +wondering vaguely if Denis would say anything, and if so what it would +be. + +Still looking at Denis, he made foolish apologies because he was always +polite. + +"I'm frightfully sorry.... I've been frightfully sorry all along...." + +Lord Evelyn lifted a white hand, waving his absurdities contemptuously +aside. + +"All along! Oh, I see. At least you're honest now; you don't attempt to +deny that you've known all about it, then." There was perhaps a fresh +ring of bitterness in his voice, as if some last faint hope had been +killed by Peter's words. + +Cheriton, whose eyes were studying the floor, lifted them sharply for +a moment, and glanced at Denis, who was lighting a cigarette and didn't +look at him. + +"You knew that first evening, when you looked at the things," said Lord +Evelyn, half a question still in his querulous voice. "You saw through +them at once, of course. Anyone but a blind fool would have, I've no +manner of doubt. Cheriton here says he saw you see through them." + +Peter stammered over it. "I--I--knew they weren't much." + +Lord Evelyn turned to Cheriton whose face was still bent down as if he +didn't much like the scene now he had brought it about. + +"You were right, as usual, Jim. And Denis was wrong. Denis, you know," he +added to Peter, "was inclined to put your morals above your intelligence. +He said you couldn't have known. Cheriton told him he was sure you had. +It seems Cheriton was right." + +It seemed that he was. Peter imagined that Cheriton would always be +right. + +After a moment's silence Peter gathered that they were all waiting to +hear if he had anything to say about it. He hadn't much, but he might +as well say it, such as it was. + +"It won't make much difference, of course," he began, and his voice +sounded odd and small and tired in the great room, "but I think I +should like you to know that all this stopped three weeks ago. +Hilary--we--decided then to--to give it up, and run 'The Gem' on +different lines in future. We couldn't easily undo the past--but--but +there's been nothing of the sort since then, and we didn't mean there to +be again. Oh, I know that doesn't make much difference, of course...." + +The only difference that mattered was that Denis frowned. +Incidentally--only that didn't matter--Cheriton laughed curtly, and Lord +Evelyn wearily said, "Oh, stop lying, stop lying. I'm so unutterably +tired of your lies.... You think we don't know that your brother accepted +a bribe this very afternoon.... Tell him, Jim." + +So Jim told him. He told him shortly, and in plain words, and not as if +he was pleased with his triumph in skilful detection, which he no doubt +was. + +"I rather wanted to sift this business, Margerison, as I had suspected +for a good while more than I could prove. So to-day I sent a man to your +brother, commissioning him to pretend to be an art-dealer and offer a sum +of money for the insertion in 'The Gem' of an appreciative notice of some +spurious objects. As perhaps you are aware, the offer was accepted.... It +may seem to you an underhand way of getting evidence--but the case was +peculiar." + +He didn't look at Peter; his manner, though distant, was not now +unfriendly; perhaps, having gained his object and sifted the business, +there was room for compassion. It was a pity that Peter had made things +worse by that last lie, though. + +"I see," said Peter. "It's all very complete." + +And then he laughed, as he always did when disasters were so very +complete as to leave no crevice of escape to creep through. + +"You laugh," said Lord Evelyn, and rose from his chair, trembling a +little. "You laugh. It's been an admirable joke, hasn't it? And you +always had plenty of sense of humour." + +Peter didn't hear him. He wasn't laughing any more; he was looking at +Denis, who had never looked at him once, but sat smoking with averted +face. + +"Shall I go now?" said Peter. "There isn't much more to say, is there? +And what there is, perhaps you will tell us to-morrow.... It seems so +silly to say one is sorry about a thing like this--but I am, you know, +horribly. I have been all along, ever since I found out. You think +that must be a lie, because I didn't tell. But things are so mixed and +difficult--and it's not a lie." He was looking at Lord Evelyn now, at +the delicate, working face that stabbed at his pity and shame. After all, +it was Lord Evelyn, not Denis, whom they had injured and swindled and +fooled; one must remember that. To Lord Evelyn he made his further +feeble self-exculpation. "And, you know, I did really think Hilary had +dropped it weeks ago; he said he would. And that's not a lie, either." +But he believed they all thought it was, and a silly one at that. + +It was Lord Evelyn who laughed now, with his high, scornful titter. + +"You and your sorrow! I've no doubt your brother will be sorry too, when +he hears the news. I may tell you that he'll have very good reason to +be.... Yes, by all means go now--unless you'd like to stay and dine, +which I fancy would be carrying the joke too far even for you.... Will +you stay one moment, though? There's a little ceremony to be performed." + +He crossed the room, and took the Sienese chalice between his hands, +holding it gingerly for a moment as if it had been some unclean thing; +then he dashed it on to the marble floor and it lay in splinters about +his feet. He took up the pair of vases next it, one in each hand (they +happened to be of great value), and threw them too among the splinters; +he had cleared the shelf of all its brittle objects before Leslie, who +had sat motionless in the background until now, rose and laid a heavy +hand on his arm. + +"My dear sir," said Leslie tranquilly, "don't be melodramatic. And don't +give the servants so much trouble and possible injury when they do the +room to-morrow. If you want to part with your goods, may I ask to be +allowed to inspect them with a view to purchase? Some of them, as you +are no doubt aware, are of considerable intrinsic value, and I should be +happy to be allowed to buy." + +Lord Evelyn looked at the man of commerce with distant contempt. + +"As you please, sir. I've no doubt that Mr. Peter Margerison will be +equally happy to give you his valuable advice in the business. He is your +counsellor in these matters, isn't he. An excellent adviser, of sound +judgment and most disinterested honesty!" + +He bowed to Peter, who took it as a dismissal, and said "Good night." + +Denis, at the opposite side of the room, nodded in his casual way, +neither hostile nor friendly, but gentle and indifferent. You couldn't +make Denis seem angry, or hurt, or agitated in any way whatever. He had +always the air of reserving his opinion; and he extremely disliked +scenes. To be present at this one must have been painful to him. Peter, +who knew him so well, knew that. He liked things to go easily and +smoothly always. He had winced at the crash of glass on marble; it seemed +to him in such bad taste. This, no doubt, was his attitude towards the +whole business; towards the Magerisons' behaviour, Cheriton's exposure +of it, and this final naked, shameful scene of accusation and confession. + +Peter was realising this as he put on his coat in the hall, when the door +he had shut behind him was opened, and steps followed him. He started and +faced round, a hope leaping in his face. The swift dying of it left him +rather pale. + +Leslie said, "I'm coming too." + +It was good of Leslie, thought Peter dully, and not caring in the least. +He said, "No, stay and dine. Really, I'd like you to.... We'll talk +to-morrow." + +Leslie put on his overcoat and said to the footman, "Call a gondola," +and the footman stood on the steps and cried "_Poppe_" till a _poppe_ +came; then they swung away down a rose-flushed water-street with the +after-glow in their eyes. + +Leslie was restful; he didn't bother one. He merely said, "We'll dine +to-night at Luigi's." + +It was not until they had done so, and were having coffee outside, that +Peter said, "We'll have to leave Venice, of course, directly we can." + +"You too?" said Leslie. "You go with them?" + +"I go with them," said Peter. "Well, I can't well stay here, can I. And +we may as well stick together--a family party..... You see, I haven't a +notion what Hilary will do to live now. I can go into business of sorts. +Hilary can't; he'd hate it so. Hilary's not business-like, you know. Nor +is Peggy. I couldn't trust them by themselves; they'd tumble into +something and get broken. They need my common sense to sustain them." + +Leslie said, "What's the matter with your own line of life, that you want +to chuck it?" + +Peter looked at him in surprise. + +"It's chucked me," he said. "Violently--with a smash. You don't suppose +anyone will hire me again to buy their things for them? There'll be +something of a crab on the Margerison family in future. It's going to +be made very public, you know, this business; I gathered that. We shall +be--rather notorious, in a very few days." + +Leslie said, after a moment, "I've hired you to buy my things for me. Are +you going to chuck me?" + +And Peter, leaning his forehead on his hand as if tired, returned +beneath his breath, "Don't be good to me, please, just now. And you +must see I've got to chuck it all--all that side of things. We must do +something quite new, Hilary and I. We--we've spoiled this." + +After a pause, Leslie said gently, afraid of blundering, "You stick +together, you and your brother? You go through it together--all the way?" + +Peter answered hopelessly, "All the way. We're in it together, and we +must get out together, as best we can," and Leslie accepted that, and +asked no further question. + + + + +CHAPTER X + +THE LOSS OF A PROFESSION + + +Peter went back to the Palazzo Amadeo and said to Hilary, who was writing +an article for "The Gem" in the saloon, "I wouldn't go on with that, +Hilary. It's no use." + +The flatness of his voice, the pallor of his face, startled Hilary and +Peggy. + +Peggy said, "You're tired to death, child. Take the big chair." + +Hilary said, "How do you mean, no use?" + +And Peter told him. While he did so, he stood at the window, looking down +at the canal between the green shutters that swung ajar, and did not look +at Hilary's face. + +It was an impossible position for Hilary, so utterly impossible that it +was no use trying to make the best of it; one could only look away, and +get through it quickly. + +Peter didn't say much. He only said, "We've been found out. That man who +came to you this afternoon was a spy sent by Cheriton. He reported the +result of his interview with you, and Lord Evelyn knows all about +everything. Cheriton suspected from the first, you see.... From what Lord +Evelyn said, I gather he means to prosecute.... He is ... very angry +indeed.... They all are...." + +On the last statement Peter's voice sank a little in pitch, so that they +hardly heard it. But the last statement mattered to no one but Peter. + +Hilary had got up sharply at the first words, and stood very still to +listen, letting out one long breath of weary despair. Peggy came and +stood close to him, and took one slim white hand in her large kind ones, +and gently held it. The fat was indeed in the fire. Poor old Hilary! How +he would feel it! Peggy divined that what stung Hilary most deeply at the +moment was Peter's discovery of his faithlessness. + +It was of that that his first shamed, incoherent words were. + +"What was I to do? How could I break abruptly with the old methods, as +you suggested? It had to come gradually. You know nothing of business, +Peter--nothing." His voice ran up the scale of protesting self-defence. + +"Nothing," Peter admitted drearily. Hilary's shame before him could +hardly now add to the badness of the situation, as it had once done; the +badness of situations has a limit, and this one had reached its limit +some three hours since, just before he had laughed in Lord Evelyn's +drawing-room. + +"Oh," said Peter, very tired suddenly, "never mind me; what does that +matter? The point is ... well, you see the point, naturally." + +Yes, Hilary saw the point. With a faint groan he ran his fingers through +his hair and began to pace up and down the room in agitation. + +He said, "That brute Cheriton.... An execrable bounder; I always knew it. +What _right_ had he?... It's too horrible, too abominable.... Just when +we were doing our best to get the thing onto straight lines...." He +wheeled about and paced back again, with quick, uneven steps. Between him +and the motionless Peter, Peggy stood, looking from one to the other. Her +merry eyes were quite grave now. The situation was certainly appalling. + +"We must leave Venice," said Peggy, on a sigh. That seemed, certainly, +the only thing to be done. + +Hilary groaned again. + +"Oh, Lord, what are we let in for? What will be the result, if he +prosecutes? It may be utter ruin.... I know nothing of these things. +Of course, in justice nothing could be done to us--for, after all, what +harm have we done? Anyone may insert advertisements for pay, and it only +amounted to that.... But justice isn't taken into much account in the +law-courts.... It is a horrible, cast-iron system--the relic of a +barbarous age.... I don't know what we mayn't be in for, or how we +shall come out of it. You don't know either, Peter; you know nothing +of law--nothing. It mustn't come into court; that is unthinkable. We will +make full apologies--any restitution within our power that Lord Evelyn +demands.... I shall go there; I shall see him about it, and appeal to his +better feelings. He has been a friend of mine. He has always been good to +you, Peter. The memory of your mother.... Appeal to that. You must go to +him and see what can be done. Yes, it had better be you; he has a kinder +feeling for you, I believe, than for me." + +"He has no kind feeling for me," said Peter dully. "He is more annoyed +with me than with you." + +Hilary jerked his head impatiently. + +"Nonsense. You want to shirk; you want to leave me to get out of the mess +for myself. Oh, of course, you're not legally involved; I am aware of +that; you can leave the sinking ship if you choose, and save yourself." + +Peggy said, "Don't be ridiculous, darling. Peter's doing his best for us, +as he always has," and came and stood at her brother-in-law's side, kind +and big and comforting, with a hand on his arm. + +Hilary went on querulously, "I'm asking Peter to do a simple thing--to +use his friendship with the Urquharts to help me out of this mess. If you +don't want to see Lord Evelyn, Peter, you can go to Denis. He's a friend +of yours; he's--he's your kind of step-brother. You can easily persuade +him to get the thing hushed up. You've always pretended that he was a +friend of yours. Go and see him, then, for heaven's sake, and help us all +out of this miserable predicament." + +Peter was still silent, staring down at the dark ribbon of shining water +that lapped against two old brick walls, a shut lane full of stars. + +Peggy, her hand on his arm, said gently, "Oh, Peter'll do his best for +us, of course he will, won't you, Peter." + +Peter sighed very faintly into the dark night. + +"I will do anything I can, naturally. It won't be much, you know." + +"You will go to the Urquharts to-morrow morning, and appeal to them?" +said Hilary. + +"Yes," said Peter. "I will do that." + +Hilary breathed a sigh of relief, and flung himself into a chair. + +"Thanks, Peter. I believe that is the best we can do. You will +persuade them at least to be just, not to push the matter to unfair +extremes.... _Oh, my God, what a life!_" His beautiful, unhappy face +was hidden in his hands; he shuddered from head to foot, feeling horribly +sick. The Margerison organism was sensitive. + +Peggy, bending over him, drew caressing fingers through his dark hair and +said, "Go to bed, you poor old dear, and don't worry any more to-night. +Worry won't help now, will it?" + +"Bed?" said Hilary. "Bed? What's the use of that? I shouldn't sleep a +wink. I have a frightful head, and I must go and find Vyvian and tell +him." + +Peggy sniffed. "Much Vyvian'll care! He's been in bad odour all his life, +I should fancy. One more row won't bother _him_ much. I wish it would; it +would be almost worth while to be upset if Guy Vyvian was going to be +upset too--the waster. Well, I wonder anyhow will this show that silly +little Rhoda what sort of a creature she's been making a golden calf +of.... Well, go and wake Vyvian, then, darling, and then come and tell me +what he said to it. Peter, you're dropping to sleep as you stand." + +Peter went to bed. There didn't seem to be anything to stay up for, and +bed is a comforting friend on these occasions. Hilary had a perverse +tendency to sit up all night when the worst had happened and he had a +frightful head; Peter's way with life was more amenable; he always took +what comfort was offered him. Bed is a good place; it folds protecting, +consoling arms about you, and gives at best oblivion, at worst a blessed +immunity from action. + +In the morning, about eleven o'clock, Peter went to the Ca' delle Gemme. +That had to be done, so it was no use delaying. He asked for Lord Evelyn +Urquhart, and supposed that the servant who showed him in was astonished +at his impudence. However, he was permitted to wait in the reception-room +while the servant went to acquaint Lord Evelyn with his presence. He +waited some time, standing in the middle of the big room, looking at some +splinters of glass and china which had been left on the marble floor, +forming on his tongue what he was going to say. He could form nothing +that was easy to say; honestly he didn't know whether, when the door +should open and that tall, elegant, fastidious figure should walk in, he +would find himself able to say anything at all. He feared he might only +grow hot, and stammer, and slink out. But he pulled himself together; he +must do his best; it was quite necessary. He would try to say, "Lord +Evelyn, I know it is abominably impertinent of me to come into your house +like this. Will you forgive me this once? I have come to ask you, is +there any consideration whatever, any sort of reparation my brother and +I can make, which will be of any use as amends for what we did? If so, of +course we should be grateful for the chance...." + +That was what he would try to say. And what he would mean was: "Will you +let Hilary off? Will you let him just go away into obscurity, without +further disgrace? Isn't he disgraced enough already? Because you are +kind, and because you have been fond of me, and because I ask you, will +you do this much?" + +And what the answer would be, Peter had not the faintest idea. To him +personally the answer was indifferent. From his point of view, the worst +had already happened, and no further disgrace could affect him much. But +Hilary desperately cared, so he must do his best; he must walk into the +fire and wrest out of it what he could. + +And at last the door opened, and Denis Urquhart came in. + +He was just as usual, leisurely and fair and tranquil, only usually he +smiled at Peter, and to-day he did not smile. One might have fancied +under his tranquillity a restrained nervousness. He did not shake +hands; but then Peter and he never did shake hands when they met. + +He said, "Sit down, won't you. My uncle isn't available just now, so +I have come instead.... You have something to say to him, haven't you?" + +He sat down himself, and waited, looking at the splinters of glass on the +floor. + +Peter stood, and his breath came shortly. Yes, he had something to say to +Lord Evelyn, but nothing to Lord Evelyn's nephew. He grew hot and cold, +and stammered something, he did not know what. + +"Yes?" said Denis, in his soft, casual voice, politely expectant. + +Peter, who did not, after all, lack a certain desperate courage, walked +into the fire, with braced will. It was bad that Denis should be brought +into the business; but it had to be gone through, all the same. + +"I only wanted to know ... to know ... what Lord Evelyn is going to do +about this matter." He jerked out the words like stones from a catapult. + +Denis was silent for a moment. He disliked being dragged into this +revolting affair; but he had had to come and see Peter, since his uncle +refused and he could not let Peter go unseen away. He didn't want to see +him ever again, since he had behaved as he had behaved, but neither did +he want to violate the laws of courtesy and hospitality. + +"I don't quite know," he said, after a moment. + +"Is he ... does he intend to prosecute?" Peter asked, blushing. + +Denis answered to that at once: "I shall certainly do my best to prevent +anything of the sort. I don't think he will. At present he is still very +angry; but I think when he cools down he will see reason. To prosecute +would be to make himself absurd; he will see that, no doubt. He values +his reputation as an art connoisseur, you see." At the faint, cool irony +in the words, Peter winced. + +"Of course," went on Denis, lighting a cigarette, "your brother will +leave Venice at once, I suppose?" He passed Peter his cigarette box; +Peter refused it. + +"Naturally. We mean to leave as soon as we can.... Thank you, that is all +I had to say.... Good-bye." + +Denis got up, and Peter saw relief through the mask of politeness. + +"Good-bye.... I needn't say how sorry I am about all this. It was hard +lines on you being brought into it." + +He was making a transparent effort after friendliness; Peter almost +smiled at it. Poor Denis; what a relief it would be to him when the +disreputable Margerisons were off the scenes. + +Peter paused at the door and said, in a low, embarrassed voice, "Would +you mind telling Lord Evelyn what I told him myself last night--that +I'm horribly sorry about it--sorrier than I have ever been for +anything.... It won't make any difference to him, I know--but if you will +just tell him.... And I'm sorry it happened while you were here, too. +You've been dragged in.... Good-bye." + +"Good-bye, Margerison." Denis was grave, embarrassed, restrained, and not +unkind. It was obvious that he had nothing to say about it all. + +Peter left the Ca' delle Gemme. + +That afternoon Hilary received a note from Lord Evelyn. It was to the +effect that Lord Evelyn had decided not to bring an action, on the +understanding that Hilary and his brother and Vyvian left Venice at once +and discontinued for ever the profession of artistic advisers. If any of +the three was discovered engaging again in that business, those who +employed them should promptly be advised of their antecedents. They were, +in fact, to consider themselves warned off the turf. There was also to be +a paragraph about them in the English art papers. + +"Well," was Peggy's comment, "it hasn't been such a grand trade that we +need mind much. We'll all come back to England and keep a boarding-house +there instead, and you shall paint the great pictures, darling, and have +ever so much more fun. And we'll never need to see that Vyvian again; +there's fine news for the babies, anyhow. And I will be relieved to get +them away from the canals; one of them would have been surely drowned +before long. In London they'll have only gutters." + +Hilary, who was looking tired and limp after a distressing night and day, +said, "What shall you do, Peter?" + +"I don't know," said Peter. "I must find something, I suppose. Some sort +of work, you know." He pronounced the word gingerly, distastefully, as +if it were a curious, unwonted one. "Perhaps I shall be able to get a +post as door-keeper somewhere; in some museum, you know, or perhaps a +theatre, or the White City. I've always thought that might be amusing." + +"You wouldn't earn much that way," Hilary said hopelessly. + +"Need one earn much?" Peter wondered; then remembered how exceedingly +little Hilary would be earning, and that perhaps one need, because of the +babies. + +"Or perhaps I can get taken on as a clerk in some business," he amended. +"Or in a bank; only I don't believe my sums or manners are good enough +for a bank, really.... Oh, well, I must see what I can squeeze into. +Perhaps Leslie can think of something. And perhaps the Robinsons will +interest themselves in me, though they'll be even more disgusted at our +downfall than they were when I took up my profession, and they thought +that perfectly idiotic. They always do think we're perfectly idiotic, and +now they'll know we're something worse. But they may help me to a job, if +I bother them enough.... Anyhow, I'll be one of your boarders, if I may." + +"You darling," said Peggy, beaming at him. "It'll give the house quite a +different feeling if you're in it. And how delighted the babies will be. +I believe we're going to have the fine time, after all, in spite of +this bothersome business. Hurrah for London and no mosquitoes! And we'll +be quite near a Catholic church, the way the children'll be able to run +in and out as they do here, and not pick up heathen customs. Why, Hilary, +I'm really pleased!" + +Peggy was splendid. She was nearly always really pleased. + +They started for England a week later. In the course of that week two +things happened. One was that Leslie gave Peter the Berovieri goblet for +his own. + +"You've got to take it," he said. "If you don't, I shall give it back to +the prince. I've no right to it; I can't appreciate it properly. Since I +first saw you look at the thing I knew it was really yours. Take it and +keep it. You won't let me do anything else for you, but you shall let me +do that." + +Peter looked at it with wistful love. His fingers lingered about its +exquisiteness. + +"It will break," he said. "My things do break. Break and get lost, and go +with the dust. Or thieves will break in and steal it. I shan't be able to +keep it, I know; I'm such a bad hand at keeping things." + +"Well, well, have a try," said Leslie. So Peter took it and was glad. It +was his one link with the world of exquisiteness and new-burnished joys +out of which he was being thrust; he would keep it if he could. + +Leslie also said that he could get him a place in a business, if he +really wanted one. + +"I shall be extremely little use," said Peter. + +"Extremely little," Leslie agreed. "You'd much better not try. But if you +must you must." + +"I'm afraid I must," said Peter. + +So Leslie wrote letters about him, and secured him a humble post in a +warehouse. Leslie was not going to return to England at present. He was +going a tour round the world. Since Peter refused to accompany him, he +went alone. + +"There's no one else I can fancy hanging round me day and night," he +said. "I wanted you, Margery"--the nickname fell from him with a clumsy +pathos--"but if you won't you won't. I shall acquire an abominable +collection of objects without you to guide me; but that can't be helped." + +The other thing that happened was that Mrs. Johnson fell suddenly ill and +died. Before she died, she talked to Peter about Rhoda. + +"It's leaving of her as I can't bear," she whispered. "All alone and +unprotected like. I can't leave her by herself in this heathen country. +I want to get her back to England. But she's got no relatives there as'll +do for her; none, you know, as I should care to trust her to, or as 'ud +be really good to her. And I'm afraid of what'll come to the child +without me; I'm _afraid_, Mr. Peter. That man--it gives me the creeps +of nights to think of him comin' after Rhoder when I'm gone. I'm just +frightened as he'll get her; you know what Rhoder is, like a soft wax +candle that gets droopy and gives before his bold look; he can do +anythin' with her. And if he gets her, he won't be good to her, I know +that. He'll just break her and toss her away, my little gal. Oh, what +can I do, Mr. Peter, to save that?" + +She was in great pain; drops of sweat kept gathering on her forehead and +rolling on to the pillow. Peter took her hand that picked at the blanket. + +"May we try to take care of her?" he gently asked. "If she will come +and stay with us, in London, it would be better than being alone among +strangers, wouldn't it? She could get work near, and live with us. Peggy +is fond of her, you know; we all are. We would try to make her as happy +as we could." + +She smiled at him, between laboured breaths. + +"God bless you, dear Mr. Peter. I somehow thought as how you'd be good +to my little gal.... You are so sympathetic to everyone always.... Yes, +Rhoder shall do that; I'll have her promise. And that man--you'll keep +him off of her?" + +"I will try," said Peter. "I will do my very best." + +"Oh, Lord, oh, dear Lord," said Mrs. Johnson, "the pain!" + +But it didn't last long, for she died that night. + +And four days later the boarding-house was broken up, and the Margerison +family and Rhoda Johnson left Italy together. + +Rhoda was very quiet and still and white. She was terribly alone, for her +mother was gone, and the man she loved was gone, hurriedly, without a +word to her. There remained the Margerisons; Peter, with his friendly +smile and gentle companionableness; Hilary, worried and weary and hardly +noticing her unobtrusive presence; Silvio, Caterina, and Illuminato +sucking gingerbread and tumbling off the rack, and Peggy, on whose broad +shoulder Rhoda suddenly laid her head and wept, all through the Mont +Cenis tunnel. + + + + +CHAPTER XI + +THE LOSS OF AN IDEA + + +Peter's room was the smallest and highest in the boarding-house. It was +extremely small and high, and just above the bed was a ceiling that got +hot through and through like a warming-pan, so that the room in summer +was like a little oven below. What air there was came in came through a +small skylight above the wash-stand; through this also came the rain when +it rained; the dirtiest rain Peter had ever seen. + +It was not raining this morning, when Peter, after passing a very warm +night, heard the bells beginning. A great many bells begin on Sunday +mornings in this part of London, no doubt in any part of London, but +here they seem particularly loud. The boarding-house was in a small +street close to a large English church and a small Roman church; and the +English church had its first Mass at seven, and the Roman church at six, +and each had another an hour later, and bells rang for all. So Peter lay +and listened. + +Sometimes he went with Hilary and Peggy to the Roman Mass. That pleased +Peggy, who had hopes of some day converting him. And occasionally he went +alone to the English Mass, and he liked that better, on the whole, +because the little Roman church was rather ugly. Peter didn't think he +would ever join the Roman church, even to please Peggy. It certainly +seemed to him in some ways the most finely expressive of the churches; +but equally certainly it often expressed the wrong things, and (like +all other churches) left whole worlds unexpressed. And so much of its +expression had a crudity.... It kept saying too little and too much, +and jarring. + +Anyhow, this morning Peter, who had a headache after his warm night, +lay and heard the bells and thought what a nice day Sunday was, with +no office to go to. Instead, he would take Rhoda on the river in the +morning, and go and see Lucy in the afternoon, and probably have tea +there. When Peter went to see Lucy he always had a faint hope that +Urquhart would perhaps walk in, and that they would all be friendly +and happy together in the old way, for one afternoon. It hadn't happened +yet. Peter hadn't seen Urquhart since they had left Venice, two months +ago. Sunday was his day for going to see Lucy, and it wasn't Urquhart's +day, perhaps because Urquhart was so often away for week-ends; though +last Sunday, indeed, he had just left the Hopes' house when Peter +arrived. + +Lucy, when Peter had told her his tale of dishonour two months ago, had +said, half laughing at him, "How _stupid_ of all of you!" She hadn't +realised quite how much it mattered. Lucy judged everything by a queer, +withdrawn standard of her own. + +Peter had agreed that it had been exceedingly stupid of all of them. +Once, since then, when he heard that Urquhart had returned and had seen +Lucy, he had asked her, "Does he dislike us all very much? Is he quite +too disgusted to want to see me again?" + +Lucy had wrinkled her forehead over it. + +"He's not angry," she had said. "You can fancy, can't you? +Merely--merely ..." + +"Detached," said Peter, who had more words, and always expressed what +Lucy meant; and she nodded. "Just that, you know." She had looked at him +wistfully, hoping he wasn't minding too horribly much. + +"It's _stupid_ of him," she had said, using her favourite adjective, and +had added, dubiously, "Come and meet him sometime. You can't go on like +this; it's too silly." + +Peter had shaken his head. "I won't till he wants to. I don't want to +bother him, you see." + +"He does want to," Lucy had told him. "Of course he does. Only he thinks +_you_ don't. That's what's so silly." + +They had left it there for the present. Some day Peter meant to walk into +Denis's rooms and say, "Don't be stupid. This can't go on." But the day +hadn't come yet. If it had been Denis who had done the shady thing and +was in penury and dishonour thereby, it would have been so simple. But +that was inconceivable; such things didn't happen to Denis; and as it was +it was not simple. + +Peter got out of his hot bed on to his hot floor, and made for the +bathroom. There was only one bathroom in the boarding-house, but there +was no great competition for it, so Peter had his bath in peace, and +sang a tune in it as was his custom, and came back to his hot room and +put on his hot clothes (his less tidy clothes, because it was the day of +joy), and came down to breakfast at 9:25. + +Most of the other boarders had got there before him. It was a mixed +boarding-house, and contained at the moment two gentlemen besides Hilary +and Peter, and five ladies besides Peggy and Rhoda. They were on +the whole a happy and even gay society, and particularly on Sundays. + +Peggy, looking up from the tea-cups, gave Peter a broad smile, and Rhoda +gave him a little subdued one, and Peter looked pleased to see everyone; +he always did, even on Mondays. + +"I'm sure your brother hasn't a care in the world," an envious lady +boarder had once said to Peggy; "he's always so happy-looking." + +This was the lady who was saying, as Peter entered, "And my mother's last +words were, 'Find Elizabeth Dean's grave.' Elizabeth Dean was an author, +you know--oh, very well known, I believe. She treated my mother and me +none too well; didn't stand by us when she should have--but we won't say +anything about that now. Anyhow, it was a costly funeral--forty pounds +and eight horses--and my mother hadn't an idea where she was laid. So she +said, 'Find Elizabeth Dean's grave,' just like that. And the strange +thing was that in the first churchyard I walked into, in a little village +down in Sussex, there was a tombstone, 'Elizabeth Dean, 65. The Lord gave +and the Lord hath taken away.' Wasn't that queer, now? So I went straight +and...." + +"The woman's a fool," muttered the gentleman next Peter, a cynical-faced +commercial traveller. Peter had heard the remark from him frequently +before, and did not feel called upon to reply to it. + +But the tale of Elizabeth Dean was interrupted by a lady of a speculative +habit of mind. + +"Now I want to ask you all, _should_ one put up a tombstone to the +departed? I've been having quite a kick-up with my sisters about it +lately. Hadn't one better spend the money on the living? What do _you_ +think, Miss Matthews?" + +Miss Matthews said she liked to see a handsome headstone. + +"After all, one honours them that way. It's all one can do for them, +isn't it." + +"Oh, Miss Matthews, _all_?" Several ladies were shocked. "What about +one's prayers for the dead?" + +"I don't pray for the dead," said Miss Matthews, who was a protestant, +and did not attend the large church in the next street. "I do not belong +to the Romish religion. I'm not saying anything against those who do, but +I consider that those who do _not_ should confine their prayers to those +who may require them in this troubled world, and not waste them upon +those whose fate we have every reason to believe is settled once and for +all." + +The lady who always quarrelled with her on this subject rose to +the occasion. Peggy, soothing them down, said mechanically, "There +now.... Three lumps, Peter?... Micky, one doesn't suck napkin rings; +naughty." + +Peter was appealed to by his neighbour, who knew that he occasionally +attended St. Austin's church. People were always drawing him into +theological discussions, which he knew nothing at all about. + +"Mr. Peter, isn't that against all reason, to stop praying for our +friends merely because they've passed through the veil?" + +"Yes," Peter agreed. "I should have thought so." But all he really +thought was that beyond the veil was such darkness that he never looked +into it, and that it was a pity people should argue on a holiday. + +"Now," said someone else, wishing to be a peace-maker, "I'm afraid you'll +all say I'm very naughty, but _I_ attend the early Mass at St. Austin's, +high Mass at the Roman church"--she nodded at Peggy--"and the City Temple +in the evening"--she smiled at the commercial traveller, who was believed +to be a New Theologian. "Aren't I naughty, now?" + +Mademoiselle, the French governess, came down at this point, saying she +had had a dream about a hat with pink roses. The peace-making lady said, +"Bad little thing, she's quite frisky this morning." Hilary, to whom +Mademoiselle was the last straw, left the room. + +Rhoda followed his example. She had sat very silent, as usual, over +breakfast, eating little. Peter came out with her, and followed her into +the sitting-room, where she stood listlessly playing with the tassel of +the blind. Rhoda was thinner than ever, and floppier, and took even less +pains to be neat. She had left off her beads, but had not replaced them +by a collar. + +Peter said, "Are you coming out with me this morning?" + +She replied, listless and uncaring, "If you like." + +"We might go," said Peter, "and see if the New English Art Club is open +on Sunday mornings. And then we'll go on the river. Shall we?" + +She assented again. "Very well." + +A moment later she sighed, and said wearily, "How it does go on, day +after day, doesn't it!" + +Peter said it did. + +"On and on," said Rhoda. "Same stupid people saying the same stupid old +things. I do wonder they don't get tired. They don't _know_ anything, do +they?" + +Rhoda's hankering was still after Great Minds. + +"They're funny sometimes," suggested Peter tentatively; but she was blind +to that. + +"They don't know a thing. And they talk and talk, so stupidly. About +religion--as if one religion was different from another. And about dead +people, as if they knew all about them and what they were doing. They +seem to make sure souls go on--Miss Matthews and Miss Baker were both +sure of that. But how can they tell? Some people that know lots more +than them don't think so, but say ... say it's nothingness." + +Peter recognised Guy Vyvian's word. Rhoda would have said "nothing to +follow." + +"People say," he agreed, "quite different things, and none of them know +anything about it, of course. One needn't worry, though." + +"_You_ never worry," she accused him, half fretfully. "But," she added, +"you don't preach, either. You don't say things are so when you can't +know.... Do you _think_ anything about that, Peter--about going on? I +don't believe you do." + +Peter reflected. "No," he said. "I don't believe I do. I can't look +beyond what I can see and touch; I don't try. I expect I'm a materialist. +The colours and shapes of things matter so awfully much; I can't imagine +anything of them going on when those are dead. I rather wish I could. +Some people that know lots more than me do, and I think it's splendid +of them and for them. They're very likely right, too, you know." + +Rhoda shook her head. "_I_ believe it's nothingness." + +Peter felt it a dreary subject, and changed it. + +"Well, let's come and look at pictures. And I can't imagine nothingness, +can you? We might have lunch out somewhere, if you don't mind." + +So they went out and looked at pictures, and went up the river in a +steamer, and had lunch out somewhere, and Rhoda grew very gentle and more +cheerful, and said, "I didn't mean to be cross to _you_, Peter. You're +ever so good to me," and winked away tears, and the gentle Peter, who +hated no one, wished that some catastrophe would wipe Guy Vyvian off the +face of the earth and choke his memory with dust. Whenever one thought +Rhoda was getting rather better, the image of Vyvian, who knew such a lot +more than most people, came up between her and the world she ought to +have been enjoying, and she had a relapse. + +Peter and Rhoda came home together, and Rhoda said, "Thank you ever so +much for taking me. I've liked it ever so," and went up to her room to +read poetry. Rhoda read a good deal of the work of our lesser +contemporary poets; Vyvian had instilled that taste into her. + +Peter, about tea-time, went to see Lucy. He went by the Piccadilly tube, +from Holborn to South Kensington--(he was being recklessly extravagant +to-day, but it was a holiday after all, and very hot). + +Peter climbed the stairs to the Hopes' drawing-room and opened the door, +and what he had often dreamed of had come about, for Denis was there, +only in a strange, undreamed-of way that made him giddy, so he stood +quite still for a moment and looked. + +He would have turned away and gone before they saw him; but they had seen +him, and Lucy said, "Oh, Peter--come in," and Denis said, "Oh ... hullo," +and held out his hand. + +Peter, who was dizzily readjusting certain rather deeply-rooted ideas, +said, "How do you do? I've come ... I've come to tea, you know." + +"'Course you have," said Lucy. Then she looked up into Peter's face and +smiled, and slipped her hand into his. "How nice; we're three again." + +"Yes," said Peter. + +"But I must go," said Urquhart. "I'm awfully sorry, but I've got to meet +a man.... I shall see you some time, shan't I, Margery? Why don't you +ever come and see me, you slacker? Well, good-bye. Good-bye, Lucy. Lunch +to-morrow; don't forget." + +He was gone. + +Peter sat on the coal-scuttle, and Lucy gave him tea, with three lumps in +it. + +"Thank you," said Peter. + +Lucy looked at him. "You _did_ know, didn't you? All this time, I mean? +I didn't tell you, because I never tell you things, of course. You always +know them. And this particularly. You _did_ know it, Peter? But when you +came in you looked ... you looked as if you didn't." + +"I was stupid," said Peter. "I ought to have known." + +Looking back, he saw that he certainly ought. He certainly must have, +only that his vision had been blocked by a certain deeply-rooted idea, +that was as old as his growth. He had assumed, without words. He had +thought that she too had assumed; neither had ever required words to +elucidate their ideas one to the other; they had kept words for the other +things, the jolly, delightful things of the foreground. + +"How long?" asked Peter, drinking his tea to warm him, for, though it was +so hot outside, he felt very cold in here. + +She told him. "Oh, since the beginning, I think. I thought you knew, +Peter.... We didn't say anything about it till quite lately. Only we both +knew." + +She came and sat on the rug by his side, and slipped her hand into his. +"Are you glad, Peter? Please, Peter, be glad." + +"I will presently," said Peter, with one of his fainter smiles. "Let me +just get used to it, and I will." + +She whispered, stroking his hand, "We've always had such fun, Peter, we +three. Haven't we? Let's go on having it." + +"Yes," said Peter. "Let's." + +He was vague still, and a little dizzy, but he could smile at her now. +After all, wasn't it splendid? Denis and Lucy--the two people he loved +best in the world; so immeasurably best that beside them everyone else +was no class at all. + +He sat very still on the coal-scuttle, making a fresh discovery about +himself. He had known before that he had a selfish disposition, though he +had never thought about it particularly; but he hadn't known that it was +in him to grudge Denis anything--Denis, who was consciously more to him +than anyone else in the world. Lucy was different; she was rooted in the +very fibre of his being; it wasn't so much that he consciously loved her +as that she was his other self. Well, hadn't he long since given to +Denis, to use as he would, all the self he had? + +But the wrench made him wince, and left him chilly and grown old. + +"It's perfectly splendid for both of you," said Peter, himself again +at last. "And it was extraordinarily stupid of me not to see it +before.... Do you think Denis really meant I could go and see him? +I think I will." + +"'Course he did. 'Course you will. Go to-morrow. But now it's going to +be just you and me and tea. And honey sandwiches--oh, Peter!" Her eyes +danced at him, because it was such a nice world. He came off the +coal-scuttle and made himself comfortable in a low chair near the +honey sandwiches. + +"Will you and Denis try always to have them when I come to tea with you? +I do love them so. Have you arranged when it is to be, by the way?" + +"No. Father won't want it to be for ages--he won't like it to be at all, +of course, because Denis isn't poor or miserable or revolutionary. But +Felicity has done so nicely for him in that way (Lawrence is getting into +horrid rows in Poland, you know) that I think I've a _right_ to someone +happy and clean, don't you?... And Denis wants it to be soon. So I +suppose it will be soon." + +"Sure to be," Peter agreed. + +The room was full of roses; their sweetness was exuberant, intoxicating; +not like Lucy, who usually had small, pale, faint flowers. + +"Isn't it funny," she said, "how one thinks one can't be any happier, and +then suddenly something happens inside one, and one sees everything new. +I used to think things couldn't be brighter and shine more--but now they +glitter like the sun, all new." + +"I expect so," said Peter. + +Then she had a little stab of remorse; for Peter had been turned out of +the place of glittering things, and moved in a grey and dusty world among +things no one could like. + +"'Tis so _stupid_ that your work is like that," she said, with puckered +forehead. "I wish you could find something nice to do, Peter dear." + +"Oh, I'm all right," said Peter. "And there are all the nice things which +aren't work, just the same. Rhoda and I went a ride in a steamer this +morning. And the sun was shining on the water--rather nice, it was. Even +Rhoda grew a little brighter to see it. Poor Rhoda; the boarders do worry +her so. I'm sorry about it; they don't worry me; I rather like them. +Some day soon I want you to come and see Rhoda; it would cheer her up. +I wish she liked things more. She's left off her bead necklace, you know. +And she gets worried because people discuss the condition of 'the +departed' (that's what we call them in the boarding-house). Rhoda is sure +they are in nothingness. I told her it was impossible for me to speculate +on such things. How can one, you know? People have so much imagination. +Mine always sticks at a certain point and won't move on. Could you do it +if someone asked you to imagine Denis, say, without his body?" + +She wrinkled her forehead, trying to. + +"Denis's body matters a lot," was her conclusion. "I suppose it's because +it's such a nice one." + +"Exactly," said Peter. "People's bodies are nice. And when they're not I +don't believe their minds are very nice either, so I'd rather not think +about them. Now I must go home." + +It was very hot going home. London was a baked place, full of used +air--Peter's bedroom on a large scale. Peter tried walking back, but +found he was rather giddy, so got into a bus that took him the wrong +way, a thing he often did. Riding across London on the top of a bus is, +of course, the greatest fun, even if it is the wrong bus. It makes up for +almost any misfortune. + +A few days later, after office hours, Peter took Urquhart at his word +and went to his rooms. Urquhart wasn't there, but would be in some time, +he was told, so he sat and waited for him. It was a pleasant change after +the boarding-house rooms. Urquhart's things were nice to look at, without +being particularly artistic. There was nothing dingy, or messy, or +second-rate, or cheap. A graceful, careless expensiveness was the +dominant note. An aroma of good tobacco hung about. Peter liked to smell +good tobacco, though he smoked none, good or bad. + +Urquhart came in at seven o'clock. He was going to dine somewhere at +eight, so he hadn't much time. + +"Glad to see you, Margery. Quite time you came." + +Peter thought it nice of him to speak so pleasantly, seeming to ignore +the last time Peter had come to see him. He had been restrained and +embarrassed then; now he was friendly, in the old casual, unemphasised +way. + +"How splendid about you and Lucy," said Peter. "A very suitable alliance, +I call it." + +"So do I," said Denis, lighting a cigarette. "She's so much the nicest +person I know. I perceived that the day you introduced us." + +"Of course," said Peter. "You would." + +"Do you mind," said Denis, "if I dress? We can talk meanwhile. Rotten +luck that I'm booked for dinner, or we could have had it together. You +must come another day." + +While he dressed he told Peter that he was going to stand at the next +elections. Peter had known before that Denis was ultimately destined to +assist in the government of his country, and now it appeared that the +moment had arrived. + +"Do you _really_ take a side?" Peter enquired. "Or is it just a funny +game?" + +"Oh, of course it's a game too; most things are. But, of course, one's +a Conservative and all that, if one's a person of sense. It's the only +thing to be, you know." + +"I rather like both sides," said Peter. "They're both so keen, and so +sure they're right. But I expect Conservatives are the rightest, because +they want to keep things. I hate people who want to make a mess and break +things up and throw them away. Besides, I suppose one couldn't really be +on the same side as what's his name--that man everyone dislikes so--could +one? or any of those violent people." + +Urquhart said one certainly couldn't. Besides, there were Free Trade +and Home Rule, and dozens of other things to be considered. Obviously +Conservatives were right. + +"I ought to get in," he said, "unless anything upsets it. The Unionist +majority last time was two hundred and fifty." + +Peter laughed. It was rather nice to hear Denis talking like a real +candidate. + +When Denis was ready, he said, "I'm dining in Norfolk Street. Can you +walk with me part of the way?" + +Peter said it was on the way to Brook Street, where he lived. Denis +displayed no interest in Brook Street. As far as he intended to cultivate +Peter's acquaintance, it was to be as a unit, detached from his +disgraceful relatives. Peter understood that. As he hadn't much expected +to be cultivated again at all, he was in good spirits as he walked with +Denis to Norfolk Street. No word passed between them as to Peter's past +disgrace or present employment; Denis had an easy way of sliding lightly +over embarrassing subjects. + +They parted, and Denis dined in Norfolk Street with a parliamentary +secretary, and Peter supped in Brook Street with the other boarders. + + + + +CHAPTER XII + +THE LOSS OF A GOBLET AND OTHER THINGS + + +Denis and Lucy were married at the end of September. They went motoring +in Italy for a month, and by the beginning of November were settled at +Astleys. Astleys was in Berkshire, and was Urquhart's home. It was rather +beautiful, as homes go, with a careless, prosperous grace about it at +which Lucy laughed because it was so Urquhartesque. + +Almost at once they asked some people to stay there to help with the +elections and the pheasant shooting. The elections were hoped for in +December. Urquhart did not propose to bother much about them; he was a +good deal more interested in the pheasants; but he had, of course, every +intention of doing the usual and suitable things, and carrying the +business through well. Lucy only laughed; to want to get into Parliament +was so funny, looked at from the point of view she had always been used +to. Denis, being used by inheritance and upbringing to another point of +view, did not see that it was so funny; to him it was a very natural +profession for a man to go into; his family had always provided a supply +of members for both houses. Lucy and Peter, socially more obscure, +laughed childishly together over it. "Fancy being a Liberal or a +Conservative out of all the things there are in the world to be!" as +Peter had once commented. + +But it was delightfully Urquhart-like, this lordly assumption of a share +in the government of a country. No doubt it was worth having, because all +the things Urquhart wanted and obtained were that; he had an eye for good +things, like Peter, only he gained possession of them, and Peter could +only admire from afar. + +They were talking about the election prospects at dinner on the evening +of the fifteenth of November. They were a young and merry party. At one +end of the table was Denis, looking rather pale after a hard day's +hunting, and very much amused with life; at the other Lucy, in a white +frock, small and open-eyed like a flower, and very much amused too; and +between them were the people, young mostly, and gay, who were staying +with them. Lucy, who had been brought up in a secluded Bohemianism, found +it very funny and nice having a house-party, and so many servants to see +after them all that one needn't bother to run round and make sure +everyone had soap, and so on. + +One person, not young, who was staying there, was Lord Evelyn Urquhart. +Lucy loved him. He loved her, and told funny stories. Sometimes, between +the stories, she would catch his near-sighted, screwed up eyes scanning +her face with a queer expression that might have been wistfulness; he +seemed at times to be looking for something in her face, and finding it. +Particularly when she laughed, in her chuckling, gurgling way, he looked +like this, and would grow grave suddenly. They had talked together about +all manner of things, being excellent friends, but only once so far about +Lucy's cousin Peter. Once had been too much, Lucy had found. The +Margerisons were a tabooed subject with Lord Evelyn Urquhart. + +Denis shrugged his shoulders over it. "They did him brown, you see," he +explained, in his light, casual way. "Uncle Evelyn can't forgive that. +And it's because he was so awfully fond of Peter that he's so bitter +against him now. I never mention him; it's best not.... You know, you +keep giving the poor dear shocks by looking like Peter, and laughing like +him, and using his words. You _are_ rather like, you know." + +"I know," said Lucy. "It's not only looking and laughing and words; we +think alike too. So perhaps if he gets fond of me he'll forgive Peter +sometime." + +"He's an implacable old beggar," Denis said. "It's stupid of him. It +never seems to me worth while to get huffy; it's so uncomfortable. He +expects too much of people, and when they disappoint him he--" + +"Takes umbradge," Lucy filled in for him. That was another of Peter's +expressions; they shared together a number of such stilted, high-sounding +phrases, mostly culled either out of Adelphi melodrama or the fiction of +a by-gone age. + +To-night, when the cloth had been removed that they might eat fruit, +Denis was informed that there was a gentleman waiting to see him. The +gentleman had not vouchsafed either his name or business, so he could +obviously wait a little longer, till Denis had finished his own business. +In twenty minutes Denis went to the library, and there found Hilary +Margerison, sitting by the fire in a great coat and muffler and looking +cold. When he rose and faced him, Denis saw that he also looked paler +than of old, and thinner, and less perfectly shaved, and his hair was +longer. He might have been called seedy-looking; he might have been +Sidney Carton in "The Only Way"; he had always that touch of the dramatic +about him that suggested a stage character. He had a bad cough. + +"Oh," said Urquhart, polite and feeling embarrassed; "how do you do? I'm +sorry to have kept you waiting; they didn't tell me who it was. Sit down, +won't you?" + +Hilary said thanks, he thought not. He had a keen sense of the fit. So +he refused the cigarette Urquhart offered him, and stood by the fire, +looking at the floor. Urquhart stood opposite him, and thought how ill +and how little reputable he looked. + +Hilary said, in his high, sweet, husky voice, "It is no use beating about +the bush. I want help. We are in need; we are horribly hard up, to put it +baldly. That has passed between your family and mine which makes you the +last person I should wish to appeal to as a beggar. I propose a business +transaction." He paused to cough. + +Urquhart, feeling impatient at the prospect of a provoking interview when +he wanted to be playing bridge, said "Yes?" politely. + +"You," said Hilary, "are intending to stand as a candidate for this +constituency. You require for that, I fancy, a reputation wholly +untarnished; the least breath dimming it would be for you a disastrous +calamity. I have some information which, if sent to the local Liberal +paper, would seriously tell against you in the public mind. It is here." + +He took it out of his breast pocket and handed it to Urquhart--a +type-written sheet of paper. He must certainly have been to a provincial +theatre lately; he had hit its manners and methods to a nicety, the silly +ass. + +Urquhart took the paper gingerly and did not look at it. + +"Thanks; but ... I don't know that I am interested, do you know. Isn't +this all rather silly, Mr. Margerison?" + +"If you will oblige me by reading it," said Mr. Margerison. + +So Urquhart obliged him. It was all about him, as was to be expected; +enough to make a column of the Berkshire Press. + +"Well?" said Hilary, when he had done. + +"Well," said Urquhart, folding up the paper and returning it, "thank +you for showing it me. But again I must say that I am not particularly +interested. Of course you will send anything you like to any paper you +like; it is no business of mine. There's the libel law, as of course +you know; newspapers are as a rule rather careful about that. No +respectable paper, I needn't say, would care to use such copy as this +of yours.... Well, good night.... Oh, by the way, I suppose your brother +told you all that?" + +Hilary said, "I had it from various reliable sources." He stood +uncertain, with wavering eyes, despair killing hope. "You will do +nothing at all to save your reputation, then?" + +Urquhart laughed, unamused, with hard eyes. He was intensely irritated. + +"Do you think it likely? I don't care what you get printed in any dirty +rag about me, man. Why on earth should I?" + +The gulf between them yawned; it was unbridgeable. From Hilary's world +insults might be shrieked and howled, dirt thrown with all the strength +of hate, and neither shrieks nor dirt would reach across the gulf to +Urquhart's. They simply didn't matter. Hilary, realising this, grew +slowly, dully red, with the bitterness of mortified expectation. +Urquhart's look at him, supercilious, contemptuous, aloof, slightly +disgusted, hurt his vanity. He caught at the only weapon he had which +could hurt back. + +"I must go and tell Peter, then, that his information has been of no +use." + +Urquhart said merely, "Peter won't be surprised. It's no good your trying +to make me think that Peter is joining in this absurdity. He has too much +sense of the ridiculous. He seems to have talked to you pretty freely of +my concerns, which I certainly fancied he would keep to himself; I +suppose he did that by way of providing entertaining conversation; Peter +was always a chatterbox"--it was as well that Peter was not there to hear +the edge in the soft, indifferent voice--"but he isn't quite such a fool +as to have countenanced this rather stagey proceeding of yours. He knows +me--used to know me--pretty well, you see.... Good night. You have plenty +of time to catch your train, I think." + +Hilary stopped to say, "Is that all you have to say? You won't let your +connexion with our family--with Peter--induce you to help us in our +need?... I've done an unpleasant thing to-night, you know; I've put +my pride in my pocket and stooped to the methods of the cad, for the sake +of my wife and little children. I admit I have made a mistake, both of +taste and judgment; I have behaved unworthily; you may say like a fool. +But are you prepared to see us go under--to drive by and leave us lying +in the road, as you did to that old Tuscan peasant? Does it in no way +affect your feelings towards us that you are now Peter's cousin by +marriage--besides being practically, his half-brother?" + +"I am not practically, or in any other way, Peter's half-brother," said +Urquhart casually. "But that is neither here nor there. Peter and I +are--have been--friends, as you know. I should naturally give him help if +he asked me for it. He has not done so; all that has happened is that you +have tried to blackmail me.... I really see no use in prolonging this +interview, Mr. Margerison. Good night." Urquhart was bored and impatient +with the absurd scene. + +Into the middle of it walked Peter, pale and breathless. He stood by the +door and looked at them, dazed and blinking at the light; looked at +Urquhart, who stood leaning his shoulder against the chimney-piece, +his hands in his pockets, the light full on his fair, tranquil, bored +face, and at Hilary, pale and tragic, with wavering, unhappy eyes. So +they stood for a type and a symbol and a sign that never, as long as the +world endures, shall Margerisons get the better of Urquharts. + +They both looked at Peter, and Urquhart's brows rose a little, as if to +say, "More Margerisons yet?" + +Hilary said, "What's the matter, Peter? Why have _you_ come?" + +Peter said, rather faintly, "I meant to stop you before you saw Denis. I +suppose I'm too late.... I made Peggy tell me. I found a paper, you see; +and I asked Peggy, and she said you'd come down here to use it. _Have_ +you?" + +"He has already done his worst," Denis's ironic voice answered for him. +"Sprung the awful threat upon me." + +Peter leant back against the door, feeling rather sick. He had run all +the way from the station; and, as always, he was too late. + +Then he laughed a little. The contrast of Hilary's tragedian air and +Urquhart's tranquil boredom was upsetting to him. + +Urquhart didn't laugh, but looked at him enquiringly. + +"It's certainly funny rather," he said quietly. "You must have got a good +deal of quiet fun out of compiling that column." + +"Oh," said Peter. "But I didn't, you know." + +"I gather you helped--supplied much of the information. That story of +the old man I brutally slew and then callously left uncared for on the +road--you seem to have coloured that rather highly in passing it +on.... I suppose it was stupid of me to fancy that you weren't intending +to make that public property. Not that I particularly mind: there was +nothing to be ashamed of in that business; but it somehow never happened +to occur to me that you were relating it." + +"I didn't," said Peter. "I have never told anyone." + +Urquhart said nothing; his silence was expressive. + +Peter stammered into speech incoherently. + +"At least--at least--yes, I believe I did tell Peggy the story, months +ago, in Venice--but I didn't say it was you. I merely said, if someone +had done that ... what would she think? I wanted to know if she thought +we ought to have found the old man's people and told them." + +"I see," said Urquhart. "And did she?" + +"No. She thought it was all right." Peter had known beforehand that Peggy +would think it was all right; that was why he had asked her, to be +reassured, to have the vague trouble in his mind quieted. + +And she, apparently, had seen through his futile pretence, had known it +was Urquhart he spoke of, needed reassuring about (Peter didn't realise +that even less shrewd observers than Peggy might easily know when it was +Urquhart he spoke of) and had gone and told Hilary. And Hilary, in his +need, had twisted it into this disgusting story, and had typed it and +brought it down to Astleys to-night, with other twisted stories. + +"I suppose the rest too," said Urquhart, "you related to your +sister-in-law to see what she would think." + +Peter stammered, "I don't think so. No, I don't believe anything else +came from me. Did it, Hilary?" + +Hilary shrugged his shoulders, and made no other answer. + +"It really doesn't particularly matter," said Urquhart, "whether the +informant was you or some other of my acquaintances. I daresay my gyp is +responsible for the story of the actresses I brought down to the St. +Gabriel's dance; he knew about it at the time, I believe. I am not in the +least ashamed of that either; the 'Berkshire Press' is extremely welcome +to it, if it can find space for it.... Well, now, will you both stay the +night with me, or must you get back? The last good train goes at 10.5, I +think." + +Peter said, "Come along, Hilary." + +Urquhart stood and watched them go. + +As they turned away, he said, in his gentle, inexpressive voice, that +hadn't been raised in anger once, "Can I lend you any money, Peter?" + +Peter shook his head, though he felt Hilary start. + +"No, thank you. It is very good of you.... Good night." + +"Good night." + +Going out of the room, they came face to face with Lord Evelyn Urquhart +coming in. He saw them; he stiffened a little, repressing a start; he +stood elaborately aside to let them pass, bowing slightly. + +Neither Margerison said anything. Hilary's bow was the stage copy of his +own; Peter didn't look at him at all, but hurried by. + +The servant let them out, and shut the hall door behind them. + +Lord Evelyn said to his nephew in the library, swinging his eye-glass +restlessly to and fro, "Why do you let those people into your house, +Denis? I thought we had done with them." + +"They came to call," said Denis, who did not seem disposed to be +communicative. "I can't say why they chose this particular hour." + +Lord Evelyn paced up the room, restless, nervous, petulant. + +"It's monstrous," he said querulously. "Perfectly monstrous. Shameless. +How dare they show their faces in this house?... I suppose they wanted +something out of you, did they?" + +Denis merely said, "After all, Peter is my cousin by marriage, you must +remember. And I have never broken with him." + +Lord Evelyn returned, "The more shame to you. He's as great a swindler as +his precious brother; they're a pair, you can't deny that." + +Denis didn't attempt to deny it; probably he was feeling a little tired +of the Margerisons to-night. + +"I'm not defending Peter, or his brother either. I only said that he's +Lucy's cousin, and she's very fond of him, and I'm not keen on actually +breaking with him. As to the brother, he's so much more of an ass than +anything else that to call him a swindler is more than he deserves. He +simply came here to-night to play the fool; he's no more sense than a +silly ass out of a play." + +That was what Peter was telling Hilary on the way to the station. Hilary +defended himself rather feebly. + +"My good Peter, we must have money. We are in positive want. Of course, I +never meant to proceed to extremities; I thought the mere mention of such +a threat would be enough to make him see that we really were desperately +hard up, and that he might as well help us. But he doesn't care. Like all +rich people, he is utterly callous and selfish.... Do you think Lucy +would possibly give us any help, if you asked her?" + +"I shan't ask her," said Peter. "Don't, please, Hilary," he added +miserably. "Can't you _see_...." + +"See what? I see that we get a little more destitute every day: that +the boarders are melting away; that I am reduced to unthinkably sordid +hackwork, and you to the grind of uncongenial toil; that Peggy can't +afford to keep a cook who can boil a potato respectably (they were like +walnuts to-day) that she and the children go about with their clothes +dropping off them. I see that; and I see these Urquharts, closely +connected with our family, rolling in unearned riches, spending and +squandering and wasting and never giving away. I see the Robinsons, our +own relations, fattening on the money that ought to have come to us, and +now and then throwing us a loan as you throw a dog a bone. I see your +friend Leslie taking himself off to the antipodes to spend his millions, +that he may be out of the reach of disturbing appeals. I see a world +constituted so that you would think the devils in hell must cry shame on +it." His cough, made worse by the fog, choked his relation of his vision. + +Peter had nothing to say to it: he could only sigh over it. The Haves and +the Have-Nots--there they are, and there is no getting round the ugly +fact. + +"Denis," said Peter, "would lend me money if I asked him. You heard him +offer. But I am not going to ask him. We are none of us going to ask him. +If I find that you have, and that he has given it you, I shall pay it +straight back.... You know, Hilary, we're really not so badly off as all +that; we get along pretty well, I think; better than most other people." +The other Have-Nots; they made no difference, in Hilary's eyes, to the +fact that of course the Margerisons should have been among the Haves. + +Hilary said, "You are absolutely impervious, Peter, to other people's +troubles," and turned up his coat-collar and sank down on a seat in the +waiting-room. (Of course, they had missed the 10.5, the last good train, +and were now waiting for the 11.2, the slow one.) + +Peter walked up and down the platform, feeling very cold. He had come +away, in his excitement, without his overcoat. The chill of the foggy +night seemed to sink deep into his innermost being. + +Hilary's words rang in his ears. "I see that we get a little more +destitute every day." It was true. Every day the Margerisons seemed to +lose something more. To-night Peter had lost something he could ill +afford to part with--another degree of Denis Urquhart's regard. That +seemed to be falling from him bit by bit; perhaps that was why he felt so +cold. However desperately he clung to the remnants, as he had clung since +that last interview in Venice, he could not think to keep them much +longer at this rate. + +As he walked up and down the platform, his cold hands thrust deep into +his pockets, he was contemplating another loss--one that would hurt +absurdly much. + +If Hilary felt that he needed more money so badly, he must have it. There +were certain things Peter declined to do. He wouldn't borrow from the +Urquharts; but he would sell his last treasured possession to soothe +Hilary for a little while. The Berovieri goblet had been bought for a +lot of money, and could at any moment be sold for a lot of money. The +Berovieri goblet must go. + +That evening, in the tiny attic room, Peter took the adorable thing out +of the box where it lay hid, and set it on the chest of drawers, in front +of the candle, so that the flame shone through the blue transparency like +the setting sun through a stained-glass window. + +It was very, very beautiful. Peter sat on the bed and looked at it, as +a devotee before a shrine. In itself it was very beautiful, a magic thing +of blue colour and deep light and pure shadow and clear, lovely form. +Peter loved it for itself, and for its symbolic character. For it was a +symbol of the world of great loveliness that did, he knew, exist. When he +had been turned out of that world into a grey and dusty place, he had +kept that one thing, to link him with loveliness and light. Peter was +a materialist: he loved things, their shapes and colours, with a passion +that blinded him to the beauty of the colourless, the formless, the +super-sensuous. + +He slipped his fingers up the chalice's slim stem and round its cool +bowl, and smiled for pleasure that such a thing existed--had existed for +four hundred years--to gladden the world. + +"Well, anyone would have thought I should have smashed you before now," +he remarked, apostrophising it proudly. "But I haven't. I shall take you +to Christie's myself to-morrow, as whole as you were the day Leslie gave +you me." + +It was fortunate that Leslie was out of reach, and would not hear of the +transaction. If he had been in England, Peter would have felt bound to +offer him the goblet, and he would have paid for it too enormous a price +to be endured. Leslie's generosity was sometimes rather overwhelming. + +When Peter took Hilary and Peggy the cheque he had received, and told +them what he had received it for, Hilary said, "I suppose these things +must be. It was fortunate you did not ask my advice, Peter; I should have +hesitated what to say. It is uncommonly like bartering one's soul for +guineas. To what we are reduced!" + +He was an artist, and cared for beautiful goblets. He would much rather +have borrowed the money, or had it given him. + +Peggy, who was not an artist, said, "Oh, Peter darling, how sweet of you! +Now I really _can_ pay the butcher; I've had to hide from him the last +few mornings, in the coal-hole. You dear child, I hope you won't miss +that nice cup too much. When our ship comes in you shall have another." + +"_When_," sighed Hilary, who was feeling over-worked that evening. (He +did advertisement pictures for a weekly paper; a sordid and degrading +pursuit.) + +"Well," said Peggy hopefully, "the boarders we have now really do pay +their rent the way they never did in Venice. That's such a comfort. If +only Larry's cough gets off his chest without turning to bronchitis, +I will be quite happy. But these loathsome fogs! And that odious man +coming round wanting to know why aren't the children attending school! +'I'm sure,' I said to him, 'I wish they were; the house would be the +quieter missing them; but their father insists on educating them himself, +because he won't let them mix up with the common children in the school; +they're by way of being little gentry, do you see,' I said, 'though +indeed you mightn't think it to look at them.' Oh dear me, he was so +impolite; he wouldn't believe that Hilary was doing his duty by them, +though I assured him that he read them all the 'Ancient Mariner' +yesterday morning while they watched him dress, and that I was teaching +them the alphabet whenever I had a spare minute. But nothing would +satisfy him; and off the two eldest must go to the Catholic school next +week to be destroyed by the fog and to pick up with all the ragamuffins +in the district." + +"An abominable, cast-iron system," Hilary murmured mechanically. "Of a +piece with all the other institutions of an iniquitous state." + +"And what do you think," added Peggy, who was busy putting a patch in +Silvio's knickerbockers, "Guy Vyvian turned up out of nowhere and called +this afternoon, bad manners to him for a waster. When he found you were +out, Hilary, he asked where was Rhoda; he'd no notion of sitting down to +listen to _me_ talking. Rhoda was out at work too, of course; I told him +it wasn't most of us could afford to play round in the afternoons the way +he did. I suppose he'll come again, bothering and upsetting the child +just when she's settling down a bit. I've thought her seeming brighter +lately; she likes going about with you, Peter. But there'll be pretty +doings again when that man comes exciting her." + +"Vyvian is a cad and a low fellow," Hilary said, "and I always regretted +being forced into partnership with him; but I suppose one can't kick +one's past acquaintances from the door. I, at least, cannot. Some people +can and do; they may reconcile it with their standards of decency if they +choose; but I cannot. Vyvian must come if he likes, and we must be +hospitable to him. We must ask him to dinner if he comes again." + +"Yes," sniffed Peggy, "I can see him! Sticking his fork into the potatoes +and pretending he can't get it through! Oh, have him to dinner if you +like; he must just make the best of what he gets if he comes. He'll be +awfully rude to the rest, too, but I'll apologise for him beforehand." + +"Though a cad," Hilary observed, "Vyvian is less of a vacuous fool than +most of the members of our present delightful house-party. He at least +knows _something_ of art and literature, and can converse without jarring +one's taste violently by his every word. He is not, after all, a Miss +Matthews or a Mr. Bridger. Apologies, therefore, are scarcely called for, +perhaps." + +Peggy said, "What a solemn face, Peter. Is it the Vyvian man, or the +beautiful cup, that we've never half thanked you for getting rid of yet?" + +Peter said, "It's the Vyvian man. He makes me feel solemn. You see, I +promised Mrs. Johnson faithfully to keep Rhoda out of his clutches, if +I could." + +"Darling, what a silly promise. Oh, of course, we'll all do our best; but +if he wants to clutch her, the silly little bird, he'll surely do it. Not +that I'm saying he does want to; I daresay he only wants to upset her and +make her his slave and then run away again to his own place, the Judas." + +"But I don't want him to do that. Rhoda will be unhappier than ever +again." + +"Oh, well, I wouldn't wonder if, when Rhoda sees him again now, she sees +what a poor creature it is, after all. It may be a turning-point with +her, and who knows will she perhaps settle down afterwards and be a +reasonable girl and darn her stockings and wear a collar?" + +"If one _is_ to talk of stockings," began Hilary, "I noticed Caterina's +to-day, and really, you know...." + +Peggy bit off her cotton and murmured, "Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear, what's +to become of us all?" + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + +THE LOSS OF THE SINGLE STATE + + +The man Vyvian came. He came again and again, but not to dinner. Perhaps +he suspected about the potatoes, and thought that they would not even be +compensated for by the pleasure of sneering at the boarders. He came in +the evenings and sat in the sitting-room and drank coffee (the only thing +that was well cooked in Peggy's household), and talked to Hilary, and +looked at Rhoda. Rhoda, embroidering apple-boughs on a green dress-front, +shivered and trembled under his eyes. + +"Now I know," thought Peter, seeing Vyvian look, "what villains in books +are really like. Vyvian is just like one; specially about the eyes." He +was sitting near Rhoda, playing that sort of patience called calcul, +distinguished from other patiences by the fact that it comes out; that +was why Peter liked it. He had refused to-night to join in the game the +others were playing, which was animal grab, though usually he enjoyed +it very much. Peter liked games, though he seldom won them. But this +evening he played patience by himself and sat by Rhoda and consulted her +at crucial moments, and babbled of many things and knew whenever Vyvian +looked and Rhoda shook. At half-past nine Vyvian stopped talking to +Hilary and crossed the room and took the arm-chair on Rhoda's other side. + +"Enthralling evenings you spend here," he remarked, including in his +glance Rhoda's embroidery, Peter's patience, and the animal grab table, +from which cheerfully matter-of-fact farmyard and jungle cries proceeded +with spirit. + +Rhoda said nothing. Her head was bent over her work. The next moment she +pricked her finger violently, and started. Before she could get her +handkerchief out, Vyvian had his, and was enveloping her small hand in +it. + +"Too bad," he said, in a voice so low that the farmyard cries drowned it +as far as Peter was concerned. "Poor little finger." He held it and the +handkerchief closely in his two hands. + +Rhoda, her colour flooding and ebbing over her thin face and thin neck +down to the insertion yoke of her evening blouse, trembled like a +captured bird. Her eyes fell from his look; a bold, bad look Peter +thought, finding literary terminology appropriate. + +The next moment the little table on which Peter was playing toppled over +onto the floor with a small crash, and all his cards were scattered on +the carpet. + +Rhoda started and looked round, pulling her hand away as if a spell was +broken. + +"Dear me," said Peter regretfully, "it was just on coming out, too. I +shan't try again to-night; it's not my night, obviously." He was picking +up the cards. Rhoda watched him silently. + +"Do you know calcul, Mr. Vyvian?" Peter enquired, collecting scattered +portions of the pack from under the arm-chair. + +Mr. Vyvian stared at Peter's back, which was the part of him most visible +at the moment. + +"I really can't say I have the pleasure; no." (That, Peter felt certain, +was an insolent drawl.) + +"Would you like to learn it?" said Peter politely. "Are you fond of +patience?" + +"I can't say I am," said Mr. Vyvian. + +"Oh! Then you _would_ like calcul. People who are really fond of other +patiences don't; they despise it because it comes out. I don't like any +other sort of patience; I'm not clever enough; so I like this. Let me +teach you, may I?" + +Vyvian got up. + +"Thanks; you're quite too kind. On the whole, I think I can conduct my +life without any form of patience, even one which comes out." + +"You have a turn, then, Miss Johnson," said Peter, arranging the cards. +"Perhaps it'll come out for you, though it won't for me to-night." + +"Since you are all so profitably occupied," said Vyvian, "I think I will +say good night." + +Peter said, "Oh, must you?... Good night, then. We play calcul most +nights, so you can learn it some other time if you'd like to." + +"A delightful prospect," Vyvian murmured, his glance again +comprehensively wandering round the room. "A happy family party you seem +here.... Good night." He bent over Rhoda with his ironic politeness. + +"I was going to ask you if you would come out with me to-morrow evening +to a theatre.... But since your evenings seem to be so pleasantly filled +otherwise...." + +She looked up at him a moment, wavered, met his dark eyes, was caught by +the old domination, and swept off her feet as of old. + +"Oh, ... I should like to come...." She was a little breathless. + +"Good! I will call for you then, at seven, and we will dine together. Au +revoir." + +"He swept her a mocking bow and was gone," Peter murmured to himself. + +Then he looked at Rhoda, and found her eyes upon his face, wide, +frightened, bewildered, and knew in a flash that she had never meant +to consent to go out with Vyvian, that she had been caught by the old +power he had over her and swept off her feet. That knowledge gave him +confidence, and he could say, "You don't want to go, do you? Let me go +after him and tell him." + +"Oh," she pressed her hands together in front of her. "But I must go--I +said I would." + +Peter was on his feet and out of the door in a second. He saw Vyvian in +the passage downstairs, putting on his coat. He spoke from half-way down +the stairs: + +"Oh, Miss Johnson asks me to say she is sorry she can't go with you +to-morrow night after all; she finds she has another engagement." + +Vyvian turned and looked up at him, a slight smile lifting his lip. + +"Really?" was all he said. "All the same, I think I will call at seven +and try to persuade her to change her mind again. Good night." + +As plainly as possible he had said to Peter, "I believe you to be lying." +Peter had no particular objection to his believing that; he was not +proud; but he did object to his calling at seven and trying to persuade +Rhoda to change her mind again, for he believed that that would be a task +easy of achievement. + +He went back into the sitting-room. Rhoda was sitting still, her hands +twisted together on the green serge on her lap. Peter sat down by her and +said, "Will you come out with me instead to-morrow evening?" and she +looked at him, her teeth clenched over her lower lip as if to steady it, +and said after a moment, forlornly, "If you like." + +It was so much less exciting than going with Vyvian would have been, that +Peter felt compunction. + +"You shall choose the play," he said. "'Peter Pan,' do you think? Or +something funny--'The Sins of Society,' or something?" + +Rhoda whispered "Anything," nearly on the edge of tears. A vividness had +flashed again into her grey life, and she was trying to quench it. She +had heroically, though as an afterthought, flung an extinguishing douche +of water at it; but now that she had done so she was melting into +unheroic self-pity. + +"I want to go to bed," she said shakily, and did so, feeling for her +pocket-handkerchief as she crossed the room. + +At a quarter to seven the next evening Peter looked for Rhoda, thinking +it well that they should be out of the house by seven o'clock, but +couldn't find her, till Miss Clegson said she had met her "going into +church" as she herself came out. Peter went to the church to find her. +Rhoda didn't as a rule frequent churches, not believing in the creeds +they taught; but even to the unbelieving a church is often a refuge. + +Peter, coming into the great dim place out of the wet fog, found it +again, as he had long since known it to be, a refuge from fogs and other +ills of living. Far up, the seven lamps that never go out burned dimly +through the blurred air. It was a gaudy place, no doubt; over-decorated; +a church for the poor, who love gaudiness. Perhaps Peter too loved +gaudiness. Anyhow, he loved this place and its seven lamps and its +shrines and statued saints. + +Surely, whatever one believed of the mysterious world and of all the +other mysterious worlds that might be floating behind the veils, surely +here was a very present help in trouble, a luminous brightness shining in +a fog-choked world. + +Peter, sitting by the door, sank into a great peace. Half-way up the +church he saw Rhoda sitting very still. She too was looking up the church +towards the lamps and the altar beyond them. + +Presently a cassocked sacristan came and lit the vesper lights, for +evensong was to be at seven, and the altar blazed out, an unearthly +brilliance in the dim place. The low murmur of voices (a patient priest +had been hearing confessions for an hour) ceased, and people began coming +in one by one for service. Rhoda shivered a little, and got up and came +down the church. Peter joined her at the door, and they passed shivering +into the fog together. + +"I was looking for you," said Peter, when they were out in the alley that +led to the church door. + +"It's time we went, isn't it," she said apathetically. + +Then she added, inconsequently, "The church seems the only place where +one can find a bit of peace. I can't think why, when probably it's all +a fairy-tale." + +"I suppose that's why," said Peter. "Fairyland is the most peaceful +country there is." + +"You can't get peace out of what's not true," Rhoda insisted querulously. + +"Oh, I don't know.... Besides, fairy-tales aren't necessarily untrue, +do you think? I don't mean that, when I call what churches teach a +fairy-tale. I mean it's beautiful and romantic and full of light and +colour and wonderful things happening. And it's probably the truer for +that." + +"D'you _believe_ it all?" queried Rhoda; but he couldn't answer her as to +that. + +"I don't know. I never do know exactly what I believe. I can't think how +anyone does. But yes, I think I like to believe in those things; they're +too beautiful not to be true." + +"It's the ugly things that are true," she said, coughing in the fog. + +"Why, yes, the ugly things and the beautiful; God and the devil, if one +puts it like that. Oh, yes, I believe very much in the devil; I can't +believe that any street of houses could look quite like this without the +help of someone utterly given over to evil thinking. _We_ aren't, you +see; none of us are ugly enough in our minds to have thought out some +of the things one sees; so there must be a devil." + +Rhoda was silent. He thought she was crying. He said gently, "I say, +would you like to come out to-night, or would you rather be quiet at +home?" It would be safe to return home by half-past seven, he thought. + +She said, in a small muffled voice, that she didn't care. + +A tall figure passed by them in the narrow alley, looming through the +fog. Rhoda started, and shrank back against the brick wall, clutching +Peter's arm. The next moment the figure passed into the circle of light +thrown down by a high lamp that glimmered over a Robbia-esque plaque +shrine let into the wall, and they saw that it was a cassocked priest +from the clergy-house going into church. Rhoda let out her breath faintly +in a sigh, and her fingers fell from Peter's coat-sleeve. + +"Oh," she whispered, "I'm frightened.... Let's stay close to the church; +just outside the door, where we can see the light and hear the music. I +don't want to go out into the streets to-night, Peter, I want to stay +here. I'm ... so frightened." + +"Come inside," suggested Peter, as they turned back to the church. "It +would be warmer." + +But she shook her head. "No. I'd rather be outside. I don't belong in +there." + +Peter said, "Why not?" and she told him, "Because for me it's the ugly +things that are true." + +So together they stood in the porch, outside the great oak door, and +heard the sound of singing stealing out, fog-softened, and smelt the +smell of incense (it was the festal service of some saint) that pierced +the thick air with its pungent sweetness. + +They sat down on the seat in the porch, and Rhoda shivered, not with +cold, and Peter waited by her very patiently, knowing that she needed him +as she had never needed him before. + +She told him so. "You don't _mind_ staying, Peter? I feel safer with you +than with anyone else.... You see, I'm afraid.... Oh, I can't tell you +how it is I feel. When he looks at me it's as if he was drawing me and +dragging me, and I feel I must get up and follow him wherever he goes. +It's always been like that, since first I met him, more than a year ago. +He made me care; he made me worship the ground he walked on; if he'd +thrown me down and kicked me, I'd have let him. But he never cared +himself; I know that now. I've known it a long time. And I've vowed to +myself, and I vowed to mother when she lay dying, that I wouldn't let him +have anything more to do with me. He frightens me, because he can twist +me round his finger and make me care so ... and it hurts.... And he's +just playing; he'll never really care. But for all I know that, I know +he can get me whenever he wants me. And he's come back again to amuse +himself seeing me worship him ... and he'll make me follow him about, +and all the time he'll be thinking me a little fool, and I shall know +it ... but I can't help it, Peter, I can't help it.... I've nothing to +hold on to, to save me. If I could be religious, if I could pray, like +the people in there ... but he says there's nothing in that; he's made me +believe like him, and I sometimes think he only believes in himself, and +that's why I can only believe in him too. So I've got nothing in the +world to hold on to, and I shall be carried away and drowned...." + +She was crying with strangled sobbings, her face in her thin hands. + +Peter's arm was put gently about her shoulders, comforting her. + +"No, you won't, Rhoda. Rhoda dear, you won't be carried away, because +I shall be here, holding you. Is that any help at all?" + +He felt her relax beneath his arm and lean back against him; he heard +her whisper, "Yes; oh, yes. If I can hold onto you, Peter, I shall feel +safe." + +"Hold on, then," said Peter, "as tight as you like." + +She looked up at him with wet eyes and he felt the claim and the appeal +of her piercing straight into his heart. + +"I could care ..." she whispered. "Are you sure, Peter?" + +His arm tightened about her. He hadn't meant precisely what she had +understood him to mean; at least, he hadn't translated his purpose to +help her to the uttermost into a specified relation, as she was doing; +but if the purpose, to be fulfilled, had to be so translated, he was +ready for that too. So he said, "Quite sure, Rhoda. I want to be the most +to you that you'll let me be," and her face was hidden against his coat, +and her tension relaxed utterly, and she murmured, "Oh, I can be safe +like that." + +So they sat in silence together, between the lit sanctuary and the +desolate night, and heard, as from a long way off, the sound of +chanting:-- + + "Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace: according to thy + word; + + "For mine eyes have seen ..." + +Later on, Rhoda said, quiet and happy now, "I've thought you cared, +Peter, for some time. And last night, when I saw you hated Guy to be near +me, I felt sure. But I feel I've so little to give you. So much of me is +burnt away and spoilt. But it'll come back, Peter, I think, if you love +me. I do love you, very much; you've been such a dear to me always, from +the very first night at the Palazzo, when you spoke to me and smiled. +Only I couldn't think of anyone but Guy then. But lately I've been +thinking, 'Peter's worth a hundred Guys, and if only I could care for +him, I should feel safe.' And I do care, ever so much; and if it's a +different sort of caring from what I've felt for Guy, it's a better sort. +That's a bad, black sort, that hurts; I never want any more of that. +Caring for you will keep me from that, Peter." + +"It's dear of you to care for me at all," said Peter. "And we won't let +Guy come near us, now or ever." + +"You hate him, don't you?" said Rhoda. "I know you do." + +"Oh, well, I don't know that it's as bad as all that. He's more funny +than anything else, it seems to me. He might have walked straight out of +a novel; he does all the things they do in books, you know, and that one +never thinks people really do outside them. He sneers insolently. I watch +him sometimes, to see how it's done. He curls his upper lip, too, when +he's feeling contemptuous; that's another nice trick that I should like +to acquire. Oh, he's quite an interesting study really. You've taken him +wrong, you know. You've taken him seriously. He's not meant for that." + +"Oh," said Rhoda, vaguely uncomprehending. "You _are_ a funny boy, Peter. +You do talk so.... I never know if you mean half you say." + +"About two-thirds, I think," said Peter. "The rest is lies. We all lie +in my family, and not well either, because we're rather weak in the +intellect.... Now do you feel like supper, because I do? Let's come home +and have it, shall we?" + +They went home through the fog, Rhoda clinging to Peter's arm as to an +anchor in a sweeping sea. A great peace and security possessed her; she +no longer started at the tall figures that loomed by. + +They let themselves into 51 Brook Street, and blinked at one another +in the lamp-lit, linoleumed little hall. Rhoda looked at herself in +the glass, and said, "What a fright I am!" seeing her tear-stained +countenance and straggling fog-wet locks. The dinner-bell rang, and she +ran upstairs to tidy herself. Peter and she came into the dining-room +together, during the soup. + +"Let's tell them at once, Peter," whispered Rhoda; so Peter obediently +said, as he sat down by Peggy, "Rhoda and I have just settled to marry." + +"_Marry_?" Hilary queried, from the end of the table. "Marry whom?" And +Rhoda, blushing, laughed for the first time for some days. + +Peggy said, "Don't be silly, Hilary. Each other, of course, the darlings +mean. Well, well, and to think I never guessed that all this time!" + +"Oh," said Miss Clegson, "I did, Mrs. Margerison; I had a very shrewd +suspicion, I assure you. And this evening, when Mr. Peter asked me where +Miss Johnson was gone, and I told him into church, and he followed her +straight away, I said to myself, 'Well, _that_ looks like something we +all know about very well!' I didn't say it to anyone else; I wouldn't +breathe a word till all was settled; I knew you asked me in confidence, +Mr. Peter; but I thought the more. I was always one to see things; they +used to tell me I could see through a stone wall. Well, I'm sure I offer +my congratulations to both of you." + +"And I too, with all my heart," said Miss Matthews, the lady who did not +attend ritualistic churches. "Do I understand that the happy arrangement +was made _in church_, Miss Johnson? I gather from Miss Clegson that Mr. +Peter followed you there." + +"Oh, not inside, Miss Matthews," said Rhoda, blushing again, and looking +rather pretty. "In the porch, we were." + +Miss Matthews sniffed faintly. Such goings-on might, she conveyed, be +expected in the porch of St. Austin's, with all that incense coming +through the door, and all that confessing going on inside. + +"Well," said Mr. Bridger, "we ought to have some champagne to drink +success to the happy event. Short of that, let us fill the festive +bumpers with the flowing lemonade. Pass the jug down. Here's _to_ you, +Miss Rhoda; here's _to_ you, Mr. Peter Margerison. May you both be as +happy as you deserve. No one will want me to wish you anything better +than that, I'm sure." + +"Here's luck, you dears," said Peggy, drinking. Engagements in general +delighted her, and Peter's in particular. And poor little Rhoda was +looking so bright and happy at last. Peggy wouldn't have taken it upon +herself to call it a remarkably suitable alliance had she been asked; but +then she hadn't been asked, and Peter was such a sweet-natured, loving, +lovable dear that he would get on with anyone, and Rhoda, though +sometimes a silly and sometimes fractious, was a dear little girl too. +The two facts that would have occurred to some sisters-in-law, that they +had extremely few pennies between them, and that Rhoda wasn't precisely +of Peter's gentle extraction, didn't bother Peggy at all. + +They occurred, however, to Hilary. It occurred to him that Peter would +now require all his slender earnings for himself and wife, which was +awkward; also that Peter really needn't have looked down to the lower +middle classes for a wife. Hilary believed in gentle birth; through all +his vicissitudes a pathetic pride of breeding clung to him. One might be +down at heels; one might be reduced to sordid means of livelihood, even +to shady schemes for enlarging one's income; but once a gentleman always +so, and one was not to be ranked with the bounders, the Vyvians, the +wealthy Leslies even. + +Hilary looked resigned and weary. Why should Peter want to marry a +commonplace and penniless little nobody, and not so very pretty either, +though she looked nice and bright when she was animated, as now. + +"Well," he said, "when is it to be?" + +Peter looked across at Rhoda. + +"I should hope very soon," he said. It was obviously safer, and safety +was the object, to have it very soon. + +"How soon can one get married? There have to be banns and so on, don't +there? The third time of asking--that brings it to the eighteenth of +December. What about the nineteenth, Rhoda? That's a Monday." + +"Really, Peter ..." Rhoda blushed more than ever. "That seems awfully +soon." + +"Well," said Peter, blind to the unusualness of such a discussion at the +dinner-table, "the sooner the better, don't you think? There's nothing to +wait for. I don't suppose we shall ever have more money to do it on than +we have now. I know of a man who waited years and years because he +thought he hadn't got quite enough, and he got a little more each year, +and at the end of six years he thought to double his fortune by putting +it all on a winner, because he was getting so impatient. And the horse +came in last. So the girl broke it off and married someone else, and the +man's heart broke and he took to drink." + +"Well?" enquired Miss Matthews, who thought Peter habitually irrelevant +in his remarks. + +"Well--so let's be married on December the nineteenth." + +"I'm sure," said Rhoda, "we're quite embarrassing everybody, being so +public. Let's settle it afterwards, Peter, when we're alone." + +But she too meant to have it as soon as might be after the third time of +asking; it was safer, much safer, so. + +"Well," said Miss Clegson, as the ladies rose from the table, "now we're +going to carry Miss Johnson away to tell us all about it; and we'll leave +Mr. Peter to tell you gentlemen _his_ secrets. And after that we'll have +a good round game; but two of the present company can be left out if they +like better to sit in the window-seat!" + +But when the other gentlemen repaired to the drawing-room for the good +round game, Peter stayed behind, with Hilary. He didn't want to talk or +be talked to, only to stay where he was and not to have to sit in the +window-seat. + +"The insufferable vulgarity of this class of person on this subject is +really the limit," Hilary remarked plaintively, as if it had jarred him +beyond endurance. + +"They're awfully kind, aren't they," said Peter, who looked tired. Then +he laughed to himself. Hilary looked at him enquiringly. + +"I suppose you know your own business, Peter. But I must confess I am +surprised. I had literally no idea you had such a step in mind." + +"I hadn't any idea either," Peter admitted frankly. "I thought of it +quite suddenly. But I think it is a good plan, you know. Of course," he +added, wording what he read in Hilary's face, "I know my life will cost +me more. But I think it is worth while." + +"It's quite entirely your own business," Hilary said again, throwing +responsibility from him with a gesture of the hands. Then he leant back +and shut his eyes. + +Peter looked at him as he lay in the arm-chair and smoked; his eyes +rested on the jaded, still beautiful face, the dark lock of hair falling +a little over the tired forehead, the brown velvet smoking coat and large +red silk tie. He knew that he had hurt and puzzled Hilary. And he knew +that Hilary wouldn't understand if he were to explain what he couldn't +ever explain. At the most he would say, "It is Peter all over," and +shrug his shoulders at Peter and Peter's vagaries. + +A great desire to smooth Hilary's difficult road, as far as might be, +caught and held Peter. Poor old Hilary! He was so frightfully tired of +life and its struggles; tired of being a Have-Not. + +To help the other Have-Nots, to put pleasant things into their hands as +far as might be, seemed to Peter at this moment the thing for which one +existed. It is obviously the business of the Have-Nots to do that for one +another; for the Haves do not know or understand. It is the Have-Nots who +must give and give and give, with emptying hands; for from him that hath +not shall be taken away even that which he hath. + +Peter went upstairs to the drawing-room to play animal grab. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + +PETER, RHODA, AND LUCY + + +When Mr. Vyvian called at 51 Brook Street one evening and was informed +by the assembled company that Miss Johnson had got engaged to Mr. Peter +Margerison, he sneered a little and wished them both joy, and said +good-night rather markedly early. + +"He won't come back," said Rhoda in Peter's ear when he had gone. "He's +gone for good." She sat very still, realising it, and shivered a little. +Then, casting off that old chain of the past, she turned on Peter eyes +full of tears and affection. + +"Now I'm going to forget all about him and be happy," she whispered. +"He's not going to be part of my life any more at all. How queer that +seems!" + +If in her heart she wished a little that Peter had had Guy Vyvian's +handsome face and person (Peter had no presence: one might overlook him; +the only vivid note about him, except when he smiled, was the blue of his +eyes), she stifled the wish with firm pressure. What were looks, after +all? And that bold, handsome stare of Guy's had burnt and hurt; in the +blue of Peter's she found healing and coolness, as one finds it in a +summer sea. + +So, after the third time of asking, they were married, in St. Austin's +Church, and Rhoda, coming out of it, whispered to Peter, "Some of the +beautiful things are true after all, I do believe;" and he smiled at her +and said, "Of course they are." + +They left the boarding-house, because Rhoda was tired of the boarders +and wanted a little place to themselves. Peter, who didn't really care, +but who would have rather liked to stay and be with Peggy and Hilary, +pretended that he too wanted a little place to themselves. So they took +lodgings in Greville Street, which runs out of Brook Street. Rhoda gave +up her work and settled down to keep house and do needlework. They kept +a canary in the sitting-room, and a kitten with a blue bow, and Rhoda +took to wearing blue bows in her own hair, and sewed all the buttons on +her frocks and darned her gloves and stockings and Peter's socks, and +devoted herself to household economy, a subject in which her mother had +always tried to interest her without success. Rhoda thought it a great +relief to have escaped from the tiresome boarders who chattered so about +things they knew nothing about, and from her own daily drudgery, that had +tired her back. (She had been a typist.) It was nice to be able to sit at +peace with one's needlework and one's own reflections, and have Peter, +who was always kind and friendly and cheerful, to brighten breakfast and +leave her in peace during the day and come in again to brighten the +evening. Peter's chatter didn't worry her, though she often thought it +childish and singularly inconsequent; Peter, of course, was only a boy, +though such a dear, kind, affectionate boy. He would spend his evenings +teasing the kitten and retying the blue bow, or lying on the rug before +the fire, talking nonsense which made Rhoda laugh even when she was +feeling low. Sometimes they would go to Brook Street and spend the +evening there; and often Hilary would drop in and smoke with Peter; +only Rhoda didn't much care for these evenings, for she never felt at +ease with Hilary, who wasn't at ease with her either. The uncultured +young creatures of either sex never quite knew where they were with the +aesthetic Hilary; at any moment they might tread heavily on his sensitive +susceptibilities and make him wince visibly, and no one likes being +winced at. Rhoda in particular was very sensitive; she thought Hilary +ill-mannered and conceited, and vaguely resented his attitude towards her +without understanding it, for (now that she was removed from the crushing +influence of a person who had always ruthlessly shown her her limitations +and follies) she didn't think of herself as uncultured, she with her +poetical and artistic tastes, sharpened and refined by contact with the +culture of Guy Vyvian and broadened by acquaintance with the art of +foreign cities. On the contrary, she felt in herself yearnings for a +fuller and freer life of beauty and grace. She wasn't sure that Peter +ever felt such yearnings; he seemed quite contented with the ugly rooms +in the ugly street, and the dingy lace curtains and impossible pictures; +he could make a joke of it all; and things one could make a joke of +couldn't really hurt, thought Rhoda. + +But anyhow, cramped and squalid and dingy though 9 Greville Street might +be, it held security and peace. + +"The Snuggery, that's what we call it at fifty-one," said Miss Clegson, +who sometimes looked in to rally them. + +Fifty-one was getting less of a snuggery than ever. Fifty-one, Peter +feared, was going down the hill. The Berovieri goblet had made a little +piece of level road for it, but that was soon over, and the descent began +again. Peggy, try as she would, could not make both ends meet. Hilary, +despise his job as he might, found it slipping from him more and more. +Week by week he seemed to earn a little less; week by week they seemed to +spend a little more. Peggy, as Hilary had frequently remarked, was _not_ +a good manager. One or two of the boarders left, to seek more commodious +quarters elsewhere. More frequently, as the winter advanced, Peggy +wailed, "Whatever is to become of us, dear only knows! What with Larry +drinking pints of cough-syrup, and Micky rolling in the gutter in his +best suit, and Norah, the creature, letting the crockery fly about as if +it was alive, and Hilary insisting on the table cloth being cleaner than +it ever is, and the boarders having to have food they can eat, and now +Lent's coming on and half of them don't take any notice of it but eat +their joints just the same, bad manners to them for heretics. Oh, _dear_, +oh dear, oh dear!" + +Whenever Peter could spare any money he gave it to Peggy. But his own +fortunes were not exactly on the make. He was not proving good at his +job. Recommended to his employers by Leslie, he had begun, of course, on +a very small salary, to learn his trade; he hadn't so far learnt enough +of it to justify his promotion. Every day he went through the same +drudgery, with the same lack of intelligence,--(it is odd how discernment +and talent in one trade serve so little for another)--and every week came +home with the same meagre sum. + +As far as he hated anything, he hated this work of his; long ago, had he +been alone concerned, he would have dropped it, and taken to tramping the +roads with boot-laces to sell, or some other equally unstrenuous and +unlucrative avocation. But he had not, from the first, been alone +concerned; first he had had to help Hilary and Peggy, and now he had +to keep a wife too. Eventually there would probably be also children to +keep; Peter didn't know how much these cost, but vaguely believed them to +be expensive luxuries. So there seemed no prospect of his being able to +renounce his trade, though there was a considerable prospect of its +renouncing him, as he was from time to time informed. + +The winter dragged quietly through, and the spring came; the queer +London ghost of spring, with its bitter winds and black buds and evasive +hints of what is going on in the real world, where things change. Peter +dreamt of green things coming up and hawthorn hedges growing edible. +Rhoda's cough grew softer and her eyes more restless, as if she too +had her dreams. She developed a new petulance with Peter and with the +maid-of-all-work, and left off tying the kitten's neck-ribbon. It was +really a cat now, and cats are tiresome. She said she was dull all day +with so little to do. Peter, full of compunction, suggested asking people +to the house more, and she assented, rather listlessly. So Peter hinted +to Peggy, who had a cheering presence, that Rhoda would be glad to see +her more often, and Peggy made what time she could to come round. Their +circle of friends was limited; they chiefly consisted of the inhabitants +of fifty-one, and a few relatives of Rhoda's, who amused and pleased +Peter but vexed Rhoda by being common. + +"But I like them," said Peter. + +"You like to see me put to shame, I suppose," said Rhoda, with tears in +her eyes. "As if it was _my_ fault that my parents came of common people. +I've cried myself sick over it sometimes, when I was younger, and now I +just want to forget it." + +Peter said no more. It was one of the sides of Rhoda with which he felt +he had no connexion; it was best let alone, as Peter always let alone the +things he could not like. But he was sorry she felt like that, for her +nice, common, friendly relations might have been company for her. + +Peter sometimes brought friends home from his office; Peter could not +have been in an office without collecting friends, having the social +instinct strongly developed. But Rhoda didn't much care about seeing +his fellow-clerks; they hadn't, she was sure, great minds, and they made +silly jokes. + +Another person who came to see Peter sometimes was Rodney. Ever since the +Margerisons' abrupt fall into ignominy, Rodney had cultivated Peter's +acquaintance. Peter perceived that he had at last slipped into the ranks +of those unfortunates who were qualified for Rodney's regard; it was +enough for that, Urquhart had long since told him, to be cut by society +or to produce a yesterday's handkerchief. Peter, driven from the faces of +the rich, found Rodney waiting to receive him cheerfully among the ranks +of the poor. Rodney was a much occupied person; but when he found time +from his other pursuits he walked up from his Westminster slum to Holborn +and visited 9 Greville Street. He hadn't known quite what to make of +Peter's marriage; though when he got to know Rhoda a little he began to +understand rather more. She, being very manifestly among the Have-Nots, +and a small, weak, and pitiable thing, also entered in a manner into the +circle of his tolerance. He was gentle with her always, though not +expansive. She was a little in awe of the gaunt young man, with his +strange eyes that seemed to see so much further than anyone else's. She +pronounced him "queer." + +"I suppose he's very clever," she said to Peter. + +"Yes," Peter agreed. + +But even that didn't further him in Rhoda's regard. She thought him rude, +as indeed he was, though he tried to conceal it. He seldom spoke to her, +and when he did it was with an unadorned brevity that offended her. +Mostly he let her alone, and saw Peter when he could outside his home. +Rodney, himself a celibate, thought matrimony a mistake, though certainly +a necessary mistake if the human race was to continue to adorn the +earth--a doubtful ornament to it, in Rodney's opinion. + +Rhoda said one evening to Peter, "You don't see anything of your friends +the Urquharts now, do you?" + +"No," said Peter, who was stroking the kitten's fur the wrong way, to +bring sparks out of it before the gas was lit. "They've been in the +country all the winter." + +"Mr. Urquhart got elected a member, didn't he?" said Rhoda, without much +interest. + +"Yes," said Peter. + +"I suppose they'll be coming up to town soon, then, for him to attend +Parliament." + +Peter supposed they would. + +"When last Lucy wrote, she said they were coming up this month." + +"Have you heard from her again, since Monday week?" enquired Rhoda. + +"No. We write alternate Sundays, you know. We always have. Last Sunday it +was my turn." + +"Fancy going on all these years so regular," said Rhoda. "I couldn't, not +to any of my cousins. I should use up all there was to say." + +"Oh, but there are quite new things every fortnight," Peter explained. + +Certainly it wasn't easy to picture Rhoda corresponding with any of the +Johnson relatives once a fortnight. + +"I expect you and she have heaps to tell each other always when you +meet," said Rhoda, a little plaintive note in her weak voice. + +Peter considered. + +"Not so much to tell exactly as to talk about. Yes, there's lots to +say.... She's coming to see you, Rhoda, directly they come up to town. +It's so funny to think you and she have never met." + +"Is it? Well, I don't know. I've not met any of your cousins really, +have I?" + +Rhoda was in one of her slightly pettish moods this evening. Peter didn't +better matters by saying, "Oh, well, none of the others count. Lucy and I +have always been different from most cousins, I suppose; more like +brother and sister, I daresay." + +Rhoda looked at him sharply. She was in a fault-finding mood. + +"You think more of her than you do of anyone else. Of course, I know +that." + +Peter was startled. He stopped stroking the kitten and looked at her +through the dim firelight. The suspicion of a vulgar scene was in the +air, and frightened him. Then he remembered that Rhoda was in frail +health, and said very gently, "Oh, Rhoda darling, don't say silly things, +like a young gurl in a novelette," and slithered along the floor and laid +his arm across her lap and laughed up into her face. + +She sniffed a little, and dabbed her handkerchief at her eyes. + +"It's all very well, Peter, but you do care for her a lot, you know you +do." + +"But of course I do," said Peter, laying his cheek against her knee. "You +don't _mind_, Rhoda, do you?" + +"You care for her," said Rhoda, but softening under his caresses, "and +you care for her husband. You care for him awfully, Peter; more than for +her really, I believe; more than for anyone in the world, don't you?" + +"Don't," said Peter, his voice muffled against her dress. "I can't +compare one thing with another like that, and I don't want to. Isn't +one's caring for each of the people one knows quite different from every +other? Isn't yours? Can you say which you love best, the sun rising over +the river, or St. Mark's, or a Bellini Madonna? Of course you can't, and +it's immoral to try. So I'm not going to place Lucy and Denis and you and +Rodney and Peggy and the kitten in a horrid class-list. I won't. Do you +hear?" + +He drew one of her small thin hands down to his lips, then moved it up +and placed it on his head, and drew it gently to and fro, ruffling his +hair. + +"You're a silly, Peter," said Rhoda, and there was peace. + +Very soon after that Lucy came. She came in the afternoon before Peter +got home, and Rhoda looked with listless interest at the small, wide-eyed +person in a grey frock and big grey hat that made her small, pale face +look like a white flower. Pretty? Rhoda wasn't sure. Very like Peter; so +perhaps not pretty; only one liked to look at her. Clever? It didn't +transpire that she was. Witty? Well, much more amused than amusing; and +when she was amused she came out with Peter's laugh, which Rhoda wasn't +sure was in good taste on her part. Absurdly like Peter she was, to +look at and to listen to, and in some inner essence which was beyond +definition. The thought flashed through Rhoda's mind that it was no +wonder these two found things to tell each other every other Sunday; +they would be interested in all the same things, so it must be easy. + +Remotely, dully, Rhoda thought these things, as things which didn't +concern her particularly. Less and less each day she had grown to care +whether Peter found his cousin Lucy a kindred spirit or not. She could +work herself up into a fit of petulant jealousy about it at times; but +it didn't touch her inmost being; it was a very surface grievance. + +So she looked at Lucy dispassionately, and let herself, without a +struggle, be caught and held by that ingenuous charm, a charm as of a +small woodland flower set dancing by the winds of spring. She noticed +that when the kitten that was now nearly a cat sprang on to Lucy's lap, +she stroked its fur backwards with her flat hand and spread fingers +precisely as Peter always did. + +Then Peter came in, and he and Lucy laughed the same laugh at one +another, and then they had tea. After all, Rhoda didn't see now that they +were so like. Peter talked much more; he said twenty words to Lucy's +one; Lucy wasn't a great talker at all. Peter was a chatterbox; there was +no denying that. And their features and eyes and all weren't so like, +either. But when one had said all this, there was something... something +inner, essential, indefinable, of the spirit, that was not of like +substance but the same. So it is sometimes with twins. Rhoda, her +intuitive faculties oddly sharpened, took in this. Peter might care +most for Denis Urquhart; he might love Rhoda as a wife; but Lucy, less +consciously loved than either, was intimately one with himself. + +Peter asked "How is Denis?" and Lucy answered "Very well, of course. And +very busy playing at being a real member. Isn't it fun? Oh, he sent you +his love. And you're to come and see us soon." + +That last wasn't a message from Denis; Peter knew that. He knew that +there would be no more such messages from Denis; the Margerisons had gone +a little too far in their latest enterprise; they had strained the cord +to breaking-point, and it had broken. In future Denis might be kind and +friendly to Peter when they met, but he wouldn't bring about meetings; +they would embarrass him. But Lucy knew nothing of that. Denis hadn't +mentioned to her what had happened at Astleys last November; he never +dwelt on unpleasant subjects or made a talk about them. So Lucy said to +Peter and Rhoda, "You must come and see us soon," and Peter said, "You're +so far away, you know," evading her, and she gave him a sudden wide clear +look, taking in all he didn't say, which was the way they had with one +another, so that no deceits could ever stand between them. + +"Don't be _silly_, Peter," she told him; then, "'_Course_ you must come"; +but he only smiled at her and said, "Some day, perhaps." + +"Honey sandwiches, if you come at tea-time," she reminded him. "D'_you_ +like them, Rhoda?" She used the name prettily, half shyly, with one of +her luminous, friendly looks. "They're Peter's favourite food, you know." + +But Rhoda didn't know; Peter had never told her; perhaps because it would +be extravagant to have them, perhaps because he never put even foods into +class-lists. Only Lucy knew without being told, probably because it was +her favourite food too. + +When Lucy went, it was as if a ray of early spring sunshine had stolen +into the room and gone. A luminous person: that was the thing Rhoda felt +her to be; a study in clear pale lights; one would not have been +surprised if she had crept in on a wind from a strange fairy world with +her arms full of cold wet primroses, and danced out, taking with her the +souls of those who dwelt within. Rhoda wasn't jealous now, if she had +ever had a touch of that. + +Neither Peter nor Rhoda went to the Urquharts' house, which was a long +way off. But Lucy came again, many times, to Greville Street, through +that spring and summer, stroking the cat's fur backwards, laughing at +Peter, shyly friendly to Rhoda. + +And then for a time her laughter was sad and her eyes wistful, because +her father died. She said once, "I feel so stranded now, Peter; cut off +from what was my life; from what really is my life, you know. Father and +Felicity and I were so disreputable always, and as long as I had father +I could be disreputable too, whenever I felt I couldn't bear being +prosperous. I had only to go inside the house and there I was--you know, +Peter?--it was all round me, and I was part of it.... Now I'm cut off +from all that sort of thing. Denis and I _are_ so well off, d'you know. +Everything goes right. Denis's friends are all so happy and successful +and beautifully dressed. I _like_ them to be, of course; they are joys, +like the sun shining; only..." + +"The poor are always with you," suggested Peter. "You can always come to +Greville Street, if you can't find them nearer at hand. And when you come +we'll take Algernon's blue neck-ribbon off, that none of us may appear +beautifully dressed." + +"But I _like_ Algernon's blue bow," Lucy protested. "I love people to be +bright and beautiful.... That's why I like Denis so much, you know. Only +I'm not sure I properly belong, that's all." + +Obviously the remedy was to come to Greville Street. Lucy came more and +more as the months went by. + +Rhoda said once, "Doesn't it bother you to come all this way, into these +ugly streets?" and she shook her head. + +"Oh, I _like_ it. I like these streets better than the ones round us. And +I like your house better than ours too; it's smaller." + +Rhoda could have thought she looked wistful, this fortunate person who +was in love with her splendid husband and lived in the dwellings of the +prosperous. + +"Don't you like large houses?" she asked, without much caring; for she +was absorbed in her own thoughts in these days. + +Lucy puckered her wide forehead. + +"Why, no. No, I don't believe I do," she said, as if she was finding it +out with a little surprise. + +Rhoda saw her one day in July. In a few weeks, she told Rhoda (Peter was +out that afternoon), she and Denis were going up to Scotland, to stay +with people. + +"We shall miss you," said Rhoda dully. + +"And me you," said Lucy, with a more acute sense of it. + +"Peter'll miss you dreadfully," said Rhoda. She was lying on the sofa, +pale and tired in the heat. + +"Only," said Lucy, "next month you'll both be feeling too interested to +miss anyone." + +"Peter," said Rhoda, "cares more about the baby coming than I do." + +Lucy said, "Peter loves little weak funny things like that." She was a +little sad that Rhoda didn't seem to care more about the baby; babies are +such entrancing toys to those who like toys, people like her and Peter. + +Suddenly Lucy saw that two large tears were rolling down Rhoda's pale +cheeks as she lay. Lucy knelt by the sofa side and took Rhoda's hand in +both of hers and laid her cheek upon it. + +"Please, little Rhoda, not to cry. Please, little Rhoda, tell me." + +Rhoda, with her other hand, brushed the tears away. + +"I'm a silly. I suppose I'm crying because I can't feel to care about +anything in the world, and I wish I could. What's the use of a baby if +you can't love it? What's the use of a husb--" + +Lucy's hand was over her lips, and Lucy whispered, "Oh, hush, little +Rhoda, hush!" + +But Rhoda pushed the hand away and cried, "Oh, why do we pretend and +pretend and pretend? It's Guy I care for--Guy, Guy, Guy, who's gone for +good and all." + +She fell to crying drearily, with Lucy's arms about her. + +"But you _mustn't_ cry," said Lucy, her own eyes brimming over; "you +mustn't, you mustn't. And you do care for Peter, you know you do, only +it's so hot, and you're tired and ill. If that horrible Guy was here--oh, +I know he's horrible--you'd know you cared for Peter most. You mustn't +_say_ things, Rhoda; it makes them alive." Her eyes were wide and +frightened as she looked over Rhoda's head out of the window. + +Slowly Rhoda quieted down, and lay numb and still. + +"You won't tell Peter," she said; and Lucy said, "Oh, Rhoda!" + +"Well, of course I know you wouldn't. Only that you and Peter tell one +another things without saying anything.... Peter belongs to you really, +you know, not to me at all. All he thinks and says and is--it's all +yours. He's never really been near _me_ like that, not from the +beginning. I was a silly to let him sacrifice himself for me the way he's +done. We don't belong really, Peter and I; however friendly we are, we +don't belong; we don't understand each other like you two do.... You +don't mind my saying that, do you?" for Lucy had dropped her hands and +fallen away. + +"I mind your saying anything," said Lucy, "just now. Don't say things: it +makes them alive. It's hot, and you're tired, and I'm not going to stay +any more." + +She got up from the floor and stood for a moment looking down at Rhoda. +Rhoda saw her eyes, how they were wet and strange and far-away, and full +of what seemed an immense weight of pity; pity for all the sadnesses of +mankind. + +The next moment Lucy's cool finger-tips touched her forehead in a light +caress, and Lucy was gone. + + + + +CHAPTER XV + +THE LOSS OF A WIFE + + +In September Peter and Rhoda had a son, whom they called Thomas, because, +Peter said, he had a sceptical look about the eyes and nose. Peter was +pleased with him, and he with Peter. Rhoda wasn't much interested; she +looked at him and said he was rather like Peter, and might be taken away +now, please. + +"Like me?" Peter wondered dubiously. "Well, I know I'm not handsome, +but..." + +Peggy, a born mother, took Thomas into her large heart at once, with her +out-at-elbows infants, and was angry with Rhoda for not showing more +interest. + +"You'd think, from the way of her, that it was her thirteenth instead of +her first," she complained to Hilary. "I've no patience with the silly, +mooning child. She's nothing like good enough for Peter, and that's a +fact, and she'd have a right to realise it and try to improve for very +shame, instead of moping the way she does. It's my belief, Hilary, that +her silly little heart's away after the Vyvian man, whatever haunt of +wickedness he's adorning now. I don't want to believe it of her; but +there's no end to the folly of the human heart, is there, now? I wish she +was a Catholic and had a priest to make her take shame to herself; but +there's no hold one has over her as it is, for she won't say a word to me +beyond 'Yes' and 'No,' and 'Take him away, please, he tires me.' I nearly +told her she'd a right not to be so easily tired by her own son now she's +getting her health. But there, she's a poor frail thing and one can't +speak roughly to her for fear she breaks in two." + +Hilary said, "After all, there's no great cause for rejoicing in a man's +being born into the world to trouble; I suppose she feels that. It will +make it more difficult than ever for them and for us to make both ends +meet." + +"Oh, meet," groaned Peggy, "that's not what there's any thought of their +doing in these days, my dear. If one can bring them within a mile of one +another, one's thankful for small mercies." + +Hilary rested his head on his hand and sighed. + +"Have you spoken to Peter yet about appealing to the Urquharts?" he +asked. + +"Darling, I have not, and I'm not going to. Why should I annoy the poor +child to no purpose? He'll not appeal to the Urquharts, we know that +well, and I'm not going to waste my breath. I'd far rather--" + +"What?" asked Hilary, as she paused. + +"Oh well, I don't know. Don't you worry about ways and means; something +will surely turn up before long." Peggy was an optimist. + +"And anyhow," went on Peggy, to change the subject from ways and means, +which was a depressing one, "isn't our little Peter a darling with his +baby? I love to see them together. He washes it himself as often as +not, you know; only he can't always catch it again when it slips through +his hands, and that worries him. He's dreadfully afraid of its getting +drowned or spoilt or lost or something." + +"It probably will," said Hilary, who was a pessimist. "Peter is no hand +at keeping things. We are not a fortunate family." + +"Never mind, darling; we've kept three; and more by token Kitty _must_ +have a new pair of boots this winter; she's positively indecent the way +she goes about now. I can't help it, Hilary; you must pawn your ring +again or something." + +Peggy didn't want to say anything else depressing, so she didn't mention +that Miss Matthews had that morning given notice of her departure. But in +Peggy's own mind there was a growing realisation that something drastic +must really be done soon. + +October went by. When Peter knew that the Urquharts had come back to +London, he wondered why Lucy didn't come to see Thomas. So he wrote and +asked her to, and on that she came. + +She came at tea-time, one day when Rhoda happened to have gone out. So +Peter and Lucy had tea alone together, and Thomas lay in his crib and +looked at them, and Algernon snored on Lucy's knee, and the November fog +shut out the outer world like a blanket, and blurred the gas-light in the +dingy room. + +Peter thought Lucy was rather quiet and pale, and her chuckle was a +little subdued. Her dominant aspect, of clear luminousness, was somehow +dimmed and mystified, with all other lights, in this blurred afternoon. +Her wide clear eyes, strange always with the world's gay wonder and +mystery, had become eyes less gay, eyes that did not understand, that +even shrank a little from what they could not understand. Lucy looked a +touch puzzled, not so utterly the glad welcomer of all arriving things +that she had always been. + +But for Thomas, the latest arrived thing, she had a glad welcome. +Like Peter, she loved all little funny weak things; and Thomas seemed +certainly that, as he lay and blinked at the blurred gas and curled his +fingers round one of Peter's. A happy, silent person, with doubts, one +fancied, as to the object of the universe, but no doubts that there were +to be found in it many desirable things. + +When Lucy came in, Peter was reading aloud to him some of Traherne's +"Divine Reflections on the Native Objects of an Infant-Eye," which he +seemed rather to like. + + "I that so long [Peter told him he was thinking, + Was _Nothing_ from Eternity, + Did little think such Joys as Ear and Tongue + To celebrate or see: + Such Sounds to hear, such Hands to feel, such Feet, + Such Eyes and Objects on the Ground to Meet. + + "New burnisht Joys! + Which finest Gold and Pearl excell!" + +"Oo," said Thomas expectantly. + + "A Stranger here, [Peter told him further, + Strange things doth meet, strange Glory see; + Strange Treasures lodg'd in this fair World appear, + Strange all and New to me: + But that they _mine_ should be who Nothing was, + _That_ strangest is of all; yet brought to pass." + +"Ow," said Thomas, agreeing. + +Peter turned over the pages. "Do you like it? Do you think so too? Here's +another about you." + + "But little did the Infant dream + That all the Treasures of the World were by, + And that himself was so the Cream + And Crown of all which round about did ly. + Yet thus it was!..." + +"I don't think you'd understand the rest of that verse, Thomas; it's +rather more difficult. 'Yet thus it was!' We'll end there, and have our +tea." + +Turning his head he saw that Lucy had come in and was standing behind +him, looking over his shoulder at Thomas in his crib. + +"Oh, Lucy," he said, "I'm reading to Thomas. Thomas is that. Do you like +him? He is surprised at life, but quite pleased. He that was _Nothing_ +from Eternity did little think such Joys to celebrate or see. Yet thus it +is. He is extraordinarily happy about it all, but he can't do anything +yet, you know--not speak or sit up or anything. He can only make noises, +and cry, and drink, and slither about in his bath like a piece of wet +soap. Wasn't there a clergyman once who thought his baby ought to be +baptised by immersion unless it was proved not well able to endure it, +as it says in the rubric or somewhere, so he put it in a tub to try if +it could endure it or not, and he let it loose by accident and couldn't +catch it again, it was so slippery, just like a horrid little fish, and +its mother only came in and got hold of it just in time to prevent its +being drowned? So after that he felt he could honestly certify that the +child couldn't well endure immersion. I'm getting better at catching +Thomas, though. He isn't supposed to slip off my hand at all, but he +kicks and slithers so I can't hold him, and swims away and gets lost. +After tea will you come and help me wash him? Rhoda's out to tea; I'm so +sorry. But there's tea, and Thomas and Algernon and me, and--and rather +thick bread and butter only, apparently; but I shall have jam now you've +come. First I must adjust Thomas's drinking-bottle; he always likes a +drink while we have our tea. He's two months old. Is he good for that, +do you think, or should he be a size larger? But I rather like them +small, don't you? They're lighter so, for one thing. Is he nice? Do you +like him?" + +Lucy, kneeling by the crib, nodded. + +"He's very old and wise, Peter; very old and gay. Look at his eyes. He's +much--oh very much--older than you or me. That's as it should be." + +"He'll rejuvenate with years, won't he?" said Peter. "At present he's +too old to laugh when I make jokes; he thinks them silly; but he'll be +sillier than anyone himself in about six months, I expect. Now we'll have +tea." + +Lucy left Thomas and came to the tea-table and poured out tea for both of +them. + +"I'm trying to learn to do without three lumps," said Peter, as Lucy put +them in. "I expect it's extravagant to have three, really. But then Rhoda +and Thomas don't take any, so it's only the same as if we each had one, +isn't it. Thomas shan't be allowed more than one in each cup when he +grows young enough to want any; Rhoda and I mean him to be a refined +person." + +"I don't think he will be," said Lucy, looking thoughtfully into the +future. "I expect he'll be as vulgar as you and me. He's awfully like you +to look at, Peter." + +"So I am informed. Well, I'm not vain, and I don't claim to be an Adonis, +like Denis. Is Denis flourishing? The birds were splendid; they came so +thick and fast that I gathered it was being a remarkable season. But as +you only answered my numerous letters by one, and that apropos merely of +Thomas's arrival, I could only surmise and speculate on your doings. I +suppose you thought the grouse were instead of letters." + +"They were Denis's letters. _I_ didn't shoot the grouse, dear darlings, +nor send them." + +"What were your letters, then?" + +"Well, I sent rowan berries, didn't I? Weren't they red?" + +"Yes. Even Thomas read them. We're being rather funny, aren't we? Is +Denis going on with Parliament again this autumn, or has he begun to get +tired of it?" + +"Not a bit tired of it. He doesn't bother about it particularly, you +know; not enough to tire himself; he sort of takes it for granted, like +going up to Scotland in August." + +Peter nodded. "I know. He would take it just like that if he was +Prime Minister, or Archbishop of Canterbury. I daresay he will be one +day; isn't it nice the way things drop into his hands without his +bothering to get them." + +He didn't see the queer, silent look Lucy turned on him as he spread his +thick bread and butter with blackberry jam. + +"Thomas," she said after a moment, "has dropped into your hands, Peter." +It was as if she was protesting against something, beating herself +against some invisible, eternal barrier that divided the world into +two unequal parts. + +Peter said, "Rather, he has. I do hope he'll never drop out. I'm getting +very handy about holding him, though. Oh, let's take him upstairs and tub +him now; do you mind?" + +So they took him upstairs and tubbed him, and Lucy managed to hold him so +firmly that he didn't once swim away and get lost. + +As they were drying him (Lucy dried him with a firmer and more effective +hand than Peter, who always wiped him very gingerly lest he should +squash) Rhoda came in. She was strange-eyed and pale in the blurred +light, and greeted Lucy in a dreamy, absent way. + +"I've had tea out.... Oh, have you bathed baby? How good of you. I meant +to be in earlier, but I was late.... The fog's awful; it's getting +thicker and thicker." + +She sat down by the fire and loosened her coat, and took off her hat and +rubbed the fog from her wet hair, and coughed. Rhoda had grown prettier +lately; she looked less tired and listless, and her eyes were brighter, +and the fire flushed her thin cheek to rose-colour as she bent over it. + +Peter took her wet things from her and took off her shoes and put +slippers on her feet, and she gave him an absent smile. Rhoda had had +a dreamy way with her since Thomas's birth; moony, as Peggy, who didn't +approve, called it. + +A little later, when Thomas was clean and warm and asleep in his bed, +they were told that Mrs. Urquhart's carriage had come. + +Lucy bent over Thomas and kissed him, then over Rhoda. Rhoda whispered in +her ear, without emotion, "Baby ought to have been yours, not mine," and +Lucy whispered back: + +"Oh hush, hush!" + +Rhoda still held her, still whispered, "Will you love him? Will you be +good to him, always?" + +And Lucy answered, opening wide eyes, "Why, of course. No one could help +it, could they?" and on that Rhoda let her go. + +Peter thought that Lucy must have infected Rhoda with some of her own +appreciation of Thomas, opened her eyes to his true worth; for during the +next week she was newly tender to him. She bathed him every evening +herself, only letting Peter help a little; she held him in her arms +without wearying of his weight, and wasn't really annoyed even when he +was sick upon her shoulder, an unfortunate habit of Thomas's. + +But a habit, Peter thought, that Thomas employed with some +discrimination; for the one and only one time that Guy Vyvian took him +in his arms--or rather submitted to his being put there by Rhoda--Thomas +was sicker than he had ever been before, with an immense completeness. + +"Just what I always feel myself," commented Peter in his own mind, as +Thomas was hastily removed. "I'm glad someone has shown him at last what +the best people feel about him." + +Vyvian had come to call. It was the first time Peter had met him since +his marriage; he hoped it would be the last. The object of the call +was to inspect Thomas, Rhoda said. Thomas was inspected, produced the +impression indicated above, and was relegated to the region of things for +which Vyvian had no use. He detested infants; children of any sort, in +fact; and particularly Thomas, who had Peter's physiognomy and expressed +Peter's sentiments in a violently ill-bred way. + +Peter, a little later, was very glad that Thomas had revealed himself +thus openly on this occasion. For it quite sealed Thomas's fate, if +anything more was needed to seal it than the fact that Thomas would be +an impossible burden, and also belonged by right to Peter. Anyhow, they +left Thomas behind them when they went. + +Rhoda wrote a scrawled note for Peter one foggy Monday morning, and +hugged Thomas close and cried a little, and slipped out into the misty +city with a handbag. Peter, coming in at tea-time, found the note on +the sitting-room chimney-piece. It said:-- + +"Don't try to follow me, Peter, for I can't come back. I _have_ tried to +care for you more than him and be a good wife, but I can't. You know I +told you when we got engaged that I cared for him, and I tried so hard +to stop, and I thought I would be able, with you to help me, but I +couldn't do it. For the first few months I thought I could, but all the +time it was there, like a fire in me, eating me up; and later on he began +writing to me, but for a long time I wouldn't answer, and then he came to +see me, and I said he mustn't, but he's been meeting me out and I +couldn't stop him, and at last it grew that I knew I loved him so that it +was no use pretending any more. I'd better go, Peter, for what's the use +of trying to be a good wife to you when all I care for is him. I know +he's not good, and you are, but I love him, and I must go when he wants +me. It was all a mistake; you and I ought never to have married. You +meant it kindly, I know; you meant to help me and make me happy, but it +was no use. You and I never properly belonged. When I saw you and Lucy +together, I knew we didn't belong, not like that; we didn't properly +understand each other's ways and thoughts, like you two did. I love Lucy, +too. You and she are so like. And she'll be good to Baby; she said she +would. I hate to leave Baby, but Guy won't let me bring him, and anyhow +I suppose I couldn't, because he's yours. I've written a list of his +feeds, and it's on the chimney-piece behind the clock; please make +whoever sees to him go by it or he gets a pain. Please be careful when +you bath him; I think Mrs. Adams had better do it usually. She'll take +care of him for you, or Peggy will, perhaps. You'll think I never cared +for him, but I do, I love him, only I must love Guy most of all. I don't +know if I shall be happy or miserable, but I expect miserable, only I +must go with Guy. Please, dear Peter, try and understand this, and +forgive me. I think you will, because you always do understand things, +and forgive them too; I think you are the kindest person I ever knew. If +I thought you loved me really, I don't think I'd go, even for Guy; but I +know you've only felt kindly to me all along, so I think it is best for +you too that I should go, and you will be thankful in the end. Good-bye. +You promised mother to see after me, I know, for she told me before she +died; well, you've done your best, and mother'd be grateful to you if she +could know. I suppose some would say she does know, perhaps; but I don't +believe those stories; I believe it's all darkness beyond, and silence. +And if it is, we must try and get all the light and warmth here that we +can. So I'm going. + +"Good-bye, Peter. + +"Rhoda." + +Peter read it through, sitting on the rug by the fire. When he had +finished it, he put it into the fire and watched it burn. Then he sighed, +and sat very still for a while, his hands clasped round one knee. + +Presently he got up and looked behind the clock, and saw that the next +feeding-time was due now. So he rang for Mrs. Adams, the landlady, and +asked her if she would mind bringing Thomas's bottle. + +When Thomas had it, Peter stood and looked down upon him as he drank with +ill-bred noises. + +"Gently, Thomas: you'll choke. You'll choke and die, I know you will. +Then you'll be gone too. Everything goes, Thomas. Everything I touch +breaks; everything I try to do fails. That's because I'm such an ass, +I suppose. I did think I could perhaps make one little unlucky girl +decently happy; but I couldn't, you see. So she's gone after light and +warmth, and she'll--she'll break her heart in a year, and it'll be my +fault. Follow her? No, I shan't do that. I shouldn't find her, and if I +did what would be the use? If she must go, she must; she was only eating +her heart out here; and perhaps it's better to break one's heart on +something than eat it out in emptiness. No, it isn't better in this case. +Anything in the world would have been better than this; that she should +have gone with that--that person. Yet thus it is. And they'll all set on +her and speak against her, and I shall have to bear it. You and I will +have to bear it together, Thomas.... I suppose I ought to be angry. I +ought to want to go after them, to the end of the world or wherever +they've gone and kill him and bring her back. But I can't. I should fail +in that too. I'm tired of trying to do things; simply horribly tired of +it, Thomas." He sat down on the rug with Thomas in his arms; and there, +an hour later, Peggy found them. She swung in breezily, crying, "Oh, +Peter, all alone in the dark? Where's Rhoda? Why, the silly children +haven't had their tea!" she added, looking at the unused cups on the +tea-table. + +Peter looked up vaguely. "Oh, tea. I forgot. I don't think I want any +tea to-day. And Thomas has had his. And Rhoda's gone. It's no good not +telling you--is it?--because you'll find out. She's gone away. It's been +my fault entirely; I didn't make her happy, you see. And she's written +out a list of the times Thomas has to feed at. I suppose Mrs. Adams will +do that if I ask her, and generally look after him when I'm out." + +Peggy stood aghast before him for a moment, staring, then collapsed, +breathless, on the sofa, crying, with even more r's than usual. + +"_Peter!_... Why, she's gone and rrun off with that toad, that rreptile +man! Oh, I know it, so it's not a bit of use your trying to keep it from +me." + +"Very well," said Peter; "I suppose it's not." + +"Oh, the little fool, the little, silly, wicked fool! But if ever a +little fool got her rich deserts without needing to wait for purgatory, +that one'll be Rhoda.... Oh, Peter, be more excited and angry! Why +aren't you stamping up and down and vowing vengeance, instead of sitting +on the hearth saying, 'Rhoda's gone,' as if it was the kitten?" + +"I'm sorry, Peggy." Peter sighed a little. "I'm nursing Thomas, you see." + +Peggy at that was on her knees on the floor, taking both of them into her +large embrace. + +"Oh, you two poor little darling boys, what's to become of you both? That +child has a heart of stone, to leave you to yourselves the way she's +done. Don't defend her, Peter; I won't hear a word said for her again +as long as I live; she deserves Guy Vyvian, and I couldn't say a worse +word for her than that. You poor little Tommy; come to me then, babykins. +You must come back to us now, Peter, and I'll look after you both." + +She cuddled Thomas to her breast with one arm, and put the other round +Peter's shoulders as he sat huddled up, his chin resting on his knees. +At the moment it was difficult to say which of the two looked the most +forsaken, the most left to himself. Only Thomas hadn't yet learnt to +laugh, and Peter had. He laughed now, softly and not happily. + +"It _has_ been rather a ghastly fiasco, hasn't it," he said. "Absurd, you +know, too, in a way. I thought it was all working out so nicely, Thomas +coming and everything. But no. It wasn't working out nicely at all. +Things don't as a rule, do they?" + +There was a new note of dreariness in his voice; a note that had perhaps +been kept out of it of set purpose for a long time. Now there seemed at +the moment no particular reason to keep it out any more, though fresh +reasons would arrive, no doubt, very soon; and Thomas when waking was a +reason in himself. But in this dim hour between two roads, this hour of +relaxation of tension in the shadowy firelight, when Thomas slept and +only Peggy listened, Peter, having fallen crashing through floor after +floor of his pleasant house of life, till he was nearly at the bottom, +looked up at all the broken floors and sighed. + +Peggy's arm was comfortingly about him. To her he was always a little, +brittle, unlucky boy, as she had first seen him long ago. + +"Never you mind, Peterkin. There's a good time coming, I do believe. +She'll come back, perhaps; who knows? Vyvian wouldn't do for long, not +even for Rhoda. Besides, you may be sure he'll throw her off soon, and +then she'll want to come back to you and Tommy. I wouldn't say that to +any other man, because, of course, no other man would have her back; but +I do believe, Peterkin, that you would, wouldn't you now? I expect you'd +smile and say, 'Oh, come in, you're just in time for tea and to see me +bath Thomas,' and not another word about it." + +"Probably," said Peter. "There wouldn't be much to say, would there? +But she won't come back; I know that. Even if she leaves him she won't. +Rhoda's horribly proud really, you know. She'd sooner sweep a crossing, +or trim hats or something, than come near us again. I don't know what to +hope about it. I suppose one must hope they'll go on together, as Rhoda +seems to like him as he is; but it's an awful thought.... She's right +that we never understood each other. I couldn't, you know, bear to think +of spending even one day alone with Vyvian. I should be sick, like +Thomas. The mere sight of his hair is enough, and his hand with that +awful ring on it. I--I simply draw the line at him. _Why_ does Rhoda +care for him? How can she?" Peter frowned over it in bewilderment. + +Peggy said, "Girls are silly things. And I suppose the way one's been +brought up counts, and what one's inherited, and all that." + +"Well, if Rhoda'd taken after Mrs. Johnson she wouldn't have liked +Vyvian. He used to give her the creeps, like a toad. She told me so. +She disliked him more than I did.... Well, I shall never understand. I +suppose if I could Rhoda would have found me more sympathetic, and might +have stayed." + +"Now, darling, you're not to sit up and brood any more; that won't help. +You're coming straight back with me to dinner, and Tommy's coming too, to +sleep. I shall ask Mrs. Adams to help me get his things together." + +"He hasn't many things," said Peter, looking vaguely round for them. "I +got him a rattle and a ball, but he doesn't seem to care about them much; +Lucy says he's not young enough yet. Here's his bottle. And his night +clothes are upstairs, and his other day clothes, and his bath. Thomas +leads the simple life, though; he really possesses very little; I think +he's probably going to be a Franciscan later on. But he can sleep with me +here all right; I should like to have him; only it would be awfully good +of you if you'd have him to-morrow, while I'm out at work. But in the +night he and I rather like each other's company." + +"Rubbish," said Peggy. "You're both coming along to fifty-one this +minute. You don't suppose I'm going to leave you two infants alone +together like that. We've heaps of room at fifty-one"--she sighed a +little--"people have been fading away like the flowers of the forest, +and we should be thankful to have you back." + +"Oh, we'll come then; thanks very much, Peggy." Peter's ready +sympathy was turned on again, having temporarily been available only +for himself and Rhoda and Thomas. He remembered now that Peggy and Hilary +needed it too. He and Thomas would go and be boarders in the emptying +boarding-house; it might amuse Thomas, perhaps, to see the other +boarders. + +"And we'll have him baptized," went on Peggy, thinking of further +diversions for Thomas and Peter. "You'll let him be a Catholic, Peter, +won't you?" + +"Thomas," said Peter, "can be anything he likes that's nice. As long as +he's not a bigot. I won't have him refusing to go into one sort of church +because he prefers another; he mustn't ever acquire the rejecting habit. +Short of that, he may enter any denomination or denominations he +prefers." + +They were collecting Thomas's belongings as they talked. Thomas lay and +looked at them with the very blue slits that were like his father's eyes +grown old. And suddenly Peggy, looking from son to father, saw that +Peter's eyes had grown as old as Thomas's, looking wearily out of a pale, +pinched face. + +Peggy's own eyes brimmed over as she bent over Thomas's night-shirt. + + + + +CHAPTER XVI + +A LONG WAY + + +Lord Evelyn Urquhart dined with his nephew on the last evening in +February. It was a characteristic Urquhart dinner-party; the guests were +mostly cheerful, well-bred young people of high spirits and of the +worldly station that is not much concerned with any aspect of money but +the spending of it. High living, plain thinking, agreeable manners and +personal appearance, plenty of humour, enough ability to make a success +of the business of living and not enough to agitate the brain, a light +tread along a familiar and well-laid road, and a serene blindness to +side-tracks and alleys not familiar nor well-laid and to those that +walked thereon--these were the characteristics of the pleasant people +who frequented Denis Urquhart's pleasant house in Park Lane. + +Lucy was among them, small and pale, and rather silent, and intensely +alive. She, of course, was a native not of Park Lane but of Chelsea; and +the people who had frequented her home there were of a different sort. +They had had, mostly, a different kind of brain, a kind more restless and +troublesome and untidy, and a different type of wit, more pungent and +ironic, less well-fed and hilarious, and they were less well-dressed and +agreeable to look at, and had (perhaps) higher thoughts (though how shall +one measure height?) and ate (certainly) plainer food, for lack of +richer. These were the people Lucy knew. Her father himself had been of +these. She now found her tent pitched among the prosperous; and the study +of them touched her wide gaze with a new, pondering look. Denis hadn't +any use for cranks. None of his set were socialists, vegetarians, +Quakers, geniuses, anarchists, drunkards, poets, anti-breakfasters, or +anti-hatters; none of them, in fine, the sort of person Lucy was used to. +They never pawned their watches or walked down Bond Street in Norfolk +coats. They had, no doubt, their hobbies; but they were suitable, +well-bred hobbies, that did not obtrude vulgarly on other people's +notice. Peter had once said that if he were a plutocrat he would begin +to dream dreams. Lucy supposed that the seemingly undreaming people +who were Denis's friends were not rich enough; they hadn't reached +plutocracy, where romance resides, but merely prosperity, which has fewer +possibilities. Lucy began in these days to ponder on the exceeding evil +of Socialism, which the devil has put it into certain men's hearts to +desire. For, thought Lucy, sweep away the romantic rich, sweep away +the dreaming destitute, and what have you left? The prosperous; the +comfortable; the serenely satisfied; the sanely reasonable. Dives, with +his purple and fine linen, his sublime outlook over a world he may +possess at a touch, goes to his own place; Lazarus, with his wallet for +crusts and his place among the dogs and his sharp wonder at the world's +black heart, is gathered to his fathers: there remain the sanitary +dwellings of the comfortable, the monotonous external adequacy that +touches no man's inner needs, the lifeless rigour of a superintended +well-being. Decidedly, thought Lucy, siding with the Holy Roman Church, +a scheme of the devil's. Denis and his friends also thought it was rot. +So no doubt it was. Denis belonged to the Conservative party. Lucy +thought parties funny things, and laughed. Though she had of late taken +to wandering far into seas of thought, so that her wide forehead was +often puckered as she sat silent, she still laughed at the world. Perhaps +the more one thinks about it the more one laughs; the height and depth of +its humour are certainly unfathomable. + +On this last night of February, Lord Evelyn, when the other guests had +gone, put his unsteady white hand under Lucy's chin and raised her small +pale face and looked at it out of his near-sighted, scrutinising eyes, +and said: + +"Humph. You're thinner." + +Lucy's eyes laughed up at him. + +"Am I? I suppose I'm growing old." + +"You're worrying. What's it about?" asked Lord Evelyn. + +They were in the library. Lord Evelyn and Denis sat by the fire in +leather chairs and smoked, and Lucy sat on a hassock between them, her +chin in her hands. + +She was silent for a moment. Then she looked up at Denis, who was reading +Punch, and said, "I've had a letter from Peggy Margerison this morning." + +Denis gave a sound between a grunt and a chuckle. The grunt element was +presumably for Peggy Margerison, the chuckle for Punch. + +Lord Evelyn, tapping his eye-glass on the arm of his chair, said, "Well? +Well?" impatiently, nervously. + +Lucy drew a note from her pocket (she was never pocketless) and spread it +on her knees. It was a long letter on crinkly paper, written in a large, +dashing, sprawling hand, full of curls, generosities, extravagances. + +"She says," said Lucy, "(Please listen, Denis,) that--that they want +money." + +"I somehow thought that would be what she said," Denis murmured, still +half preoccupied. "I'm sure she's right." + +"A woman who writes a hand like that," put in Lord Evelyn, "will always +spend more than she has. A hole in the purse; a hole in the purse." + +"She says," went on Lucy, looking through the letter with wrinkled +forehead, "that they're all very hard-up indeed. Of course, I knew that; +I can see it whenever I go there; only Peter will never take more than +silly little clothes and things for Thomas. And now Peggy says they're in +great straits; Thomas is going to teethe or something, and wants better +milk, all from one cow, and they're all awfully in debt." + +"I should fancy that was chronic," remarked Denis, turning to Essence of +Parliament. + +"A hole in the purse, a hole in the purse," muttered Lord Evelyn, tapping +with his eye-glass. + +"Peggy says that Peter won't ask for help himself, but he's let her, +it seems. And their boarders are nearly all gone, one of them quite +suddenly, without paying a sixpence for all the time he was there." + +"I suppose he didn't think he'd had sixpence worth," said Denis. "He was +probably right." + +"And Thomas is still very delicate after his bronchitis, and Peter's got +a bad cold on the chest and wants more cough-mixture than they can afford +to buy; and they owe money to the butcher and the fishmonger and the +baker and the doctor and the tailor, and Hilary's lost his latest job and +isn't earning anything at all. So I suppose Peter is keeping the family." + +"Scamps; scamps all," muttered Lord Evelyn. "Deserve all they get, and +more. People like the Margerisons an't worth helping. They'd best go +under at once; best go under. Swindlers and scamps, the lot of them. +I daresay the woman's stories are half lies; of course, they want money, +but it's probably only to spend on nonsense. Why can't they keep +themselves, like decent people?" + +"Oh," said Lucy, dismissing that as absurd, "they can't. Of course they +can't. They never could ... Denis." + +"Lucy." Denis absently put out a hand to meet hers. + +"How much shall we give them, Denis?" + +Denis dropped Punch onto the floor, and lay back with his hands clasped +behind his fair head. Lucy, looking at his up-turned, foreshortened, +cleanly-modelled face, thought with half of her mind what a perfect +thing it was. Sudden aspects of Denis's beauty sometimes struck her +breathless, as they struck Peter. + +"The Margerison family wants money, I understand," said Denis, who hadn't +been listening attentively. + +"Very badly, Denis." + +Denis nodded. "They always do, of course.... Well, is it our business to +fill the bottomless Margerison purse?" + +Lucy sat very still, looking up at him with wide eyes. + +"Our business? I don't know. But, of course, if Peter and Peter's people +want anything, we shall give it them." + +"But I gather it's not Peter that asks? Peter never asks, does he?" + +"No," said Lucy. "Peter never asks. Not even for Thomas." + +"Well, I should be inclined to trust Peter rather than his charming +family. Peter's name seems to be dragged into that letter a good deal, +but it doesn't follow that Peter sanctioned it. I'm not going to annoy +Peter by sending him what he's never asked for. I should think probably +Peter knows they can get on all right as they are, and that this letter +must be taken with a good deal of salt. I expect the egregious Hilary +only wants the money for some new enterprise of his own, that will fail, +as usual. Anyhow, I really don't fancy having any further dealings with +Hilary Margerison or his wife; I've had enough there. He's the most +impossible cad and swindler." + +"Swindlers all, swindlers all," said Lord Evelyn, getting up and pacing +up and down the room, his hands behind his back. + +Lucy, after a moment, said simply, "I shall give them something, Denis. +I must. Don't you see? Whoever it was, I would. Because anyhow, they're +poor and we're rich, and they want things we can give them. It's so +obvious that when people ask one for things they must have them if one +can give them. And when it's Peter who's in want, and Peter's baby, and +Peter's people ..." + +"You see," said Denis, "I doubt about Peter or the baby benefiting by +anything we give them. It will all go down the drain where Hilary +Margerison's money flows away. Give it to Peter or give it to his +relations, it'll come to the same thing. Peter gives them every +penny he gets, I don't doubt. You know what Peter is; he's as weak as +a baby in his step-brother's hands; he lets himself be dragged into the +most disgraceful transactions because he can't say no." + +Lucy looked up at him, open-eyed, pale, quiet. + +"You think of Peter like that?" she said, and her voice trembled a +little. + +Lord Evelyn stopped in his walk and listened. + +"I'm sorry, Lucy," said Denis, throwing away his cigar-end. "I don't want +to say anything against Peter to you. But ... one must judge by facts, +you know. I don't mean that Peter means any harm; but, as I say, he's +weak. I'm fond of Peter, you know; I wish to goodness he wouldn't play +the fool as he does, mixing himself up with his precious relations and +helping them in their idiotic schemes for swindling money out of +people--but there it is; he will do it; and as long as he does it I don't +feel moved to have much to do with him. I should send him money if he +asked me personally, of course, even if I knew it would only go into his +brother's pocket; but I'm not going to do it at his sister-in-law's +command. If you ask me whether I feel inclined to help Hilary Margerison +and his wife, my answer is simply no I don't. They're merely scum; and +why should one have anything to do with scum?" + +Lucy looked at him silently for a while. Then she said slowly, "I see. +Yes, I see you wouldn't want to, of course. They _are_ scum. And you're +not. But I am, I think. I belong to the same sort of people they do. I +could swindle and cheat too, I expect. It's the people at the bottom who +do that. They're my relations, you see, not yours." + +"My dear Lucy, only Peter is your relation." + +"Peter and Thomas. And I count the rest too, because they're Peter's. So +let me do all that is to be done, Denis. Don't you bother. I'll take them +money." + +"Let them alone, Lucy. You'd better, you know. What's the good?" + +"I don't know," said Lucy. "None, I expect. None at all; because Peter +wouldn't take it from me without you." + +She came a little nearer him, and put her hand on his knee like a wistful +puppy. + +"Denis," she said, "I wish _you_ would. They know already that I care. +But I wish _you_ would. Peter'd like you to. He'd be more pleased than if +I did; much more. Peter cares for you and me and Thomas extraordinarily +much; and you can't compare carings, but the way he cares for you is the +most wonderful of all, I believe. If you went to him ... if you showed +him you cared ... he'd take it from you. He wouldn't take it from me +without you, because he'd suspect you weren't wanting him to have it. +Denis, won't you go to Peter, as you used to do long ago, before he was +in disgrace and poor, before he was scum? Can't you, Denis?" + +Denis had coloured faintly. He always did when people were emotional. +Lucy seldom was; she had a delicious morning freshness that was like the +cool wind on the hills in spring. + +"Peter never comes here, Lucy, does he. If he wanted to see me, I suppose +he would." + +Lucy was looking strangely at the beautiful face with the faint flush +rising in it. She apparently thought no reply necessary to his words, but +said again, "_Can't_ you, Denis? Or is it too hard, too much bother, too +much stepping out of the way?" + +"Oh, it's not the bother, of course. But ... but I really don't see +anything to be gained by it, that's the fact.... Our meetings, on the +last few occasions when we have met, haven't been particularly +comfortable. I don't think Peter likes them any better than I do.... One +can't force intercourse, Lucy; if it doesn't run easily and smoothly, it +had better be left alone. There have been things between us, between +Peter's family and my family, that can't be forgotten or put aside by +either of us, I suppose; and I don't think Peter wants to be reminded of +them by seeing me any more than I do by seeing him. It's--it's so beastly +uncomfortable, you know," he added boyishly, ruffling up his hair with +his hand; and concluded didactically, "People _must_ drift apart if their +ways lie in quite different spheres; it's inevitable." + +Denis, who had a boyish reticence, had expanded and explained himself +more than usual. + +Lucy's hand dropped from his knee on to her own. + +"I suppose it _is_ inevitable," she said, beneath her breath. "I +suppose the distance is too great. 'Tis such a long, long way from +here to there ... such a long, long way.... Good-night, Denis; I'm +going to bed." + +She got up slowly, cramped and tired and pale. It was not till she was +on her feet that she saw Lord Evelyn sitting in the background, and +remembered his presence. She had forgotten him; she had been thinking +only of Denis and Peter and herself. She didn't know if he had been +listening much; he sat quietly, nursing his knee, saying nothing. + +But when Lucy had gone he said to Denis, "You're right, Denis; you're +utterly right, not to have anything to do with those swindlers," and, as +if in a sudden fresh anger against them, he began again his quick, uneven +pacing down the room. + +"False through and through," he muttered. "False through and through." + +Lucy's face, as she had risen to her feet and said "Good night, Uncle +Evelyn," had been so like Peter's as he had last seen it, when Peter had +passed him in the doorway at Astleys, that it had taken his breath away. + + + + +CHAPTER XVII + +QUARRELS IN THE RAIN + + +In Brook Street the rain fell. It fell straight and disconsolate, +unutterably wet, splashing drearily on the paved street between the rows +of wet houses. It fell all day, from the dim dawn, through the murky +noon, to the dark evening, desolately weeping over a tired city. + +Inside number fifty-one, Peggy mended clothes and sang a little song, +with Thomas in her lap, and Peter, sitting in the window-seat, knitted +Thomas a sweater of Cambridge blue. Peter was getting rather good at +knitting. Hilary was there too, but not mending, or knitting, or singing; +he was coughing, and complaining of the climate. + +"I fancy it is going to be influenza," he observed at intervals, +shivering. "I feel extraordinarily weak, and ache all up my back. I fancy +I have a high temperature, only Peter has broken the thermometer. You +were a hundred and four, I think, Peter, the day you went to bed. I +rather expect I am a hundred and five. But I suppose I shall never know, +as it is impossible to afford another thermometer. I feel certain it is +influenza; and in that case I must give up all hope of getting that job +from Pickering, as I cannot possibly go and see him to-morrow. Not but +that it would be a detestable job, anyhow; but anything to keep our heads +above water.... My headache is now like a hot metal band all round my +head, Peggy." + +"Poor old boy," said Peggy. "Take some more phenacetine. And do go to +bed, Hilary. If you _have_ got flu, you'll only make yourself as bad as +Peter did by staying up too long. You've neither of you any more sense +than Tommy here, nor so much, by a long way, have they, little man? No, +Kitty, let him be; you'd only drop him on the floor if I let you, and +then he'd break, you know." + +Silvio was kneeling up on the window-seat by Peter's side, taking an +interest in the doings of the street. + +Peggy said, "Well, Larry, what's the news of the great world?" + +"It's raining," said Silvio, who had something of the mournful timbre of +Hilary's voice in his. + +Peggy said, "Oh, darling, be more interesting! I'm horribly afraid you're +going to grow up obvious, Larry, and that will never do. What else is it +doing?" + +"There's a cat in the rain," said Silvio, flattening his nose against the +blurred glass, and manifestly inclined to select the sadder aspects of +the world's news for retail. That tendency too, perhaps, he inherited +from Hilary. + +Presently he added, "There's a taxi coming up the street," and Peggy +placed Thomas on Peter's knees and came to the window to look. When she +had looked she said to Peter, "It must be nearly six o'clock" (the clock +gained seventeen minutes a day, so that the time was always a matter for +nicer calculation than Peggy could usually afford to give it); "and if +Hilary's got flu, I should think Tommy'd be best out of the room.... I +haven't easily the time to put him to bed this evening, really." + +Peter accepted the suggestion and conveyed his son from the room. As he +did so, someone knocked at the front door, and Peggy ran downstairs to +open it. + +She let in the unhappy noise of the rain and a tall, slim person in a fur +coat. + +Peggy was surprised, and (most rarely) a little embarrassed. It wasn't +the person she had looked for. She even, in her unwonted confusion, let +the visitor speak first. + +He said, "Is Mr. Peter Margerison in?" frostily, giving her no sign of +recognition. + +"He is not, Lord Evelyn," said Peggy, hastily. "That is, he is busy with +the baby upstairs. Will I take him a message?" + +"I shall be glad if you will tell him I have called to see him." + +"I will, Lord Evelyn. Will you come up to the drawing-room while I get +him?" + +Peggy led the way, drawing meanwhile on the resources of a picturesque +imagination. + +"He may be a little while before he can leave the baby, Lord Evelyn. Poor +mite, it's starved with hunger, the way it cries and cries and won't +leave off, and Peter has to cheer it." + +Lord Evelyn grunted. The steep stairs made him a little short of breath, +and not sympathetic. + +"And even," went on Peggy, stopping outside the drawing-room door, +"even when it does get a feed of milk, it's to-day from one kind of cow, +to-morrow from another. Why, you'd think all the cows in England, turn +and turn about, supplied that poor child with milk; and you know they get +pains from changing. It's not right, poor baby; but what can we and his +father do? The same with his scraps of clothes--this weather he'd a right +to be having new warm ones--but there he lies crying for the cold in his +little thin out-grown things; it brings the tears to one's eyes to see +him. And he's not the only one, either. His father's just out of an +illness, and keeps a cough on the chest because he can't afford a warm +waistcoat or the only cough-mixture that cures him.... But Peter +wouldn't like me to be telling you all this. Will you go in there, +Lord Evelyn, and wait?" + +She paused another moment, her hand on the handle. + +"You'll not tell Peter I told you anything. He'd not be pleased. He'll +not breathe a word to you of it himself--indeed, he'll probably say it's +not so." + +Lord Evelyn made no comment; he merely tapped his cane on the floor; he +seemed impatient to have the door opened. + +"And," added Peggy, "if ever you chanced to be offering him anything--I +mean, you might be for giving him a birthday present, or a Xmas present +or something sometime--you'd do best to put it as a gift to the baby, or +he'll never take it." + +Having concluded her diplomacy, she opened the door and ushered him into +the room, where Hilary sat with his headache and the children played +noisily at horses. + +"Lord Evelyn Urquhart come to see Peter," called Peggy into the room. +"Come along out of that, children, and keep yourselves quiet somewhere." + +She bundled them out and shut the door on Lord Evelyn and Hilary. + +Hilary rose dizzily to his feet and bowed. Lord Evelyn returned the +courtesy distantly, and stood by the door, as far as possible from his +host. + +"This is good of you," said Hilary, "to come and see us in our fallen +estate. Do sit down." + +Lord Evelyn, putting his glass into his eye and turning it upon Hilary as +if in astonishment at his impertinence in addressing him, said curtly, "I +came to see your half-brother. I had not the least intention, nor the +least desire, to see anyone else whatever; nor have I now." + +"Quite so," said Hilary, his teeth chattering with fever. (His +temperature, though he would never know, as Peter had broken the +thermometer, must be anyhow a hundred and three, he was sure.) "Quite +so. But that doesn't affect my gratitude to you. Peter's friends are +mine. I must thank you for remembering Peter." + +Lord Evelyn, presumably not seeing the necessity, was silent. + +"We have not met," Hilary went on, passing his hot hand over his fevered +brow, where the headache ran all round like a hot metal band, "for a very +long time, Lord Evelyn; if we put aside that momentary encounter at +Astleys last year." Hilary did put that aside, rather hastily, and went +on, "Apart from that, we have not met since we were both in Venice, +nearly two years ago. Lord Evelyn, I have often wished to tell you +how very deeply I have regretted certain events that came between us +there. I think there is a great deal that I might explain to you...." + +Lord Evelyn, with averted face, said, "Be good enough to be silent, sir. +I have no desire to hear any of your remarks. I have come merely to see +your half-brother." + +"Of course," said Hilary, who was sensitive, "if you take that line, +there is nothing to be said between you and me." + +Lord Evelyn acknowledged this admission with a slight inclination of the +head. + +"Nothing whatever, sir." + +So there was silence, till Peter came in, pale and sickly and +influenzaish, but with a smile for Lord Evelyn. It was extraordinarily +nice of Lord Evelyn, he thought, to have come all the way to Brook Street +in the rain to see him. + +Lord Evelyn looked at him queerly, intently, out of his short-sighted +eyes as they shook hands. + +"I wish to talk to you," he remarked, with meaning. + +Hilary took the hint, looked proud, said, "I see that my room is +preferred to my company," and went away. + +When he had gone, Peter said, "Do sit down," but Lord Evelyn took no +notice of that. He had come to see Peter in his need, but he had not +forgiven him, and he would remain standing in his house. Peter had once +hurt him so badly that the mere sight of him quickened his breath and +flushed his cheek. He tapped his cane impatiently against his grey spats. + +"You're ill," he said, accusingly. + +"Oh, I've only had flu," said Peter; "I'm all right now." + +"You're ill," Lord Evelyn repeated. "Don't contradict me, sir. You're +ill; you're in want; and you're bringing up a baby on insufficient diet. +What?" + +"Not a bit," said Peter. "I am not in want, nor is Thomas. Thomas' diet +is so sufficient that I'm often afraid he'll burst with it." + +Lord Evelyn said, "You're probably lying. But if you're not, why d'ye +countenance your sister-in-law's begging letters? You're a hypocrite, +sir. But that's nothing I didn't know before, you may say. Well, you're +right there." + +Lord Evelyn's anger was working up. He hadn't known it would be so +difficult to talk to Peter and remain calm. + +"You want to make a fool of me again," he broke out, "so you join in a +lying letter and bring me here on false pretences. At least, I suppose it +was really Lucy you thought to bring. You play on Lucy's soft heart, +knowing you can squeeze money out of her--and so you can afford to say +you've no use for mine. Is that it?" + +Peter said, dully looking at his anger as at an ancient play re-staged, +"I don't know what you're talking about. I know nothing of any letter. +And you don't suppose I should take your money, or Lucy's either. Why +should I? I don't want money." + +Lord Evelyn was pacing petulantly up and down the shabby carpet, waving +his cane as he walked. + +"Oh, you know nothing of any letter, don't you. Well, ask your +sister-in-law, then; ask that precious brother of yours. Haven't you +always chosen to hang on to them and join in their dirty tricks? And +now you turn round and say you know nothing of their doings; a pretty +story.... Now look here, Mr. Peter Margerison, you've asked for money +and you shall take it, d'ye see?" + +Peter flung at him, in a queer and quite new hot bitterness and anger (it +was perhaps the result of influenza, which has strange after effects). +"You've no right to come here and say these things to me. I didn't want +you to come; I never asked you to; and now I never want to see you again. +Please go, Lord Evelyn." + +Lord Evelyn paused in his walk, and stood looking at him for a moment, +his lips parted to speak, his hands clasped behind him over the gold head +of his cane. + +Then, into the ensuing silence, came Lucy, small and pale and wet in her +grey furs, and stood like a startled kitten, her wide eyes turning from +one angry face to the other. + +Peter said to her, in a voice she had never heard from him before, "So +you've come too." + +Lord Evelyn tittered disagreeably. "Didn't expect her, of course, did +you. So unlikely she'd come, after getting a letter like that.... I +suppose you're wondering, Lucy, what I'm doing _dans cette galere_." + +"No," said Lucy, "I wasn't. I know. You've come to see Peter, like me." + +He laughed again. "Yes, that's it. Like you. And now he pretends he won't +take the money he asked for, Lucy. Won't be beholden to me at any price. +Perhaps he was waiting for you." + +Lucy was looking at Peter, who looked so ill and so strange and new. +Never before had he looked at her like that, with hard eyes. Peter was +angry; the skies had fallen. + +She said, and put out her hands to him, "What's the matter, Peter? +Don't ... don't look like that.... Oh, you're ill; do sit down; it's +so stupid to stand about." + +Peter said, his own hands hanging at his sides, "Do you mind going away, +both of you. I don't think I want to talk to either of you to-day.... I +suppose you've brought money to give me too, Lucy, have you?" + +Lucy coloured faintly over her small pale face. + +"I won't give you anything you don't like, Peter. But I may give a +present to Thomas, mayn't I?" + +"No," said Peter, without interest or emotion. + +So they stood in silence for a moment, facing each other, Lucy +full-handed and impotent before Peter whose empty hands hung closed and +unreceiving; Lucy and Peter, who had once been used to go shares and to +give and take like two children, and who could give and take no more; and +in the silence something oddly vibrated, so that Lord Evelyn, the +onlooker, abruptly moved and spoke. + +"Come home, Lucy. He's told us he'll have none of us." + +Lucy still stood pleading, like a child; then, at Lord Evelyn's touch +on her arm, she suddenly began to cry, again like a child, helpless and +conquered. + +At her tears Peter turned away sharply, and walked to the window. + +"Please go," he said. "Please go." + +They went, Lucy quietly crying, and Lord Evelyn, suddenly become oddly +gentle, comforting her. + +At the door he paused for a moment, looked round at Peter, hesitated, +took a step back towards him, began to say something. + +"Peter...." + +Then Peggy came in, followed by Hilary. Lord Evelyn shut his lips +lightly, bowed, and followed Lucy downstairs. Peggy went after them +to let them out. + +Hilary flung himself into a chair. + +"Well, Peter? Well?" + +Peter turned round from the window, and Hilary started at his face. + +"My dear boy, what on earth is the matter?" + +Then Peggy came in, her eyes full of dismayed vexation, but laughter +twitching at her lips. + +"Oh, my dears! What a mood they're in! Lord Evelyn looked at me to +destroy me--and Lucy crying as if she'd never stop; I tried to make her +take some sal volatile, but he wouldn't let her, but wisked her into her +carriage and shut the door in my face. Mercy, what temper!" + +The last words may not have had exclusive reference to Lord Evelyn, as +Peggy was now looking at Peter in some astonishment and alarm. When +Peter looked angry, everyone was so surprised that they wanted to take +his temperature and send him to bed. Peggy would have liked to do that +now, but really didn't dare. + +What had come to the child, she wondered? + +"What did they talk about, Peter? A funny thing their coming within half +an hour of each other like that, wasn't it. And I never thought to see +Lord Evelyn here, I must say. Now I wonder why was Lucy crying and he so +cross?" + +Peter left her to wonder that, and said merely, "Once for all, I won't +have it. You shall _not_ beg for money and bring my name into it. +It's--it's horrid." + +With a weak, childish word his anger seemed to explode and die away. +After all, no anger of Peter's could last long. And somehow, illogically, +his anger here was more with the Urquharts than with the Margerisons +and most with Lucy. One is, of course, most angry, with those who have +most power to hurt. + +Suddenly feeling rather ill, Peter collapsed into a chair. + +Peggy, coming and kneeling by him, half comforting, half reproaching, +said, "Oh, Peter darling, you haven't been refusing money, when you know +you and Tommy and all of us need it so much?" + +Hilary said, "Peter has no regard whatever for what we all need. He +simply doesn't care. I suppose now we shall never be able to afford even +a new thermometer to replace the one Peter broke. Again, why should +it matter to Peter? He took his own temperature all through his illness, +and I suppose that is all he cares about. I wonder how much fever I have +at this moment. Is my pulse very wild, Peggy?" + +"It is not," said Peggy, soothingly, without feeling it. "And I daresay +Peter's temperature is as high as yours now, if we knew; he looks like +it. Well, Peter, it was stupid of you, my dear, wasn't it, to say no to +a present and hurt their feelings that way when they'd been so good as +to come in the rain and all. If they offer it again--" + +Peter said, "They won't. They won't come here again, ever. They've done +with us, I'm glad to say, and we with them. So you needn't write to them +again; it will be no use." + +Peter was certainly cross, Peggy and Hilary looked at him in surprised +disapproval. How silly. Where was the use of having friends if one +treated them in this unkind, proud way? + +"Peter," said Hilary, "has obviously decided that we are not fit to have +anything to do with his grand friends. No doubt he is well-advised--" he +looked bitterly round the unkempt room--"and we will certainly take the +hint." + +Then Peter recovered himself and said, "Oh don't be an ass, Hilary," and +laughed dejectedly, and went up to finish putting Thomas to bed. + +In the carriage that rolled through the rain from Brook Street to Park +Lane, Lord Evelyn Urquhart was saying, "This is the last time; the very +last time. Never again do I try to help any Margerison. First I had to +listen for full five minutes to the lies of that woman; then to the +insufferable remarks of that cad, that swindler, Hilary Margerison, who +I firmly believe had an infectious disease which I have no doubt caught," +(he was right; he had caught it). "Then in comes Peter and insults me to +my face and tells me to clear out of the house. By all means; I have done +so, and it will be for good. What, Lucy? There, don't cry, child; they +an't worth a tear between the lot of 'em." + +But Lucy cried. She, like Peter, was oddly not herself to-day, and cried +and cried. + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII + +THE BREAKING-POINT + + +The boarding-house suddenly ceased to be. Its long illness ended in +natural death. There was a growing feeling among the boarders that no +self-respecting person could remain with people whose financial affairs +were in the precarious condition of the Margerisons'--people who couldn't +pay the butcher, and lived on ill-founded expectations of subsidies. As +two years ago the Margerisons had been thrown roughly out of the +profession of artistic experts, so now the doors of the boarding-house +world were shut upon them. Boarders are like that; intensely respectable. + +All the loosed dogs of ill-fortune seemed to be yelping at the +Margerisons' heels at once. Hilary, when he recovered from his influenza +and went out to look for jobs, couldn't find one. Again and again he was +curtly refused employment, by editors and others. Every night he came +home a little more bitter than the day before. Peter too, while he lay +mending of his breakages, received a letter from the place of business he +adorned informing him that it would not trouble him further. He had never +been much use to it; he had been taken on at Leslie's request and given a +trial; but it could not last for ever, as Peter fair-mindedly admitted. + +"Well," he commented, "I suppose one must do something else, eventually. +But I shall put off reflecting on that till I can move about more +easily." + +Hilary said, "We are being hounded out of London as we were hounded out +of Venice. It is unbearable. What remains?" + +"Nothing, that I can see at the moment," said Peter, laughing weakly. + +"Ireland," said Peggy suddenly. "Let's go there. Dublin's worth a dozen +of this hideous old black dirty place. You could get work on 'The +Nationalist,' Hilary, I do believe, for the sub-editorship's just been +given to my cousin Larry Callaghan. Come along to the poor old country, +and we'll try our luck again." + +"Dublin I believe to be an unspeakable place to live in," said Hilary, +but mainly from habit. "Still, I presume one must live somewhere, so ..." + +He turned to Peter. "Where shall you and Thomas live?" + +Peter flushed slightly. He had supposed that he and Thomas were also to +live in the unspeakable Dublin. + +"Oh, we haven't quite made up our minds. I must consult Thomas about it." + +"But," broke in Peggy, "of course you're coming with us, my dear. What do +you mean? You're not surely going to desert us now, Peter?" + +Peter glanced at Hilary. Hilary said, pushing his hair, with his restless +gesture, from his forehead, "Really, Peggy, we can't drag Peter about +after us all our lives; it's hardly fair on him to involve him in all +our disasters, when he has more than enough of his own." + +"Indeed and he has. Peter's mischancier than you are, Hilary, on the +whole, and I will not leave him and Tommy to get lost or broken by +themselves. Don't be so silly, Peter; of course you're coming with us." + +"I think," said Peter, "that Thomas and I will perhaps stay in London. +You see, _I_ can't, probably, get work on 'The Nationalist' and it's +doubtful what I could do in Dublin. I suppose I can get work of a sort +in London; enough to provide Thomas with milk, though possibly not all +from one cow." + +"I daresay. And who'd look after the mite, I'd like to know, while you're +earning his milk?" + +"Oh, the landlady, I should think. Everyone likes Thomas; he's remarkably +popular." + +Afterwards Hilary said to Peggy, "Really, Peggy, I see no reason why +Peter should be dragged about with us in the future. The joint _menage_ +has not, in the past, been such a success that we need want to perpetuate +it. In fact, though, of course, it is pleasant to have Peter in the +house...." + +"Indeed it is, the darling," put in Peggy. + +"One can't deny that disasters have come upon us extraordinarily fast +since he came to live with us in Venice two years ago. First he +discovered things that annoyed him in my private affairs, which was +extremely disagreeable for all of us, and really he was rather +unnecessarily officious about that; in fact, I consider that it was owing +largely to the line he took that things reached their final very trying +_denouement_. Since then disaster upon disaster has come upon us; Peter's +unfortunate marriage, and consequent serious expenses, including the +child now left upon his hands (really, you know, that was an exceedingly +stupid step that Peter took; I tried to dissuade him at the time, but of +course it was no use). And he is so very frequently ill; so am I, you +will say"--(Peggy didn't, because Hilary wasn't, as a matter of fact, ill +quite so often as he believed)--"but two crocks in a household are twice +as inconvenient as one. And now there has been this unpleasant jar with +the Urquharts. Peter, by his rudeness to them, has finally severed the +connection, and we can hope for nothing from that quarter in future. And +I am not sure that I choose to have living with me a much younger brother +who has influential friends of his own in whom he insists that we shall +have neither part nor lot. I strongly object to the way Peter spoke to us +on that occasion; it was extremely offensive." + +"Oh, don't be such a goose, Hilary. The boy only lost his temper for a +moment, and I'm sure that happens seldom enough. And as to the rest of +it, I don't like the way you speak of him, as if he was the cause of our +mischances, and as if his being so mischancey himself wasn't a reason why +we should all stick together, and him with that scrap of a child, too; +though I will say Peter's a handier creature with a child than anyone +would think. I suppose it's the practice he's had handling other costly +things that break easy.... Well, have it your own way, Hilary. Only mind, +if Peter _wants_ to come with us, he surely shall. I'm not going to leave +him behind like a left kitten. And I'd love to have him, for he makes +sunshine in the house when things are blackest." + +"Lately Peter has appeared to me to be rather depressed," said Hilary, +and Peggy too had perceived that this was so. It was something so new in +Peter that it called for notice. + +There was needed no further dispute between Peggy and Hilary, for Peter +said that he and Thomas preferred to stay in London. + +"I can probably find a job of some sort to keep us. I might with luck +get a place as shop-walker. That always looks a glorious life. You merely +walk about and say, 'Yes, madam? This way for hose, madam.' Something +to live on and nothing to do, as the poet says. But I expect they are +difficult places to get, without previous experience. Short of that, +I could be one of the men round stations that open people's cab doors +and take the luggage out; or even a bus-conductor, who knows? Oh, +there are lots of openings. But in Dublin I feel my talents might be +lost.... Thomas and I will move into more modest apartments, and go in +for plain living and high thinking." + +"You poor little dears," said Peggy, and kissed both of them. "Well, +it'll be plain living for the lot of us, that's obvious, and lucky too +to get that.... I'd love to have you two children with us, but ..." + +But Peter, to whom other people's minds were as books that who runs may +read, had no intention of coming with them. That faculty of intuition of +Peter's had drawbacks as well as advantages. He knew, as well as if +Hilary had said so, that Hilary considered their life together a +disastrous series of mishaps, largely owing to Peter, and that he did not +desire to continue it. He knew precisely what was Denis Urquhart's point +of view and state of feelings towards himself and his family, and how +unbridgeable that gulf was. He knew why Lucy was stopping away, and +would stop away (for if other people's thoughts were to him as pebbles in +running water, hers were pebbles seen white and lucid in a still, clear +pool). And he knew very well that he relieved Peggy's kind heart when he +said he and Thomas would stop in London; for to Peggy anything was better +than to worry her poor old Hilary more than need be. + +So, before March was out, about St. Cuthbert's day, in fact, Hilary +Margerison and his family left England for a more distressful country, +to seek their fortunes fresh, and Peter and his family sought modest +apartments in a little street behind St. Austin's Church, where the +apartments are very modest indeed. + +"Are they too modest for you, Thomas?" Peter asked dubiously. "And do you +too much hate the Girl?" + +The Girl was the landlady's daughter, and undertook for a small +consideration to look after Thomas while Peter was out, and feed him at +suitable intervals. Thomas and Peter did rather hate her, for she was a +slatternly girl, matching her mother and her mother's apartments, and +didn't always take her curlers off till the evening, and said "Boo" to +Thomas, merely because he was young--a detestable habit, Peter and +Thomas considered. Peter had to make a great deal of sensible +conversation to Thomas, to make up. + +"I'm sorry," Peter apologised, "but, you see, Thomas, it's all we can +afford. You don't earn anything at all, and I only earn a pound a week, +which is barely enough to keep you in drink. I don't deserve even that, +for I don't address envelopes well; but I suppose they know it's such a +detestable job that they haven't the face to give me less." + +Peter was addressing envelopes because a Robinson relative had given him +the job, and he hadn't the nerve to refuse it. He couldn't well refuse +it, because of Thomas. Uncompanioned by Thomas he would probably have +chosen instead to sweep a crossing or play a barrel-organ, or stand at +a street corner with outstretched hat (though this last would only have +done for a summer engagement, as Peter didn't like the winds that play +round street corners in winter). But Thomas was very much there, and had +to be provided for; so Peter copied letters and addressed envelopes and +earned twenty shillings weekly, and out of it paid for Thomas's drink and +Thomas's Girl and his own food, and beds and a sitting-room and fires +and laundry for both, and occasional luxuries in the way of wooden +animals for Thomas to play with. So they were not extremely poor; they +were respectably well-to-do. For Thomas's sake, Peter supposed it was +worth while not to be extremely poor, even though it meant addressing +envelopes and living in a great grey prison-house of a city, where one +only surmised the first early pushings of the spring beyond the +encompassing gloom. + +Peter used to tell Thomas about that, in order that he might know +something of the joyous world beyond the walls. He told Thomas in March, +taking time by the forelock, about the early violets that were going some +time to open blue eyes in the ditches by the roads where the spring winds +walk; about the blackthorn that would suddenly make a white glory of the +woods; about the green, sticky budding of the larches, and the keen sweet +smell of them, and the damp fragrance of the roaming wind that would blow +over river-flooded fields, smelling of bonfires and wet earth. He took +him through the seasons, telling him of the blown golden armies of the +daffodils that marched out for Easter, and the fragrant white glory of +the may; and the pale pink stars of the hedge-roses, and the yellow joy +of buttercup fields wherein cows stand knee-deep and munch, in order to +give Thomas sweet white milk. + +"Ugh," said Thomas, making a face, and Peter answered, "Yes, I know; +sometimes they come upon an onion-flower and eat that, and that's not +nice, of course. But mostly it's grass and buttercups and clover." Then +he told him of hot July roads, where the soft white dust lies, while the +horses and the cows stand up to their middles in cool streams beneath the +willows and switch their tails, and the earth dreams through the year's +hot noon; and of August, the world's welfare and the earth's warming-pan, +and how, in the fayre rivers, swimming is a sweet exercise. "And my +birthday comes then. Oh, 'tis the merry time, wherein honest neighbours +make good cheer, and God is glorified in his blessings on the earth. +Then cometh September, Thomas"--Peter was half talking, half reading out +of a book he had got to amuse Thomas--"then cometh September, and then he +(that's you, Thomas) doth freshly beginne to garnish his house and make +provision of needfull things for to live in winter, which draweth very +nere.... There are a few nice things in September; ripe plums and pears +and nuts--(no, nuts aren't nice, because our teeth aren't good, are they; +at least mine aren't, and you've only got one and a half); but anyhow, +plums, and a certain amount of yellow sunshine, and Thomas's birthday. +But on the whole it's too near the end of things; and in briefe, I thus +conclude of it, I hold it the Winter's forewarning and the Summer's +farewell. Adieu.... We won't pursue the year further, my dear; the rest +is silence and impenetrable gloom, anyhow in this corner of the world, +and doesn't bear thinking about." + +Thus did Peter talk to Thomas of an evening, when they sat together after +tea over the fire. + +Sometimes he told him news of the world of men. One evening he said to +him, very gently and pitifully, "Dear old man, your mother's dead. For +her sake, one's glad, I suppose. You and I must try to look at it from +her point of view. She's escaped from a poor business. Some day I'll read +you the letter she wrote to you and me as she lay dying; but not yet, for +I never read you sad things, do I? But some day you may be glad to know +that she had thoughts for you at the last. She was sorry she left us, +Thomas; horribly, dreadfully sorry.... I wish she hadn't been. I wish +she could have gone on being happy till the end. It was my fault that she +did it, and it didn't even make her happy. And I suppose it killed her at +the last; or would she anyhow have escaped that way before long? But I +took more care of her than he did.... And now she'll never come back to +us. I've thought sometimes, Thomas, that perhaps she would; that perhaps +she would get tired of him, so tired that she would leave him and come +back to us, and then you'd have had a mother to do for you instead of +only me and the Girl. Poor little Thomas; you'll never have a mother now. +I'm sorry, sorry, sorry about it. Sorry for you, and sorry for her, and +sorry for all of us. It's a pitiful world, Thomas, it seems. I wonder how +you're going to get through it." + +Never before had he talked to Thomas like that. He had been used to speak +to him of new-burnisht joys and a world of treasure. But of late Peter +had been conscious of increasing effort in being cheerful before Thomas. +It was as if the little too much that breaks had been laid upon him and +under it he was breaking. For the first time he was seeing the world not +as a glorious treasure-place full of glad things for touch and sight and +hearing, full of delightful people and absurd jokes, but as a grey and +lonely sea through which one drifted rudderless towards a lee shore. He +supposed that there was, somewhere, a lee shore; a place where the winds, +having blown their uttermost, ceased to blow, and where wrecked things +were cast up at last broken beyond all mending and beyond all struggling, +to find the peace of the utterly lost. He had not got there yet; he and +his broken boat were struggling in the grey cold waters, which had swept +all his cargo from him, bale by bale. From him that hath not shall indeed +be taken away even that which he hath. + +It was Thomas who caused Peter to think of these things newly; Thomas, +who was starting life with so poor a heritage. For Thomas, so like +himself, Peter foresaw the same progressive wreckage. Thomas too, having +already lost a mother, would lose later all he loved; he would give to +some friend all he was and had, and the friend would drop him in the mud +and leave him there, and the cold bitterness as of death would go over +Thomas's head. He would, perhaps, love a woman too, and the woman would +leave him quite alone, not coming near him in his desolation, because he +loved her. He would also lose his honour, his profession, and the +beautiful things he loved to handle and play with. "And then, when you've +lost everything, and perhaps been involved in some of my disgraces, +you'll think that at least you and I can stick together and go under +together and help each other a little. And I daresay you'll find that +I shall say, 'No, I'm going off to Ireland, or Italy, or somewhere; I've +had enough of you, and you can jolly well sink or swim by yourself'--so +you see you won't have even me to live for in the end, just when you want +me most. That's the sort of thing that happens.... Oh, what chance have +you?" said Peter very bitterly, huddled, elbows on knees, over the chilly +fire, while Thomas slumbered in a shawl on the rug. + +Bitterness was so strange in Peter, so odd and new, that Thomas was +disturbed by it, and woke and wailed, as if his world was tumbling about +his ears. + +Peter too felt it strange and new, and laughed a little at it and himself +as he comforted Thomas. But his very laughter was new and very dreary. He +picked Thomas up in his arms and held him close, a warm little whimpering +bundle. Then it was as if the touch of the small live thing that was his +own and had no one in the world but him to fend for it woke in him a new +instinct. There sprang up in him swiftly, new-born out of the travail of +great bitterness, a sharp anger against life, against fate, against the +whole universe of nature and man. To lose and lose and lose--how that +goes on and on through a lifetime! But at last it seems that the limit is +reached, something snaps and breaks, and the loser rises up, philosopher +no more, to take and grasp and seize. The lust to possess, to wring +something for Thomas and himself out of life that had torn from them so +much--it sprang upon him like a wild beast, and fastened deep fangs into +his soul and will. + +Outside, a small April wind stirred the air of the encompassing city, a +faint breath from a better world, seeming to speak of life and hope and +new beginnings. + +Peter, laying Thomas gently on a chair, went to the open window and leant +out, looking into the veil of the unhappy streets that hid an exquisite +world. Exquisiteness was surely there, as always. Mightn't he too, he and +Thomas, snatch some of it for themselves? The old inborn lust for things +concrete, lovely things to handle and hold, caught Peter by the throat. +In that hour he could have walked without a scruple into an empty house +or shop and carried away what he could of its beauties, and brought them +home to Thomas, saying, "Anyhow, here's something for us to go on with." +He was in the mood in which some people take to drink, only Peter didn't +like any drinks except non-alcoholic ones; or to reckless gambling, only +he didn't find gambling amusing; or to some adventure of love, only to +Peter love meant one thing only, and that was beyond his reach. + +But when he had put Thomas to bed, in his little common cheap night-shirt, +he went out into the streets with his weekly earnings in his pockets and +spent them. He spent every penny he had. First he went to a florist's and +bought daffodils, in great golden sheaves. Then he went to a toyshop and +got a splendid family of fluffy beasts, and a musical box, and a Noah's +Ark, and a flute. He had spent all his money by then, so he pawned his +watch and signet ring and bought Thomas some pretty cambric clothes and +a rocking cradle. He had nothing else much to pawn. But he badly wanted +some Japanese paintings to put in the place of the pictures that at +present adorned the sitting-room. Thomas and he must have something nice +and gay to look at, instead of the Royal Family and the Monarch of the +Glen and "Grace Sufficient" worked in crewels. So he went into a shop in +Holborn and chose some paintings, and ordered them to be sent up, and +said, "Please enter them to me," so firmly that they did. Having done +that once, he repeated it at several other shops, and sometimes they +obeyed him and sometimes said that goods could not be sent up without +pre-payment. Pre-payment (or, indeed, as far as Peter could look forward, +post-payment) being out of the question, those goods had to be left where +they were. But Peter, though handicapped by shabby attire, had an +engaging way with him, and most shopmen are trustful and obliging. If +they lost by the transaction, thought Peter recklessly, it was their turn +to lose, not his. It was his turn to acquire, and he had every intention +of doing so. He had a glorious evening, till the shops shut. Then he went +home, and found that the daffodils had come, and he filled the room with +them, converting its dingy ugliness into a shining glory. Then he took +down all the horrible pictures and texts and stacked them behind the +sofa, awaiting the arrival of the Japanese paintings. He thought Thomas +would like the paintings as much as he did himself. Their room in future +should be a bright and pleasant place, fit for human beings to live in. +He cleared the chimney-piece of its horrid, tinkling ornaments to leave +space for his brown pottery jars full of daffodils. He put the ornaments +with the pictures behind the sofa, and when the Girl came in with his +supper requested her at her leisure to remove them. + +"I have been getting some new pictures, you see," he told her, and was +annoyed at the way her round eyes widened. Why shouldn't he get as many +new pictures as he chose, without being gaped at? + +There was more gaping next day, when his purchases were sent up. He had +warned his landlady and the Girl beforehand, that they might not tell the +messengers it must be a mistake and send them away, on what would, no +doubt be their stupid and impertinent impulse. So they gaped and took +them in, and Peter hurried back early from his work and fetched Thomas +in to watch him open parcels and admire the contents. He spread bright +rugs over the horse-hair sofa and chairs, and flung big soft cushions +about them, and said "Hurrah! The first time I've been really comfortable +since I left Cambridge." Then he bathed Thomas and put him into a new +little soft cambric night-shirt, and put him to bed in the rocking-cradle. +Thomas was delighted with it all. He had no doubt inherited Peter's +love of all things bright and beautiful, and now for the first time he +had them. + +"That's more the style, isn't it, old man?" said Peter, stretching +himself among cushions in the arm-chair. Thomas agreed that it was, and +the two epicureans took their ease among the pleasures of the senses. + +"What next?" Peter wondered. "We must have more things still, mustn't we? +Nice things of all sorts; not only the ones we can buy. But we must begin +with the ones we can buy.... Mrs. Baker will have to wait for her rent +for a time; I can't spare any for that.... I've a good mind, Thomas, to +take a whole holiday; a long one. Chuck the envelopes and take to living +like a lord, on tick. It's wonderful how far tick will carry you, if you +try. Muffins for tea, you see, Thomas, only you can't have any. Well, +what's the matter? Why shouldn't I have muffins for tea? You've got +milk, haven't you, and I'm not getting a share in that. Don't be +grudging.... But we want more than muffins and milk, Thomas; and more +than cushions and daffodils and nice pictures. We want a good time. We +want friends; we want someone to love us; we want a holiday. If Leslie +was in England I'd go and say, 'Thomas and I are coming to stay with you +for a time, and you've just got to fork out supplies for us and let us +spend them.' Leslie would do it, too. But people are always away when +one wants them most.... Oh, hang it all, Thomas, I'm not going on with +those horrible envelopes; I'm not. I'm going to do things I like. Why +shouldn't I? Why _shouldn't_ I? Lots of people do; all the best people. +I shall give notice to-morrow. No, I shan't; I shall just not turn up, +then I shan't be bothered with questions.... And we're not going on with +the friends we have here--Mrs. Baker, and the Girl, and the other +envelope-gummers. No; we're going to insist on having nice amusing +friends to play with; friends who are nicer than we are. The Girl isn't +so nice, not by a long way. Rodney is; but he's too busy to be bothered +with us much. We want friends of leisure. We will have them; we _will_. +Why should we be chucked out and left outside people's doors, just +because they're tired of us? The thing that matters is that we're not +tired of them.... To-morrow, Thomas, you and I are going down to a place +called Astleys, in Berkshire, to visit some friends of ours. If they +don't want us, they can just lump us; good for them. Why should they +always have only the things they want? Be ready at nine, old man, and +we'll catch a train as soon after that as may be." + +Thomas laughed, thinking it a splendid plan. He had never seen Astleys in +Berkshire, but he knew it to be a good place, from Peter's voice when he +mentioned it. + +"But I don't want to excite you so late at night," said Peter, "so don't +think any more about it, but go to sleep, if you've finished that milk. +Does your head ache? Mine does. That's the worst of weak heads; they +always ache just when things are getting interesting. But I don't care; +we're going to have things--things to like; we're going to get hold of +them somehow, if we die in gaol for it; and that's worth a headache or +two. Someone says something about having nothing and yet possessing all +things; it's one of the things with no meaning that people do say, and +that make me so angry. It ought to be having nothing and _then_ +possessing all things; because that's the way it's going to be with us. +Good night, Thomas; you may go to sleep now." + +Thomas did so; and Peter lay on the sofa and gazed at the daffodils in +the brown jars that filled the room with light. + + + + +CHAPTER XIX + +THE NEW LIFE + + +Peter, with Thomas over his shoulder, stepped out of the little station +into a radiant April world. Between green, budding hedges, between +ditches where blue violets and joyous-eyed primroses peered up out of wet +grass, a brown road ran, gleaming with puddles that glinted up at the +blue sky and the white clouds that raced before a merry wind. + +Peter said, "Do you like it, old man? Do you?" but Thomas's heart was too +full for speech. He was seeing the radiant wonderland he had heard of; it +crowded upon him, a vivid, many-splendoured thing, and took his breath +away. There were golden ducklings by the grassy roadside, and lambs +crying to him from the fields, and cows, eating (one hoped) sweet grass, +with their little calves beside them. A glorious scene. The gay wind +caught Peter by the throat and brought sudden tears to his eyes, so long +used to looking on grey streets. + +He climbed over a stile in the hedge and took a field path that ran up to +a wood--the wood way, as he remembered, to Astleys. Peter had stayed at +Astleys more than once in old days, with Denis. He remembered the keen, +damp fragrance of the wood in April; the smooth stems of the beeches, +standing up out of the mossy ground, and the way the primroses glimmered, +moon-like, among the tangled ground-ivy; and the way the birds made every +budding bough rock with their clamorous delight. It was a happy wood, +full of small creatures and eager happenings and adventurous quests; +a fit road to take questers after happiness to their goal. In itself it +seemed almost the goal already, so alive was it and full of joy. Was +there need to travel further? Very vividly the impression was borne in on +Peter (possibly on Thomas too) that there was no need; that here, perhaps +round the next twist of the little brown path, was not the way but the +achievement. + +And, rounding the next bend, they knew it to be so; for above the path, +sitting at a beech-tree's foot among creeping ivy, with head thrown back +against the smooth grey stem, and gathered primroses in either hand, was +Lucy. + +Looking round at the sound of feet on the path, she saw them, and smiled +a little, not as if surprised, nor as if she had to change the direction +of her thought, but taking them into her vision of the spring woods as +if they were natural dwellers in it. + +Peter stood still on the path and looked up at her and smiled too. He +said, "Oh, Lucy, Thomas and I have come." + +She bent down towards them, and reached out her hands, dropping the +primroses, for Thomas. Peter gave her Thomas, and she laid him on her +lap, cradled on her two arms, and smiled, still silently. + +Peter sat down on the sloping ground just below her, his back against +another tree. + +"We've come to see you and Denis. You won't come to see us, so we had to +take it into our own hands. We decided, Thomas and I, two days ago, that +we weren't going on any longer in this absurd way. We're going to have a +good time. So we went out and got things--lots of lovely things. And I've +chucked my horrible work. And we've come to see you. Will Denis mind? I +can't help it if he does; we've got to do it." + +Lucy nodded, understanding. "I know. In thinking about you lately, I've +known it was coming to this, rather soon. I didn't quite know when. But +I knew you must have a good time." + +After a little while she went on, and her clear voice fell strange and +tranquil on the soft wood silence: + +"What I didn't quite know was whether you would come and take it--the +good time--or whether I should have to come and bring it to you. I was +going to have come, you know. I had quite settled that. It's taken me +a long time to know that I must: but I do know it now." + +"You didn't come," said Peter suddenly, and his hands clenched sharply +over the ivy trails and tore them out of the earth, and his face whitened +to the lips. "All this time ... you didn't come ... you kept away...." +The memory of that black emptiness shook him. He hadn't realised till it +was nearly over quite how bad it had been, that emptiness. + +The two pale faces, so like, were quivering with the same pain, the same +keen recognition of it. + +"No," Lucy whispered. "I didn't come ... I kept away." + +Peter said, steadying his voice, "But now you will. Now I may come to +you. Oh, I know why you kept away. You thought it would be less hard for +me if I didn't see you. But don't again. It isn't less hard. It's--it's +impossible. First Denis, then you. I can't bear it. I only want to see +you sometimes; just to feel you're there. I won't be grasping, Lucy." + +"Yes," said Lucy calmly, "you will. You're going to be grasping in +future. You're going to take and have.... Peter, my dear, haven't you +reached the place I've reached yet? Don't you know that between you and +me it's got to be all or nothing? I've learnt that now. So I tried +nothing. But that won't do. So now it's going to be all.... I'm coming to +Thomas and you. We three together will find nice things for one another." + +Peter's forehead was on his drawn-up knees. He felt her hand touch his +head, and shivered a little. + +"Denis," he whispered. + +She answered, "Denis has everything. Denis won't miss me among so much. +Denis is the luckiest, the most prosperous, the most succeeding person I +know. Peter, let me try and tell you about Denis and me." + +She paused for a moment, leaning her head back against the beech-tree and +looking up wide-eyed at the singing roof overhead. + +"You know how it was, I expect," she said, with the confidence they +always had in each other's knowledge, that saved so many words. "How +Denis came among us, among you and me and father and Felicity and our +unprosperous, dingy friends, and how he was all bright and shining and +beautiful, and I loved him, partly because he was so bright and +beautiful, and a great deal because you did, and you and I have always +loved the same things. And so I married him; and at the time, and oh, for +ever so long, I didn't understand how it was; how it was all wrong, and +how he and I didn't really belong to each other a bit, because he's in +one lot of people, and I'm in another. He's in the top lot, that gets +things, and I'm in the under lot, with you and father and all the poorer +people who don't get things, and have to find life nice in spite of it. +I'd deserted really; and father and Felicity knew I had; only I didn't +know, or I'd never have done it. I only got to understand gradjully" +(Lucy's long words were apt to be a blur, like a child's), "when I saw +what a lot of good things Denis and his friends had, and how I had to +have them too, 'cause I couldn't get away from them; and oh, Peter, I've +felt smothered beneath them! They're so heavy and so rich, and shut +people out from the rest of the world that hasn't got them, so that +they can't hear or see each other. It's like living in a palace in the +middle of dreadful slums, and never caring. Because you _can't_ care, +however much you try, in the palace, the same as you can if you're down +in the middle of the poorness and the emptiness. Wasn't it Christ who +said how hardly rich men shall enter into the kingdom of heaven? And it's +harder still for them to enter into the other kingdoms, which aren't +heaven at all. It's hard for them to step out from where they are and +enter anywhere else. Peter, can anyone ever leave their world and go into +another. I have failed, you see. Denis would never even begin to try; he +wouldn't see any object. I don't believe it can be done. Except perhaps +by very great people. And we're not that. People like you and me and +Denis belong where we're born and brought up. Even for the ones who try, +to change, it's hard. And most of us don't try at all, or care ... Denis +hardly cares, really. He's generous with money; he lets me give away as +much as I like; but he doesn't care himself. Unhappiness and bad luck and +disgrace don't touch him; he doesn't want to have anything to do with +them; he doesn't like them. Even his friends, the people he likes, he +gets tired of directly they begin to go under. You know that. And it's +dreadful, Peter. I hate it, being comfortable up there and not seeing and +not hearing and not caring. Seems to me we just live to have a good time. +Well, of course, people ought to do that, it's the thing to live for, and +I usen't to mind before I was rich, and father and Felicity and you and I +had a good time together. But when you're rich and among rich people, and +have a good time not because you make it for yourself out of all the +common things that everyone shares--the sunshine and the river and the +nice things in the streets--but have a special corner of good things +marked off for you, then it gets dreadful. 'Tisn't that one thinks one +ought to be doing more for other people; I don't think I've that sort of +conscience much; only that _I don't belong_. I can't help thinking of all +the down-below people, the disreputable, unlucky people, who fail and +don't get things, and I know that's where I really belong. It's like +being born in one family and going and living in another. You never fit +in really; your proper family is calling out to you all the time. Oh, not +only because they aren't rich and lucky, but because they really suit you +best, in little ways as well as big ways. You understand them, and they +understand you. All the butlers and footmen and lady's-maids frighten me +so; I don't like telling them to do things; they're so--so solemn and +respectable. And I don't like creatures to be killed, and I don't like +eating them afterwards. But Denis and his friends and the servants and +everyone thinks it's idiotic to be a vegetarian. Denis says vegetarians +are nearly all cranks and bounders, and long-haired men or short-haired +women. Well, I can't help it; I s'pose that shows where I really and +truly belong, though I don't like short-haired women; it's so ugly, and +they talk so loud very often. And there it is again; I dislike short hair +'cause of that, but Denis dislikes it 'cause _it isn't done_. That's so +often his reason; and he means not done by his partic'lar lot of top-room +people.... So you see, Peter, I don't belong there, do I? I don't belong +any more than you do." + +Peter shook his head. "I never supposed you did, of course." + +"Well," she said next, "what you're thinking now is that Denis wants me. +He _doesn't_--not much. He's not awf'ly fond of me, Peter; I think he's +rather tired of me, 'cause I often want to do tiresome things, that +aren't done. I think he knows I don't belong. He's very kind and pleasant +always; but he'd be as happy without me, and much happier with another +wife who fitted in more. He only took me as a sort of luxury; he didn't +really need me. And you do; you and Thomas. You want me much more than he +ever did, or ever could. You want me so much that even if Denis did want +me a great deal, I should come to you, because you want me more, and +because all his life he's had the things he wanted, and now it's your +turn. 'Tisn't _fair_. Why shouldn't you have things too--you and Thomas? +Thomas and you and I can be happy together with no money and nothing else +much; we can make our own good time as we go along, if we have each +other. Oh, Peter, let's!" + +She bent down to him, reaching out her hands, and Thomas smiled on her +lap. So for a moment the three stayed, and the woods were hushed round +them, waiting. Then in the green roof above a riot of shrill, sweet +triumph broke the hush, and Peter leaped to his feet and laughed. + +"Oh, Lucy, let's. Why not? I told Thomas the day before yesterday that we +were going to have a good time now. Well, then, let's have it. Who's to +prevent it? It's our turn; it's our turn. We'll begin from now and take +things and keep them.... Oh, d'you mean it, Lucy? D'you mean you'll come +and play with us, for ever and ever?" + +"'Course I will," she said, simply, like a child. + +He fell on his knees beside her and leant on his hands and peered into +Thomas's face. + +"Do you hear, Thomas? She's coming; she's coming to us, for always. You +wanted her, didn't you? You wanted her nearly as much as I did, only you +didn't know it so well.... Oh, Lucy, oh, Lucy, oh, Lucy ... I've wanted +you so ..." + +"I've wanted you too," she said. "I haven't talked about that part of it, +'cause it's so obvious, and I knew you knew. All the time, even when I +thought I cared for Denis, I was only half a person without you. Of +course, I always knew that, without thinking much about it, from the time +we were babies. Only I didn't know it meant this; I thought it was more +like being brother and sister, and that we could both be happy just +seeing each other sometimes. It's only rather lately that I've known it +had to be everything. There's nothing at all to say about the way we +care, Peter, because it's such an old stale thing; it's always been, and +I s'pose it always will be. 'Tisn't a new, surprising, sudden thing, like +my falling in love with Denis. It's so deep, it's got root right down at +the bottom, before we can either of us remember. It's like this ivy +that's all over the ground, and out of which all the little flowers +and things grow. And when it's like that...." + +"Yes," said Peter, "when it's like that, there's only one way to take. +What's the good of fighting against life? We're not going to fight any +more, Thomas and I. We're going simply to grab everything we can get. +The more things the better; I always knew that. Who wants to be a +miserable Franciscan on the desert hills? It's so unutterably profane. +Here begins the new life." + +They sat in silence together on the creeping, earth-rooted ivy out of +which all the little flowers and things grew; and all round them the +birds sang how it was spring-time. The fever of the spring was in Peter's +blood, flowing through his veins like fire, and he knew only that life +was good and lovely and was calling to the three of them to come and live +it, to take the April paths together through green woods. The time was +not long past, though it seemed endless years ago, when he would have +liked them to be four, when he would have liked Denis to come too, +because he had so loved Denis that to hurt him and leave him would have +been unthinkable. But the time was past. Peter and Lucy had come to the +place where they couldn't share and didn't want to, and no love but one +matured. They had left civilisation, left friendship, which is part of +civilisation, behind, and knew only the primitive, selfish, human love +that demands all of body and soul. They needed no words to explain to one +another their change of view. For always they had leaped to one another's +thoughts and emotions and desires. + +Lucy said wistfully, after a time, "Denis will never see us again." + +But thoughts of Denis did not, could not, dim the radiant vision of roads +running merrily through the country of the spring. + +Thomas here said that it was milk-time, and Peter, who had thoughtfully +remembered to bring his bottle, produced it from his pocket and applied +it, while Lucy looked on and laughed. + +"In future," she said, "I shall take over that job." + +"I wonder," murmured Peter, "exactly what we contemplate living on. Shall +we sell boot-laces on the road, or play a barrel-organ, or what?" + +"Oh, anything that's nice. But I've got a little, you know. Father hadn't +much, but there was something for Felicity and me. It's seemed nothing, +compared with what I've been living on lately; but it will look quite a +lot when it's all we've got.... Father'd be glad, Peter, if he knew. He'd +say we ought to do it, I know he would. It's partly him I've been hearing +all this time, calling and calling to me to come away and live. He did so +hate fat and sweetness and all smothering things. They just bored him +dreadfully. He wouldn't ever come and stay with us, you know.... Oh, and +I've written to Felicity, telling her what I meant to do. I don't quite +know what she'll say; nobody ever does know, with Felicity.... Now I'm +going back to the house, Peter, and you and Thomas must go back too. But +first we'll settle what to do, and when to do it." + +It didn't take much settling, between three people who saw no +difficulties anywhere, but said simply, "Let us do this," and did it, +as children do. But such plans as they thought desirable they made, +then parted. + +"I shall tell Denis," said Lucy, "I must do that. I'll explain to him +all I can, and leave the rest. But not yet. I shall tell him on Sunday +night." + +"Yes," Peter agreed, simply, while the shadow fell again momentarily on +his vision. "You must do that, of course...." + +He left it at that; for Denis he had no words. + +Lucy got up, and laid Thomas in Peter's arms. + +"How much I've talked and talked, Peter. I've never talked so much +before, have I? And I s'pose I never will again. But it had to be all +said out once. I'm tired of only thinking things, even though I knew +you understood. Saying things makes them alive. They're alive now, and +always will be. So good-bye." + +They stood and looked at one another for a moment in silence, then turned +and took their opposite ways. + +Peter didn't go back to London till the late afternoon. He had things to +show Thomas on this his first day in the country. So he took him a long +walk, and Thomas sat in meadows and got a near view of cows and sheep, +and saw Peter paddle in a stream and try to catch minnows in an old tin +pot that he found. + +Another thing that he found, or rather that found them, was a +disreputable yellow dog. He was accompanying a tramp and his wife along +the road. When the tramp sat down and untied a handkerchief full of apple +pie and cold potatoes (tramps have delightful things to eat as a rule) +the dog came near and asked for his share, and was violently removed to +a distance by the tramp's boot. He cried and ran through the hedge and +came upon Peter and Thomas, who were sitting on the other side, in a +field. Peter looked over the hedge and said, "Is he yours?" and was told, +"Mine! No, 'e ain't. 'E's been follerin' us for miles, and the more I +kick 'im the more 'e follers. Wish someone'd pison 'im. I'm sick of 'im." +His wife, who had the weary, hopeless, utterly resigned face of some +female tramps, said, "'E'll do for 'im soon, my man will," without much +interest. + +"I'll take him with me," said Peter, and drew the disreputable creature +to him and gently rubbed his bruised side, and saw that he had rather a +nice face, meant to be cheerful, and friendly and hopeful eyes. Indeed, +he must be friendly and hopeful to have followed such companions so far. + +"Will you be our dog?" said Peter to him. "Will you come walking with us +in future, and have a little bit of whatever we get? And shall we call +you San Francesco, because you like disreputable people and love your +brother, the sun, and keep company with your little sisters, the fleas? +Very good, then. This is Thomas, and you may lick his face very gently, +but remember that he is smaller than you and has to be tenderly treated +lest he break." + +San Francesco stayed with them through the afternoon, and accompanied +them back to London, smuggled under a seat, because Peter couldn't afford +a ticket for him. He proved a likeable being on further acquaintance, +with a merry grin and an amused cock of the eye; obviously one who took +the world's vagaries with humorous patience. Peter conveyed him from +Paddington to Mary Street with some difficulty, and bought a bone for him +from a cat's-meat-what-orfers man, and took him up to the bright and +beautiful sitting-room. Then he told his landlady that he was about to +leave her. + +"It isn't that I'm not satisfied, you know," he added, fearing to hurt +her, "but I'm going to give up lodgings altogether. I'm going abroad, to +Italy, on Monday." + +"_I_ see." Mrs. Baker saw everything in a moment. Her young gentleman had +obviously been over-spending his income (all these new things must have +cost a pretty penny), and had discovered, what many discover, that flight +was the only remedy. + +"About the rent," she began, "and the bills ..." + +Peter said, "Oh, I'll pay you the rent and the bills before I go. I +promise I will. But I can't pay much else, you know, Mrs. Baker. So when +people come to dun me, tell them I've gone no one knows where. I'm +awfully sorry about it, but I've simply no money left." + +His smile, as always, softened her, and she nodded. + +"I'll deal with 'em, sir ... I knew you was over-spending yourself, as it +were; I could have told you, but I didn't like. You'd always lived so +cheap and quiet till the day before yesterday; then all these new things +so suddenly. Ader and I said as you must 'ave come in for some money, or +else as (you'll excuse me, sir) you was touched in the 'ead." + +"I wasn't," said Peter. "Not in the least. I wanted the things, so I got +them. But now I come to think of it, I shan't want most of them any more, +as I'm going away, so I think I'll just return them to the shops they +came from. Of course they won't be pleased, but they'll prefer it to +losing the money _and_ the things, I suppose, won't they. And we haven't +spoiled them a bit, except that cushion Francesco has just walked over, +and that can be cleaned, I expect. I had to have them, you know, just +when I wanted them; I couldn't have borne not to; but I don't really +need them any more, because I'm going to have other things now. Oh, I'm +talking too much, and you want to be cooking the supper, don't you, and +I want to put Thomas to bed." + + + + +CHAPTER XX + +THE LAST LOSS + + +Three days later it was Easter Day. In the evening, about half-past nine, +when Thomas lay sleeping and Peter was packing the rugs and cushions and +pictures he hadn't paid for into brown paper parcels (a tedious job), +Rodney came in. Peter hadn't seen him for some time. + +"What on earth," said Rodney, lighting his pipe and sitting down, "are +you doing with all that upholstery? Has someone been sending you Easter +presents? Well, I'm glad you're getting rid of them as speedily as may +be." + +Peter said ruefully, because he was tired of the business, "The stupid +things aren't paid for. So I'm packing them up to be sent back directly +the shops open again. I can't afford them, you see. Already most of my +belongings are in pawn." + +"I see." Rodney wasn't specially struck by this; it was the chronic +condition of many of his friends, who were largely of the class who pawn +their clothes on Monday and redeem them on Saturday to wear for Sunday, +and pawn them again, paying, if they can afford it, a penny extra to have +the dresses hung up so that they don't crush. + +"A sudden attack of honesty," Rodney commented. "Well, I'm glad, because +I don't see what you want to cumber yourself with all those cushions and +rugs for. You're quite comfortable enough without them." + +Peter said, "Thomas and I wanted nice things to look at. We were tired of +horse-hair and 'Grace Sufficient'. Thomas is fastidious." + +Rodney put a large finger on Thomas' head. + +"Thomas isn't such a fool.... Hullo, there's another of you." Francesco +woke and came out of his corner and laid his nose on Rodney's knee with +his confiding grin. + +"Yes, that's San Francesco. Rather nice, isn't he. He's coming with us +too. I called him Francesco instead of Francis that he might feel at +home in Italy." + +"Oh, in Italy." + +Peter hadn't meant to tell Rodney that, because he didn't think that +Rodney would approve, and he wanted to avoid an argument. But he had let +it out, of course; he could never keep anything in. + +"That's where we're going to-morrow, to seek our fortunes. Won't it be +rather good in Italy now? We don't know what we shall do when we get +there, or where we shall go; but something nice, for sure." + +"I'm glad," said Rodney. "It's a good country in the spring. Shall you +walk the roads with Thomas slung over your back, or what?" + +"I don't know. Partly, I daresay. But we want to find some little place +between the hills and the sea, and stay there. Perhaps for always; I +don't know. It's going to be extraordinarily nice, anyhow." + +Rodney glanced at him, caught by the ring in his voice, a ring he hadn't +heard for long. He didn't quite understand Peter. When last he saw him, +he had been very far through, alarmingly near the bottom. Was this +recovery natural grace, or had something happened? It seemed to Rodney +rather admirable, and he looked appreciatively at Peter's cheerful face +and happy eyes. + +"Good," he said. "Good--splendid!" + +And then Peter, meeting his pleased look and understanding it, winced +back from it, and coloured, and bent over his brown paper and string. He +valued Rodney's appreciation, a thing not easily won. He felt that in +this moment he had won it, as he had never won it before. For he knew +that Rodney liked pluck, and was thinking him plucky. + +Against his will he muttered, half beneath his breath, "Oh, it isn't +really what _you_ call good. It is good, you know: _I_ think it's good; +but you won't. You'll call it abominable." + +"Oh," said Rodney. + +Peter went on, with a new violence, "I know all you'll say about it, so +I'm not going to give you the opportunity of saying it till I'm gone. You +needn't think I'm going to tell you now and let you tell me I'm wrong. +I'm not wrong; and if I am I don't care. Please don't stay any more; I'd +rather you weren't here to-night. I don't want to tell you anything; only +I had just got to say that, because you were thinking.... Oh, do go now." + +Rodney sat quite still and looked at him, into him, through him, beyond +him. Then he said, "You needn't tell me anything. I know. Lucy and you +are going together." + +Peter stood up, rather unsteadily. + +"Well? That's not clever. Any fool could have guessed that." + +"Yes. And any fool could guess what I'm going to say about it, too. You +know it all already, of course...." + +Rodney was groping for words, helplessly, blindly. + +"Peter, I didn't know you had it in you to be a cad." + +Peter was putting books into a portmanteau, and did not answer. + +"You mean to do that ... to Denis...." + +Peter put in socks and handkerchiefs. + +"And to Lucy.... I don't understand you, Peter.... I simply don't +understand. Are you mad--or drunk--or didn't I really ever know you in +the least?" + +Peter stuffed in Thomas' nightgowns, crumpling them hideously. + +"Very well," said Rodney, very quietly. "It doesn't particularly matter +which it is. In any case you are not going to do it. I shall prevent it." + +"You can't," Peter flung at him, crushing a woolly rabbit in among +Thomas' clothes. + +Rodney sat still and looked at him, resting his chin on his hand; looked +into him, through him, beyond him. + +"I believe I can," he said simply. + +Peter stopped filling the bag, and, still sitting on the floor by it, +delivered himself at last. + +"We care for each other. Isn't that to count, then? We always have cared +for each other. Are we to do without each other for always? We want each +other, we need each other. Denis doesn't need Lucy. He never did; not as +I do. Are Lucy and I to do without each other, living only half a life, +because of him? I tell you, I'm sick to death of doing without things. +The time has come when it won't do any more, and I'm going to take what +I can. I think I would rob anyone quite cheerfully if he had what I +wanted. A few days ago I did rob; I bought things I knew I couldn't pay +for. I'm sending them back now simply because I don't want them any more, +not because I'm sorry I took them. It was fair I should take them; it was +my turn to have things, mine and Thomas's. And now I'm going to take +this, and keep it, till it's taken away from me. I daresay it will be +taken away soon; my things always are. Everything has broken and gone, +one thing after another, all my life--all the things I've cared for. I'm +tired of it. I was sick of it by the time I was ten years old, sick of +always getting ill or smashed up; and that's gone on ever since, and +people have always thought, I know, 'Oh, it's only him, he never minds +anything, he doesn't count, he's just a crock, and his only use is to +play the fool for us.' But I did mind; I did. And I only played the fool +because it would have been drearier still not to, and because there was +always something amusing left to laugh at, not because I didn't mind. +And then I cared for Denis as ... Oh, but you know how I cared for Denis. +He was the most bright and splendid thing I knew in all the splendid +world ... and he chucked me, because everything went wrong that could +go wrong between us without my fault ... and our friendship was +spoilt.... And I cared for Hilary and Peggy; and they would go and do +things to spoil all our lives, and the more I tried, like an ass, to +help, the more I seemed to mess things up, till the crash came, and we +all went to bits together. And we had to give up the only work we +liked--and I did love mine so--and slave at things we hated. And still we +kept sinking and sinking, and crashing on worse and worse rocks, till we +hadn't a sound piece left to float us. And then, when I thought at least +we could go down together, they went away and left me behind. So I'd +failed there too, hopelessly. I always have failed in everything I've +tried. I tried to make Rhoda happy, but that failed too. She left me; and +now she's dead, and Thomas hasn't any mother at all.... And Lucy ... whom +I'd cared for since before I could remember ... and I'd always thought, +without thinking about it, that some day of course we should be +together... Lucy left me, and our caring became wrong, so that at last +we didn't care to see one another at all. And then it was as if hell had +opened and let us in. The other things hadn't counted like that; health, +money, beautiful things, interesting work, honour, friends, marriage, +even Denis--they'd all collapsed and I did mind, horribly. But not like +that. As long as I could see Lucy sometimes, I could go on--and I had +Thomas too, though I don't know why he hasn't collapsed yet. But at last, +quite suddenly, when the emptiness and the losing had been getting to +seem worse and worse for a long time, they became so bad that they were +impossible. I got angry; it was for Thomas more than for myself, I think; +and I said it should end. I said I would take things; steal them, if I +couldn't get them by fair means. And I went down to Astleys, to see them, +to tell them it must end. And in the woods I met Lucy. And she'd been +getting to know too that it must end, for her sake as well as for +mine.... And so we're going to end it, and begin again. We're going to be +happy, because life is too jolly to miss." + +Peter ended defiantly, and flung his razor in among the socks. + +Rodney had listened quietly, his eyes on Peter's profile. When he +stayed silent, Peter supposed that he had at last convinced him of the +unbreakable strength of his purpose for iniquity, and that he would give +him up and go away. After a minute he turned and looked up at Rodney, and +said, "Now do you see that it's no good?" + +Rodney took out his pipe and knocked it out and put it away before he +answered: + +"I'm glad you've said all that, Peter. Not that I didn't know it all +before; of course I did. When I said at first that I didn't understand +you, I was lying. I did understand, perfectly well. But I'm glad you've +said it, because it's well to know that you realise it so clearly +yourself. It saves my explaining it to you. It gives us a common +knowledge to start on. And now may _I_ talk for a little, please? No, +not for a little; for some time." + +"Go on," said Peter. "But it's no use, you know.... What do you mean by +our common knowledge? The knowledge that I'm a failure?" + +Rodney nodded. "Precisely that. You've stated the case so clearly +yourself--in outline, for you've left out a great deal, of course--that +really it doesn't leave much for me to say. Let's leave you alone for +the moment. I want to talk about other people. There are other people +in the world besides ourselves, of course, improbable as the fact +occasionally seems. The fact, I mean, that it's a world not of individual +units but of closely connected masses of people, not one of whom stands +alone. One can't detach oneself; one's got to be in with one camp or +another. The world's full of different and opposing camps--worse luck. +There are the beauty-lovers and the beauty-scorners, and all the +fluctuating masses in between, like most of us, who love some aspects of +it and scorn others. There are the well-meaning and the ill-meaning--and +again the incoherent cross-benchers, who mean a little good and a little +harm and for the most part mean nothing at all either way. Again, there +are what people call the well-bred, the ill-bred, and of course the +half-bred. An idiotic division that, because what do we know, any of us, +of breeding, that we should call it good or bad? But there it is; a most +well-marked division in everyone's eyes. And (and now I'm getting to the +point) there are the rich and the poor--or call them, rather, the Haves +and the Have-nots. I don't mean with regard to money particularly, though +that comes in. But it's an all-round, thing. It's an undoubted fact, +and one there's no getting round, that some people are born with the +acquiring faculty, and others with the losing. Most of us, of course, are +in the half-way house, and win and lose in fairly average proportions. +But some of us seem marked out either for the one or for the other. I +know personally a good many in both camps. Many more of the Have-nots, +though, because I prefer to cultivate their acquaintance. There's a great +deal to be done for the Haves too; they need, I fancy, all the assistance +they can get if they're not to become prosperity-rotten. The Have-Nots +haven't that danger; but they've plenty of dangers of their own; and, +well, I suppose it's a question of taste, and that I prefer them. Anyhow, +I do know a great many. People, you understand, with nothing at all that +seems to make life tolerable. Destitutes, incapables, outcasts, slaves to +their own lusts or to a grinding economic system or to some other cruelty +of fate or men. Whatever the immediate cause of their ill-fortune may be, +its underlying, fundamental cause is their own inherent faculty for +failure and loss, their incompetence to take and hold the good things of +life. You know the stale old hackneyed cry of the anti-socialists, how it +would be no use equalising conditions because each man would soon return +again to his original state. It's true in a deeper sense than they mean. +You might equalise economic conditions as much as you please, but you'd +never equalise fundamental conditions; you'd never turn the poor into the +rich, the Have-Nots into the Haves. You know I'm not a Socialist. I don't +want to see a futile attempt to throw down barriers and merge all camps +in one indeterminate army who don't know what they mean or where they're +going. I'm not a Socialist, because I don't believe in a universal +outward prosperity. I mean, I don't want it; I should have no use for it. +I'm holding no brief for the rich; I've nothing to say about them just +now; and anyhow you and I have no concern with them." Rodney pulled +himself back from the edge of a topic on which he was apt to become +readily vehement. "But Socialism isn't the way out for them any more than +it's the way out for the poor; it's got, I believe, to be by individual +renunciation that their salvation will come; by their giving up, and +stripping bare, and going down one by one and empty-handed into the +common highways, to take their share of hardness like men. It will be +extraordinarily difficult. Changing one's camp is. It's so difficult as +to be all but impossible. Perhaps you've read the Bible story of the +young man with great possessions, and how it was said, 'With men it is +impossible...' Well, the tradition, true or false, goes that in the end +he did it; gave up his possessions and became financially poor. But we +don't know, even if that's true, what else he kept of his wealth; a good +deal, I daresay, that wasn't money or material goods. One can't tell. +What we do know is that to cross that dividing line, to change one's +camp, is a nearly impossible thing. Someone says, 'That division, the +division of those who have and those who have not, runs so deep as almost +to run to the bottom.' The great division, he calls it, between those who +seize and those who lose. Well, the Haves aren't always seizers, I think; +often--more often, perhaps--they have only to move tranquilly through +life and let gifts drop into their hands. It's pleasant to see, if we are +not in a mood to be jarred. It's often attractive. It was mainly that +that attracted you long ago in Denis Urquhart. The need and the want in +you, who got little and lost much, was somehow vicariously satisfied by +the gifts he received from fortune; by his beauty and strength and good +luck and power of winning and keeping. He was pleasant in your eyes, +because of these gifts of his; and, indeed, they made of him a pleasant +person, since he had nothing to be unpleasant about. So your emptiness +found pleasure in his fullness, your poverty in his riches, your weakness +in his strength, and you loved him. And I think if anything could (yet) +have redeemed him, have saved him from his prosperity, it would have been +your love. But instead of letting it drag him down into the scrum and the +pity and the battle of life, he turned away from it and kept it at a +distance, and shut himself more closely between his protecting walls of +luxury and well-being. Then, again, Lucy gave him his chance; but he +hasn't (so far) followed her love either. She'd have led him, if she +could, out of the protecting, confining walls, into the open, where +people are struggling and perishing for lack of a little pity; but he +wouldn't. So far the time hasn't been ripe for his saving; his day is +still to come. It's up to all of us who care for him--and can any of us +help it?--to save him from himself. And chiefly it's your job and Lucy's. +You can do your part now only by clearing out of the way, and leaving +Lucy to do hers. She will do it, I firmly believe, in the end, if you +give her time. Lucy, I know, for I have seen it when I have been with +her, has been troubled about her own removal from the arena, about her +own being confined between walls so that she can't hear the people +outside calling; but that is mere egotism. She can hear and see all +right; she has all her senses, and she will never stop using them. It's +her business to be concerned for Denis, who is blind and deaf. It's her +business to use her own caring to make him care. She's got to drag him +out, not to let herself be shut inside with him. It can be done, and +Lucy, if anyone in the world, can do it--if she doesn't give up and +shirk. Lucy, if anyone in the world, has the right touch, the right +loosing power, to set Denis free. I think that you too have the touch and +the power--but you mustn't use yours; the time for that is gone by. Yours +is the much harder business of clearing out of the way. If you ever loved +Denis, you will do that." + +He paused and looked at Peter, who was still sitting on the floor, +motionless, with bent head. + +"May I go on?" said Rodney, and Peter answered nothing. + +Rodney looked away again out of the window into a grey night sky that +hid the Easter moon, and went on, gently. He was tired of talking; his +discourse had been already nearly as long as an average woman; but he +went on deliberately talking and talking, to give Peter time. + +"So, you see, that is an excellent reason--to you it is, I believe, the +incontrovertible reason--why you should once more give up and lose, and +not take. But, deeper than that, to me more insurmountable than that, is +the true reason, which is simply that that very thing--to lose, to do +without--is your business in life, as you've said yourself. It's your +profession. You are in the camp of the Have-Nots; you belong there. You +can't desert. You can't step out and go over to the enemy. If you did, if +you could (only you can't) it would be a betrayal. And, whatever you +gained, you'd lose by it what you have at present--your fellowship with +the other unfortunates. Isn't that a thing worth having? Isn't it +something to be down on the ground with the poor and empty-handed, not +above them, where you can't hear them crying and laughing? Would you, if +you could, be one of the prosperous, who don't care? Would you, if you +could, be one of those who have their joy in life ready-made and put into +their hands, instead of one of the poor craftsmen who have to make their +own? What's the gaiety of the saints? Not the pleasant cheerfulness of +the Denis Urquharts and their kind, who have things, but the gaiety, in +the teeth of circumstances, of St. Francis and his paupers, who have +nothing and yet possess all things. That's your gaiety; the gaiety that +plays the fool, as you put it, looking into the very eyes of agony and +death; that loses and laughs and makes others laugh in the last ditch; +the gaiety of those who drop all cargoes, fortune and good name and love, +overboard lightly, and still spread sail to the winds and voyage, and +when they're driven by the winds at last onto a lee shore, derelicts +clinging to a broken wreck, find on the shore coloured shells to play +with and still are gay. That's your gaiety, as I've always known it and +loved it. Are you going to chuck that gaiety away, and rise up full of +the lust to possess, and take and grasp and plunder? Are you going to +desert the empty-handed legion, whose van you've marched in all your +life, and join the prosperous?" Rodney broke off for a moment, as if he +waited for an answer. He rose from his chair and began to walk about the +room, speaking again, with a more alright vehemence. "Oh, you may think +this is mere romance, fancy, sentiment, what you will. But it isn't. It's +deadly, solid truth. You can't grasp. You can't try to change your camp. +You--and Lucy too, for she's in the same camp--wouldn't be happy, to put +it at its simplest. You'd know all the time that you'd shirked, deserted, +been false to your business. You'd be fishes out of water, with the +knowledge that you'd taken for your own pleasure something that someone +else ought to have had. It isn't in either of you to do it. You must +leave such work to the Haves. Why, what happens the first time you try it +on? You have to send back the goods you've tried to appropriate to where +they came from. It would be the same always. You don't know _how_ to +possess. Then in heaven's name leave possessing alone, and stick to the +job you are good at--doing without. For you are good at that. You always +have been, except just for just one short interlude, which will pass like +an illness and leave you well again. Believe me, it will. I don't know +when, or how soon; but I do know that sometime you will be happy again, +with the things, the coloured shells, so to speak, that you find still +when all the winds and storms have done their worst and all your cargoes +are broken wrecks at your feet. It will be then, in that last emptiness, +that you'll come to terms with disaster, and play the fool again to amuse +yourself and the other derelicts, because, when there's nothing else +left, there's always laughter." + +Rodney had walked to the window, and now stood looking out at the dim, +luminous night, wherein, shrouded, the Easter moon dwelt in the heart of +shadows. From many churches, many clocks chimed the hour. Rodney spoke +once more, slowly, leaning out into the shadowy night. + +"Through this week," he said, "they have been watching in those churches +a supreme renouncement, the ultimate agony of giving up, the last triumph +of utter loss. I'm not going to talk about that; it's not my business or +my right ... But it surely counts, that giving up whatever we may or may +not believe about it. It shines, a terrible counsel of perfection for +those who have, burning and hurting. But for those who have not, it +doesn't burn and hurt; it shines to cheer and comfort; it is the banner +of the leader of the losing legion, lifted up that the rest may follow +after. Does that help at all?... Perhaps at this moment nothing helps at +all.... Have I said enough? Need I go on?" + +Peter's voice, flat and dead, spoke out of the shadow of the dim room. + +"You have said enough. You need not go on." + +Then Rodney turned and saw him, sitting still on the floor by the +half-packed bag, with the yellow dog sleeping against him. In the dim +light his face looked pale and pinched like a dead man's. + +"You've done your work," the flat voice said. "You've taken it away--the +new life we so wanted. You've shown that it can't be. You're quite right. +And you're right too that nothing helps at all.... Because of Denis, I +can't do this. But I find no good in emptiness; why should I? I want to +have things and enjoy them, at this moment, more desperately than you, +who praise emptiness and doing without, ever wanted anything." + +"I am aware of that," said Rodney. + +"You've got in the way," said Peter, looking up at the tall gaunt figure +by the window; and anger shook him. "You've stepped in and spoilt it all. +Yes, you needn't be afraid; you've spoilt it quite irrevocably. You knew +that to mention Denis was enough to do that. I was trying to forget him; +I could have, till it was too late. You can go home now and feel quite +easy; you've done your job. There's to be no new life for me, or Thomas, +or Lucy, or Francesco--only the same old emptiness. The same old ... oh, +damn!" + +Peter, who never swore, that ugly violence being repugnant to his nature, +swore now, and woke Francesco, who put up his head to lick his friend's +face. But Peter pushed him away, surprising him violently, and caught at +his half-filled bag and snatched at the contents and flung them on the +top of one another on the floor. They lay in a jumbled chaos--Thomas's +clothes and Peter's socks and razor and Thomas's rabbit and Peter's +books; and Francesco snuffled among them and tossed them about, thinking +it a new game. + +"Go away now." Peter flung out the words like another oath. "Go away to +your poverty which you like, and leave us to ours which we hate. There's +no more left for you to take away from us; it's all gone. Unless you'd +like me to throw Thomas out of the window, since you think breakages are +so good." + +Rodney merely said, "I'm not going away just yet. Could you let me stay +here for the night and sleep on the sofa? It's late to go back to-night." + +"Sleep where you like," said Peter. "There's the bed. I don't want it." + +But Rodney stretched himself instead on the horse-hair sofa. He said no +more, knowing that the time for words was past. He lay tired and quiet, +with closed eyes, knowing how Peter and the other disreputable forsaken +outcast sat together huddled on the floor through the dim night, till the +dawn looked palely in and showed them both fallen asleep, Peter's head +resting on Francesco's yellow back. + +It was Rodney who got up stiffly from his hard resting-place in the dark +unlovely morning, and made tea over Peter's spirit-lamp for both of them. +Peter woke later, and drank it mechanically. Then he looked at Rodney and +said, "I'm horribly stiff. Why did neither of us go to bed?" He was pale +and heavy-eyed, and violent no more, but very quiet and tired, as if, +accepting, he was sinking deep in grey and cold seas, that numbed +resistance and drowned words. + +The milk came in, and Peter gave Thomas to drink; and on the heels of the +milk came the post, and a letter for Peter. + +"I suppose," said Peter dully, as he opened it, "she too has found out +that it can't be done." + +The letter said: "Peter, we can't do it. I am horribly, horribly sorry, +but I know it now for certain. Perhaps you know it too, by now. Because +the reason is in you, not in me. It is that you love Denis too much. So +you couldn't be happy. I want you to be happy, more than I want anything +in the world, but it can't be this way. Please, dear Peter, be happy +sometime; please, please be happy. I love you always--if that helps at +all.--Lucy." + +Peter let the note fall on the floor, and stood with bent head by the +side of Thomas's crib, while Thomas guggled his milk. + +"Two minds with but a single thought," he remarked, in that new, dreary +voice of his. "As always.... Well, it saves trouble. And we're utterly +safe now, you see; doubly safe. You can go home in peace." + +Then Rodney, knowing that he could be no more use, left the three +derelicts together. + + + + +CHAPTER XXI + +ON THE SHORE + + +There is a shore along which the world flowers, one long sweet garden +strip, between the olive-grey hills and the very blue sea. Like nosegays +in the garden the towns are set, blooming in their many colours, linked +by the white road running above blue water. For vagabonds in April the +poppies riot scarlet by the white road's edge, and the last of the +hawthorn lingers like melting snow, and over the garden walls the purple +veils of the wistaria drift like twilight mist. Over the garden walls, +too, the sweetness of the orange and lemon blossom floats into the road, +and the frangipani sends delicate wafts down, and the red and white roses +toss and hang as if they had brimmed over from sheer exuberance. If a +door in one of the walls chance to stand ajar, vagabonds on the road may +look in and see an Eden, unimaginably sweet, aflame with oleanders and +pomegranate blossom, and white like snow with tall lilies. + +The road itself is good, bordered on one side by the garden sweetness +and the blossoms that foam like wave-crests over the walls, on the other +breaking down to a steep hill-slope where all the wild flowers of spring +star the grassy terraces, singing at the twisted feet of the olives that +give them grey shadow. So the hillside runs steeply down to where at its +rocky base the blue waves murmur. All down the coast the road turns and +twists and climbs and dips, above little lovely bays and through little +gay towns, caught between mountains and blue water. For those who want a +bed, the hush of the moonlit olives that shadow the terraced slopes gives +sweeter sleep than the inns of the towns, and the crooning of the quiet +sea is a gentler lullaby than the noises of streets, and the sweetness of +the myrtle blossom is better to breathe than the warm air of rooms. To +wander in spring beneath the sun by day and the moon by night along the +sea's edge is a good life, a beautiful life, a cheerful and certainly an +amusing life. Social adventures crowd the road. There are pleasant people +along this shore of little blue bays. Besides the ordinary natives of the +towns and the country-side, and besides the residents in the hotels +(whose uses to vagabonds are purely financial) there is on this shore a +drifting and incalculable population, heterogeneous, yet with a note of +character common to all. A population cosmopolitan and shifting, living +from hand to mouth, vagrants of the road or of the street corner, finding +life a warm and easy thing in this long garden shut between hills and +sea. So warm and lovely and easy a garden is it that it has for that +reason become a lee shore; a shore where the sick and the sad and the +frail and the unfortunate are driven by the winds of adversity to find +a sheltered peace. On the shore all things may be given up; there is no +need to hold with effort any possession, even life itself, for all things +become gifts, easily bestowed and tranquilly received. You may live on +extremely little there, and win that little lightly. You may sell things +along the road for some dealer, or for yourself--plaster casts, mosaic +brooches, picture postcards, needlework of divers colours. If you have +a small cart drawn by a small donkey, you are a lucky man, and can carry +your wares about in it and sell them at the hotels, or in the towns at +fair-time. If you possess an infant son, you can carry him also about in +the cart, and he will enjoy it. Also, if your conversation is like the +sun's, with a friendly aspect to good and bad, you will find many friends +to beguile the way. You may pick them up at fairs, on _festa_ days, like +blackberries. + +On Santa Caterina's day, the 30th of April, there is a great _festa_ in +the coast towns. They hold the saint in especial honour on this shore, +for she did much kindness there in plague-time. Vagabonds with wares to +sell have a good day. There was, on one Santa Caterina's day, a young +man, with a small donkey-cart and a small child and a disreputable yellow +dog, who was selling embroidery. He had worked it himself; he was working +at it even now, in the piazza at Varenzano, when not otherwise engaged. +But a fair is too pleasantly distracting a thing to allow of much +needlework being done in the middle of it. There are so many interesting +things. There are the roulette tables, round which interested but +cautious groups stand, while the owners indefatigably and invitingly +twirl. The gambling instinct is not excessively developed in Varenzano. +There was, of course, the usual resolute and solitary player, who stood +through the hours silently laying one halfpenny after another on clubs, +untempted to any deviation or any alteration of stake, except that on the +infrequent occasions when it really turned out clubs he stolidly laid and +lost his gained halfpennies by the other. By nine o'clock in the morning +he had become a character; spectators nudged new-comers and pointed him +out, with "_Sempre fiori, quello._" The young man with the embroidery was +sorry about him; he had an expression as if he were losing more halfpence +than he could well afford. The young man himself lost all the stakes he +made; but he didn't gamble much, knowing himself not lucky. Instead, he +watched the fluctuating fortunes of a vivacious and beautiful youth near +him, who flung on his stakes with a lavish gesture of dare-devil +extravagance, that implied that he was putting his fortune to the touch +to win or lose it all. It was a relief to notice that his stakes were +seldom more than threepence. When he lost, he swore softly to himself: +"_Dio mio, mio Dio, Dio mio_," and then turned courteously to the +embroidery-seller, who was English, with a free interpretation--"In +Engliss, bai George." This seemed to the embroidery-seller to be true +politeness in misfortune. The beautiful youth seemed to be a person of +many languages; his most frequent interjection was, "_Dio mio_--Holy +Moses--oh hang!" After which he would add an apology, addressed to the +embroidery-seller, who had a certain air of refined innocence, +"_Bestemmiar, no. Brutto bestemmiare. Non gli piace, no_," and resume +his game. + +Peter, who was selling embroidery, liked him so much that he followed him +when he went to try his luck at the cigar game. Here Peter, who never +smoked, won two black and snake-like cigars, which he presented to the +beautiful young man, who received them with immense cordiality. A little +later the young man, whose name was Livio, involved himself in a violent +quarrel with the cigar banker, watched by an amused, placid and impartial +crowd of spectators. Peter knew Livio to have the right on his side, +because the banker had an unpleasant face and Livio accused him of being +not only a Venetian but a Freemason. The banker in response remarked that +he was not going to stay to be insulted by a Ligurian thief, and with +violent gestures unscrewed his tin lady and her bunch of real lemons and +put away his board. Livio burst into a studied and insulting shout of +laughter, stopped abruptly without remembering to bring it to a proper +finish, and began to be pleasant to the embroidery-seller, speaking +broken American English with a strong nasal twang. + +"My name is Livio Ceresole. Bin in America; the States. All over the +place. Chicago, 'Frisco, Pullman cars, dollars--_you_ know. Learnt +Engliss there. Very fine country; I _should_ smile." He did so, and +looked so amiable and so engaging that the embroidery-seller smiled back, +thinking what a beautiful person he was. He had the petulant, half +sensuous, spoilt-boy beauty of a young Antinuous, with a rakish touch +added by the angle of his hat and his snappy American idioms. + +So it came about that those two threw in their lots for a time. There was +something about the embroidery-seller that drew these casual friendships +readily to him; he was engaging, with a great innocence of aspect and +gentleness of demeanour, and a friendly smile that sweetened the world, +and a lovable gift of amusement. + +He had been wandering on this shore for now six months, and had friends +in most of the towns. One cannot help making them; the people there are, +for the most part, so pleasant. A third-class railway carriage, vilely +lighted and full of desperately uncomfortable wooden seats, and so full +of warm air and bad tobacco smoke that Peter often felt sick before the +train moved (he always did so, in any train, soon after) was yet full of +agreeable people, merry and sociable and engagingly witty, and, whether +achieving wit or not, with a warm welcome for anything that had that +intention. There is a special brand of charm, of humour, of infectious +and friendly mirth, and of exceeding personal beauty, that is only fully +known by those who travel third in Italy. + +From Varenzano on this _festa_ day in the golden afternoon the +embroidery-seller and his donkey-cart and his small son and his yellow +dog and Livio Ceresole walked to Castoleto. Livio, who had a sweet voice, +sang snatches of melody in many languages; doggerel songs, vulgarities +from musical comedies, melodies of the street corner; and the singer's +voice redeemed and made music of them all. He was practising his songs +for use at the hotels, where he sang and played the banjo in the +evenings, to add to his income. He told Peter that he was, at the moment, +ruined. + +"In Engliss," he translated, "stony-broke." A shop he had kept in Genoa +had failed, so he was thrown upon the roads. + +"You too are travelling, without a home, for gain?" he inferred. "You are +one of us other unfortunates, you and the little child. Poor little one!" + +"Oh, he likes it," said Peter. "So do I. We don't want a home. This is +better." + +"Not so bad," Livio admitted, "when one can live. But we should like to +make our fortunes, isn't it so?" + +Peter said he didn't know. There seemed so little prospect of it that the +question was purely academical. + +They were coming to Castoleto. Livio stopped, and proceeded to pay +attention to his personal appearance, moistening a fragment of +yesterday's "Corriere della Sera" in his mouth, and applying it with +vigour to his dusty boots. When they shone to his satisfaction, he +produced from his pocket a comb and a minute hand-mirror, and arranged +his crisp waves of dark hair to a gentlemanly neatness. Then he replaced +his pseudo-panama hat, with the slight inclination to the left side that +seemed to him suitable, re-tied his pale blue tie, and passed the mirror +to Peter, who went through similar operations. + +"Castoleto will be gay for the _festa_," Livio said. "Things doing," he +interpreted; adding, "Christopher Columbus born there; found America. +Very big man; yes, _sir_." + +Peter said he supposed so. + +Livio added, resuming his own tongue, "Santa Caterina da Siena visited +Castoleto. Are you a Christian?" + +"Oh, well," said Peter, who found the subject difficult, and was not good +at thinking out difficult things. Livio nodded. "One doesn't want much +church, of course; that's best for the women. But so many English aren't +Christians at all, but heretics." + +They came into Castoleto, which is a small place where the sea washes a +shingly shore just below the town, and the narrow streets smell of fish +and other things. Livio waved his hand towards a large new hotel that +stood imposingly on the hill just behind the town. + +"There we will go this evening, I with my music, you with your +embroideries." That seemed a good plan. Till then they separated, Livio +going to try his fortune at the fair, and Peter and Thomas and Francesco +and Suor Clara (the donkey) establishing themselves on the shore by the +edge of the waveless sea. There Peter got out of the cart a tea-caddy and +a spirit lamp and made tea (he was always rather unhappy if he missed his +tea) and ate biscuits, and gave Thomas--now an interested and cheerful +person of a year and a half old--milk and sopped biscuit, and produced a +bone for Francesco and carrots for Clara, and so they all had tea. + +It was the hour when the sun dips below the western arm of hills that +shuts the little bay, leaving behind it two lakes of pure gold, above +and below. The sea burned like a great golden sheet of liquid glass +spreading, smooth and limpid, from east to west, and swaying with a +gentle hushing sound to and fro which was all the motion it had for +waves. From moment to moment it changed; the living gold melted into +green and blue opal tints, tender like twilight. + +"After tea we'll go paddling," Peter told Thomas. "And then perhaps we'll +get a fisherman to take us out while he drops his net. Santa Caterina +should give good fishing." + +In the town they were having a procession. Peter heard the chanting as +they passed, saw, through the archways into the streets, glimpses of it. +He heard their plaintive hymn that entreated pity: + + "Difendi, O Caterina + Da peste, fame e guerra, + Il popol di Cartoleto + In mare e in terra..." + +Above the hymn rose the howls of little St. John the Baptist, who had +been, no doubt, suddenly mastered by his too high-spirited lamb and upset +on to his face, so that his mother had to rush from out the crowd to +comfort him and brush the dust from his curls that had been a-curling in +papers these three weeks past. + +It was no doubt a beautiful procession, and Peter and Thomas loved +processions, but they had seen one that morning at Varenzano, so they +were content to see and hear this from a distance. + +Why, Peter speculated, do we not elsewhere thus beautify and sanctify +our villages and cities and country places? Why do they not, in fishing +hamlets of a colder clime, thus bring luck to their fishing, thus summon +the dear saints to keep and guard their shores? Why, Peter for the +hundredth time questioned, do we miss so much gaiety, so much loveliness, +so much grace, that other and wiser people have? + +Peter shook his head over it. + +"A sad business, Thomas. But here we are, you and I, and let us be +thankful. Thankful for this lovely country set with pleasant towns and +religious manners and nice people, and for the colour and smoothness +of the sea we're going paddling in, and for our nice tea. _Are_ you +thankful, Thomas? Yes, I'm sure you are." + +Someone, passing behind them, said with surprise, "Is that _you_, +Margerison?" + +Peter, looking round, his tin mug in one hand and a biscuit in the other, +recognised an old schoolfellow. He was standing on the beach staring at +the tea-party--the four disreputable vagabonds and their cart. + +Peter laughed. It rather amused him to come into sudden contact with the +respectable; they were always so much surprised. He had rather liked this +man. Some people had good-temperedly despised him for a molly-coddle; he +had been a delicate boy, and had cherished himself rather. Peter, +delicate himself, incapable of despising anyone, and with a heart that +went out to all unfortunates, had been, in a mild and casual way, his +friend. Looking into his face now, Peter was struck to sorrow and +compassion, because it was the face of a man who had accepted death, and +to whom life gave no more gifts, not even the peace of the lee shore. It +was a restless face, with hollow cheeks unnaturally flushed, and bitter, +querulous lips. His surprise at seeing Peter and his vagabond equipment +made him cough. + +When he had done coughing, he said, "What _are_ you doing, Margerison?" + +Peter said he was having tea. "Have you had yours? I've got another mug +somewhere--a china one." + +As he declined with thanks, Peter thought, "He's dying. Oh, poor chap, +how ghastly for him," and his immense pity made him even gentler than +usual. He couldn't say, "How are you?" because he knew; he couldn't +say, "Isn't this a nice place?" because Ashe must leave it so soon; he +couldn't say, "I am having a good time," because Ashe would have no +more good times, and, Peter suspected, had had few. + +What he did say was, "This is Thomas. And this is San Francesco, and this +is Suor Clara. They're all mine. Do you like their faces?" + +Ashe looked at Francesco, and said, "Rather a mongrel, isn't he?" and +Peter took the comment as condemning the four of them, and divined in +Ashe the respectability of the sheltered life, and was compassionate +again. Ashe cared, during the brief space of time allotted to him, to be +respectably dressed; he cared to lead what he would call a decent life. +Peter, in his disreputability, felt like a man in the open air who looks +into the prison of a sick-room. + +Ashe said he was staying at Varenzano with his mother, and they were +passing through Castoleto on the way back from their afternoon's drive. + +"It's lungs, you know. They don't give me much chance--the doctors, I +mean. It's warm and sheltered on this coast, so I have to be here. I'd +rather be here, I suppose, than doing a beef-and-snow cure in one of +those ghastly places. But it's a bore hanging round and doing nothing. +I'd as soon it ended straight off." + +Ashamed of having been so communicative (but Peter was used to people +being unreserved with him, and never thought it odd), he changed the +subject. + +"Are you on the tramp, or what? Is it comfortable?" + +"Very," said Peter, "and interesting." + +"_Is_ it interesting? How long are you going on with it? When are you +going home?" + +"Oh, this is as much home as anywhere else, you know. I don't see any +reason for leaving it yet. We all like it. I've no money, you see, and +life is cheap here, and warm and nice." + +"Cheap and warm and nice...." Ashe repeated it, vaguely surprised. He +hadn't realised that Peter was one of the permanently destitute, and +tramping not from pleasure but from necessity. + +"What do you _do_?" he asked curiously, seeing that Peter was not at all +embarrassed. + +"Oh, nothing very much. A little needlework, which I sell as I go along. +And various sorts of peddling, sometimes. I'm going up to the hotel this +evening, to try and make the people there buy things from me. And we just +play about, you know, and enjoy the roads and the towns and the fairs and +the seashore. It's all fun." + +Ashe laughed and made himself cough. + +"You awfully queer person! You really like it, living like that?... But +even I don't like it, you know, living shut away from life in this +corner, though I've money enough to be comfortable with. Should I like +it, your life, I wonder? You're not bored, it seems. I always am. What +is it you like so much?" + +Peter said, lots of things. No, he wasn't bored; things were too amusing +for that. + +They couldn't get any further, because Ashe's mother called him from the +carriage in the road. She too looked tired, and had sad eyes. + +Peter looked after them with compassion. They were wasting their little +time together terribly, being sad when they should have found, in these +last few months or years of life, quiet fun on the warm shore where they +had come to make loss less bitter. + +Tea being over, he went paddling, with Thomas laughing on his shoulder, +till it was Thomas's bedtime. Then he put Thomas away in his warm corner +of the cart, and Livio joined him, and they had supper together at a +_trattoria_, and then climbed the road between vineyards and lemon +gardens up to the new white hotel. + +Livio, as they walked, practised his repertory of songs, singing +melodious snatches in the lemon-scented dusk. They came to the hotel, and +found that the inhabitants were sitting round little tables in the dim +garden, having their coffee by the light of hanging lanterns. + +From out of the dusk Livio struck his mandolin and sweetly sang. Peter +meanwhile wandered round from group to group displaying his wares by +the pink light of the lanterns. He met with some success; he really +embroidered rather nicely, and people were good-natured and kind to the +pale-faced, delicate-looking young man who smiled with his very blue, +friendly eyes. There was always an element in Peter that inspired pity; +one divined in him a merry unfortunate. + +The people in the hotel were of many races--French, Italian, German, and +one English family. Castoleto is not an Anglo-Saxon resort; it is small +and of no reputation, and not as yet Anglicised. Probably the one English +family in the hotel was motoring down the coast, and only staying for one +night. + +Peter, in his course round the garden, came suddenly within earshot of +cultured English voices, and heard some one laugh. Then a voice, soft in +quality, with casual, pleasant, unemphasised cadence, said, "Considering +these vile roads, she's running extraordinarily well. Really, something +ought to be done about the roads, though; it's absolutely disgraceful. +Blake says ..." one of the things that chauffeurs do say, and that +Peter did not listen to. + +Peter had stopped suddenly where he was when the speaker had laughed. Of +the many personal attributes of man, some may become slurred out of all +character, disguised and levelled down among the herd, blurred with time, +robbed of individuality. Faces may be so lost and blurred, almost beyond +the recognition of those who have loved them. But who ever forgot a +friend's laugh, or lost the character of his own? If Ulysses had laughed +when he came back to Ithaca, his dog would have missed his eternal +distinction. + +Soft, rather low, a thing not detached from the sentence it broke into, +but rather breaking out of it, and merging then into words again--Peter +had carried it in his ears for ten years. Was there ever any man but one +who laughed quite so? + +Looking down the garden, he saw them, sitting under a pergola, +half-veiled by the purple drifts of the wistaria that hung in trails +between them and him. Through its twilight screen he saw Denis in a +dinner-jacket, leaning back in a cane chair, his elbow on its arm, a +cigarette in his raised hand, speaking. The light from a big yellow +lantern swinging above them lit his clear profile, gleamed on his fair +hair. Opposite him was Lucy, in a white frock, her elbows on a little +table, her chin in her two hands, her eyes wide and grey and full of the +wonder of the twilight. And beyond her sat Lord Evelyn, leaning back with +closed eyes, a cigar in his delicate white hand. + +Peter stood and looked, and a little faint, doubtful smile twitched at +his lips, as at a dear, familiar sight long unseen. Should he approach? +Should he speak? For a moment he hung in doubt. + +Then he turned away. He had no part with them, nor they with him. His +part--Rodney had said it once--was to clear out. + +Livio, close to him, was twanging his mandolin and singing some absurd +melody: + + "Ah, Signor!" + "Scusi, Signora?" + "E forae il mio marito, + Da molti anni smarrito?..." + +Peter broke in softly, "Livio, I go. I have had enough." + +Livio's eyebrows rose; he shrugged his shoulders, but continued his +singing. He, anyhow, had not yet had enough of such a good-natured +audience. + +Peter slipped out of the garden into the white road than ran down between +the grey mystery of the olive groves to the little dirty fishing-town and +the dark, quiet sea. In the eastern sky there was a faint shimmer, a +disturbance of the deep, star-lit blue, a pallor that heralded the rising +of the moon. But as yet the world lay in its mysterious dusk. + +Peter, his feet stirring on the white dust of the road, drew in the +breath of the lemon-grown, pine-grown, myrtle-sweet hills, and the keen +saltness of the sea, and the fishiness of the little, lit, clamorous town +on its edge. In the town there was singing, raucous and merry. Behind in +the garden there was singing, melodious and absurd. It echoes fleeted +down the road. + + "Ah, Signor!" + "Scusi, Signora?" + "E forse il mio marrito..." + +Peter sat on the low white wall to watch the moon rise. And for a moment +the bitter smell of the soft dust on the road was in his nostrils, and he +was taken back into a past bitterness, when the world had been dust to +his feet, dust to his touch, dust in his throat, so that he had lain +dust-buried, and choked for breath, and found none. This time a year ago +he had lain so, and for many months after that. Those months had graved +lines on his face--lines perhaps on his soul--that all the quiet, gay +years could not smooth out. For the peace of the lee shore is not a thing +easily won; to let go and drift before the storms wheresoever they drive +needs a hard schooling; to lose comes first, and to laugh long after. + +The dust Peter's feet had stirred settled down; and now, instead of +its faint bitterness, the sweetness of the evening hills stole about. +And over the still sea the white moon rose, glorious, triumphant, and +straight from her to Peter, cleaving the dark waters, her bright road +ran. + +Peter went down into the little, merry town. + +He and Thomas slept at an inn that night. Livio joined them there next +morning at breakfast. He said, "You were foolish to leave the hotel so +soon. I got a good sum of money. There was an English family, that gave +me a good reward. My music pleased them. The English are always generous +and extravagant. Oh, Dio, I forgot; one of them sent you this note by me. +He explained nothing; he said, 'Is he that was with you your friend? Then +give him this note.' Did he perhaps know you of old, or did he merely +perceive that you were of his country? I know nothing. One does not read +the letters entrusted to one for one's friends. Here it is." + +He handed Peter a folded-up piece of notepaper. Opening it, Peter read, +scrawled unsteadily in pencil, "Come and see me to-morrow morning. I +shall be alone." E.P.U. + +"He followed me to the garden door as I went away," continued Livio, "and +gave it me secretly. I fancy he did not mean his companions to know. You +will go?" + +Peter smiled, and Livio looked momentarily embarrassed. + +"Oh, you know, it came open in my hand; and understanding the language so +well, it leaped to my eyes. I knew you would not mind. You will go and +see this milord? He _is_ a milord, for I heard the waiter address him." + +"Yes," said Peter. "I will go and see him." + +An hour later he was climbing the white road again in the morning +sunshine. + +Asking at the hotel for Lord Evelyn Urquhart, he was taken through the +garden to a wistaria-hung summer-house. The porter indicated it to him +and departed, and Peter, through the purple veils, saw Lord Evelyn +reclining in a long cane chair, smoking the eternal cigarette and reading +a French novel. + +He looked up as Peter's shadow fell between him and the sun, and dropped +the yellow book with a slight start. For a moment neither of them spoke; +they looked at each other in silence, the pale, shabby, dusty youth with +his vivid eyes; the frail, foppish, middle-aged, worn-out man, with his +pale face twitching a little and his near-sighted eyes screwed up, as if +he was startled, or dazzled, or trying hard to see something. + +The next moment Lord Evelyn put out a slim, fine hand. + +"How are you, Peter Margerison? Sit down and talk to me." + +Peter sat down in the chair beside him. + +Lord Evelyn said, "I'm quite alone this morning. Denis and Lucy have +motored to Genoa. I join them there this afternoon.... You didn't know +last night that I saw you." + +"No," said Peter. "I believed that none of you had seen me. I didn't want +you to; so I came away." + +Lord Evelyn nodded. "Quite so; quite so. I understood that. And I didn't +mention you to the others. Indeed, I didn't mean to take any notice of +you at all; but at the end I changed my mind, and sent for you to come. +I believe I'm right in thinking that your wish is to keep out of the way +of our family." + +"Yes," said Peter. + +"You're right. You've been very right indeed. There's nothing else you +could have done, all this time." Peter glanced at him quickly, to see +what he knew, and saw. + +Lord Evelyn saw the questioning glance. + +"Oh, yes, yes, boy. Of course, I knew about you and Lucy. I'm not such +a blind fool as I've sometimes been thought in the past--eh, Peter +Margerison? I always knew you cared for Lucy; and I knew she cared for +you. And I knew when she and you all but went off together. I asked Lucy; +I can read the child's eyes better than books, you see. I read it, and I +asked her, and she admitted it." + +"It was you who stopped her," said Peter quietly. + +Lord Evelyn tapped his fingers on his chair arm. + +"I'm not a moralist; anything but a moralist, y'know. But as a man of the +world, with some experience, I knew that couldn't be. So I told her the +truth." + +"The truth?" Peter wondered. + +"Yes, boy, the truth. The only truth that mattered to Lucy. That you +couldn't be happy that way. That you loved Denis too much to be happy +that way. When I said it, she knew it. 'Deed, I believe she'd known it +before, in her heart. So she wrote to you, and ended that foolish idea. +You know now that she was right, I think?" + +"I knew it then. I was just going to telegraph to her not to come when +I got her letter. No, I didn't know she was right; but I knew we couldn't +do it. I didn't know it for myself, either; I had to be told. When I was +told, I knew it." + +"Ah." Lord Evelyn looked at the pale face, that had suddenly taken a look +of age, as of one who looks back into a past bitterness. + +"Ah." He looked in silence for a moment, then said, "You've been through +a bad time, Peter." + +Peter's face twitched suddenly, and he answered nothing. + +"All those months," said Lord Evelyn, and his high, unsteady voice shook +with a curious tremor, "all that summer, you were in hell." + +Peter gave no denial. + +"I knew it," said Lord Evelyn. "And you never answered the letter I wrote +you." + +"No," said Peter slowly. "I answered no letters at all, I think. I +don't remember exactly what I did, through that summer. I suppose I +lived--because here I am. And I suppose I kept Thomas alive--because +he's here too. But for the rest--I don't know. I hated everyone and +everything. I believe Rodney used to come and see me sometimes; but I +didn't care.... Oh, what's the good of talking about it? It's over now." + +Lord Evelyn was shading his face with a shaking hand. + +"Poor boy," he muttered to himself. "Poor boy. Poor boy." + +Peter, recovering his normal self, said, "You've been awfully good to +me, Lord Evelyn. I've behaved very badly to you, I believe. Thanks most +awfully for everything. But don't pity me now, because I've all I want." + +"Happy, are you?" Lord Evelyn looked up at him again, searchingly. + +"Quite happy." Peter's smile was reassuring. + +"The dooce you are!" Lord Evelyn murmured. "Well, I believe you.... Look +here, young Peter, I've a proposal to make. In the first place, is it +over, that silly business of yours and Lucy's? Can you meet without +upsetting each other?" + +Peter considered for a moment. + +"Yes; I think we can. I suppose I shall always care--I always have--but +now that we've made up our minds that it won't do ... accepted it, you +know.... Oh, yes, I think we could meet, as far as that goes." + +Lord Evelyn nodded approval. + +"Very good, very good. Now listen to me. You're on the roads, aren't you, +without a penny, you and your boy?" + +"Yes. I make a little as I go along, you know. One doesn't need much +here. We're quite comfortable." + +"Are you, indeed?... Well now, I see no reason why you shouldn't be more +comfortable still. I want you to come and live with me." + +Peter startled, looked up, and coloured. Then he smiled. + +"It's most frightfully good of you...." + +"Rubbish, rubbish." Lord Evelyn testily waved his words aside. "'Tisn't +for your sake. It's for mine. I want your company.... My good boy, +haven't you ever guessed, all these years, that I rather like your +company? That was why I was so angry when you and your precious brother +made a fool of me long ago. It hurt, because I liked you, Peter +Margerison. That was why I couldn't forgive you. Demme! I don't think +I've forgiven you yet, nor ever shall. That is why I came and insulted +you so badly one day as you remember. That's why I've such a soft place +for Lucy, who's got your laugh and your voice and your tricks of talk, +and looks at me with your white face. That's why I wasn't going to let +her and you make young fools of yourselves together. That, I suppose, +is why I know all the time what you're feeling; why I knew you were in +hell all last summer; why I saw you, though I'm such a blinde bat now, +last night, when neither Denis nor Lucy did. And that's why I want +you and your boy to come and keep me company now, till the end." + +Peter put out his hand and took Lord Evelyn's. + +"I don't know what I can say to thank you. I do appreciate it, you know, +more than anything that's ever happened to me before. I can't think how +you can be so awfully nice to me...." + +"Enough, enough," said Lord Evelyn. "Will you or won't you? Yes or no?" + +Peter at that gave his answer quickly. + +"No. I can't, you know." + +Lord Evelyn turned on him sharply. + +"You _won't_? The devil take it!" + +"It's like this," said Peter, disturbed and apologetic, "we don't want to +lead what's called respectable lives, Thomas and I. We don't want to be +well-off--to live with well-off people. We--we can't, d'you see. It's not +the way we're made. We don't belong. We're meant just to drift about the +bottom, like this, and pick up a living anyhow." + +"The boy's a fool," remarked Lord Evelyn, throwing back his head and +staring at the roof. + +Peter, who hated to wound, went on, "If we could share the life of any +rich person, it would be you." + +"Good Lord, I'm not rich. Wish I were. Rich!" + +"Oh, but you are, you know. You're what _we_ mean by rich.... And it's +not only that. There's Denis and Lucy too. We've parted ways, and I do +think it's best we shouldn't meet much. What's the good of beginning +again to want things one can't have? I might, you know; and it would +hurt. I don't now. I've given it all up. I don't want money; I don't want +Denis's affection ... or Lucy ... or any of the things I have wanted, and +that I've lost. I'm happy without them; without anything but what one +finds to play with here as one goes along. One finds good things, you +know--friends, and sunshine, and beauty, and enough minestra to go on +with, and sheltered places on the shore to boil one's kettle in. I'm +happy. Wouldn't it be madness to leave it and go out and begin having and +wanting things again?" + +Lord Evelyn had been listening with a curious expression of comprehension +struggling with impatience. + +"And the boy?" he said. "D'you suppose there'll never come a time when +you want for the boy more than you can give him here, in these dirty +little towns you like so much?" + +"Oh," said Peter, "how can one look ahead? Depend on it, if Thomas is one +of the people who are born to have things, he will have them. And if he's +not, he won't, whatever I try to get for him. He's only one and a half +now; so at least there's time before we need think of that. He's happy at +present with what he's got." + +"And is it your purpose, then, to spend all your life--anyhow, many +years--in these parts, selling needlework?" + +"I've no purpose," said Peter. "I must see what turns up. No, I daresay I +shall try England again some time. But, wherever I am, I think I know now +what is the happy way to live, for people like me. We're no use, you see, +people like me; we make a poor job at the game, and we keep failing and +coming bad croppers and getting hurt and in general making a mess of +things. But at least we can be happy. We can't make our lives sublime, +and departing leave behind us footprints on the sands of time--oh, I +don't think I want to, in the least--but we can make a fairly good time +for ourselves and a few other people out of the things we have. That's +what we're doing, Thomas and I. And it's good enough." + +Lord Evelyn looked at him long in silence, with his narrowed, searching +eyes, that seemed always to be looking for something in his face and +finding it there. + +Then he sighed a little, and Peter, struck through by remorse, saw how +old he looked in that moment. + +"How it takes one back--takes one back," muttered Lord Evelyn. + +Then he turned abruptly on Peter. + +"Lest you get conceited, young Peter, with me begging for your company +and being kindly refused, I'll tell you something. I loved your mother; +my brother's wife. Did you ever guess that?--guess why I liked you a good +deal?" + +"Yes," said Peter, and Lord Evelyn started. + +"You did? Demme! that's her again. She always guessed everything, and +so did you. She guessed I cared.... You're her own child--only she was +lovely, you know, and you're not, don't think it.... Well, she had her +follies, like you--a romantic child, she always was.... You must go +your own way, young Peter. I'll not hinder or help you till you want +me.... And now I'm tired; I've talked too much. I'm not going to ask you +to lunch with me, for I don't want you. Leave me now." + +Peter paused for a moment still. He wanted to ask questions, and could +not. + +"Well, what now? Oh, I see; you want the latest news of your Denis and +Lucy. Well, they're doing as well as can be expected. Denis--I need +hardly say, need I?--flourishes like the green bay tree in all his works. +He's happy, like you. No, not like you a bit; he's got things to be +happy about; his happiness isn't a reasonless lunacy; it's got a sound +bottom to it. The boy is a fine boy, probably going to be nearly as +beautiful as Denis, but with Lucy's eyes. And Lucy's happy enough, I +hope. Knows Denis inside and out, you know, and has accepted him, for +better or worse. I don't believe she's pining for you, if that's what +you want to know. You may be somewhere deep down at the bottom of her +always--shouldn't wonder if you are--but she gives the top of her to +Denis all right--and more than that to the boy--and all of her to life +and living, as she always did and always must. You two children seem to +be tied to life with stronger ropes than most people, an't you. Sylvia +was, before you. Not to any one thing in life, or to many things, but +just to life itself. So go and live it in your own way, and don't bother +me any more. You've tired me out." + +Peter said good-bye, and went. He loved Lord Evelyn, and his eyes +were sad because he had thrown back his offer on his hands. He didn't +think Lord Evelyn had many more years before him, though he was only +fifty-five; and for a moment he wondered whether he couldn't, after all, +accept that offer till the end came. He even, at the garden wall, hung +for a moment in doubt, with the echo of that high, wistful voice in his +ears. + +But before him the white road ran down from the olive-grey hills to the +little gay town by the blue sea's edge, and the sweetness of the scented +hills in the May sunshine caught him by the throat, and, questioning no +more, he took the road. + +He loved Lord Evelyn; but the life he offered was not for Peter, not for +Thomas as yet; though Thomas, in the years to come, should choose his own +path. At present there was for both of them the merry, shifting life of +the roads, the passing friendships, lightly made, lightly loosed, the +olive hills, silver like ghostly armies in the pale moonlight, the +sweetness of the starry flowers at their twisted stems, the sudden blue +bays that laughed below bends of the road, the cities, like many-coloured +nosegays on a pale chain, the intimate sweetness of lemon gardens by day +and night, the happy morning on the hills and sea. + +For these--Peter analysed the distinction--are, or may be, for all +alike. There is no grabbing here; a man may share the overflowing sun not +with one but with all. The down-at-heels, limping, broken, army of the +Have-Nots are not denied such beauty and such peace as this, if they will +but take it and be glad. The lust to possess here finds no fulfilment; +having nothing, yet possessing all things, the empty-handed legion laughs +along its way. The last, the gayest, the most hilarious laughter begins +when, destitute utterly, the wrecked pick up coloured shells upon the lee +shore. For there are shells enough and to spare for all; there is no +grasping here. + +Peter, with a mind at ease and Francesco grinning at his heels, sauntered +down the warm, dusty road to find Thomas and have lunch. + + + +***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE LEE SHORE*** + + +******* This file should be named 16612.txt or 16612.zip ******* + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/6/6/1/16612 + + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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