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diff --git a/49331-0.txt b/49331-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..ad0aa4f --- /dev/null +++ b/49331-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,14782 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Young Physician, by Francis Brett Young + + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most +other parts of the world 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. If you are not located in the United States, you'll have +to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook. + + + + +Title: The Young Physician + + +Author: Francis Brett Young + + + +Release Date: June 29, 2015 [eBook #49331] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: UTF-8 + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE YOUNG PHYSICIAN*** + + +This ebook was transcribed by Les Bowler. + + _BY THE SAME AUTHOR_. +THE CRESCENT MOON + +THE IRON AGE + +THE DARK TOWER + +DEEP SEA + +UNDERGROWTH + (with E. Brett Young) + +MARCHING ON TANGA + +POEMS 1916–1918. + E. P. DUTTON & COMPANY + NEW YORK + + * * * * * + + + + + + THE + YOUNG PHYSICIAN + + + * * * * * + + BY + FRANCIS BRETT YOUNG + AUTHOR OF “MARCHING ON TANGA,” ETC. + + * * * * * + + [Picture: E. P. Dutton logo] + + * * * * * + + NEW YORK + E. P. DUTTON & COMPANY + 881 FIFTH AVENUE + + * * * * * + + Copyright, 1920, + By E. P. DUTTON & COMPANY + + * * * * * + + _All Rights Reserved_ + + * * * * * + +_First printing_ _March_, 1920 +_Second printing_ _March_, 1920 +_Third printing_ _September_, 1920 + + * * * * * + + Printed in the United States of America + + * * * * * + + TO + + THOMAS BRETT YOUNG, M.D. + + WITH THE LOVE AND ADMIRATION + OF HIS SON + + * * * * * + + + + +CONTENTS + + BOOK I +CHAPTER PAGE + I. MURDERER’S CROSS 1 + II. GOLDEN MEDIOCRITY 16 + III. THE GREEN TREES 27 + IV. MIDSUMMER 42 + V. AIRS AND GRACES 57 + VI. THUNDER WEATHER 69 + VII. IMPURITY 86 + VIII. HOMEWARDS 107 + IX. THE DARK HOUSE 124 + X. THRENODY 153 + XI. THE THRESHOLD 184 + XII. THE HILLS 211 + BOOK II. + I. THE CITY OF IRON 249 + II. MORTALITY BEHOLD 272 + III. CARNIVAL 296 + IV. SCIENCE 324 + V. ROMANCE 346 + VI. THE DRESSER 372 + VII. THE CLERK 403 + VIII. LOWER SPARKDALE 435 + IX. EASY ROW 460 + X. WHITE ROSES 487 + + + + +BOOK I + + + _The green trees_, _when I saw them first through one of the gates_, + _transported and ravished me_; _their sweetness and unusual beauty + made my heart to leap and almost mad with ecstasy_,—_they were such + strange and wonderful things_. _The skies were mine_, _and so were + the sun and moon and stars_,—_and all the world was mine_,—_and I the + only spectator and enjoyer of it_. + + THOMAS TRAHERNE. + + + +CHAPTER I +MURDERER’S CROSS + + +I + + +ABOVE and beyond the zone of villas, some still white with newly-mixed +mortar and the latest unadorned by more than twelve-foot tendrils of +ampelopsis or rambling roses, the downs bent their bow to the sky. The +horizon loomed so smooth and vast that the plantations of pine and beech +which fringed the summits were powerless to break the nobility and +purpose of its contour, etched gray-black against the hem of a +thunder-cloud that was of the colour of ink. Between the banks a chalk +road climbed: an aspiring road, felted in the trodden parts with dust but +cross-veined with flinty gutters through which rain poured, like London +milk, in stormy weather. A smell of hot earth was in the air. The turf +at the wayside was parched and slippery, so that Edwin Ingleby, plodding +up the slope, was forced to keep to the white roadway by the slipperiness +of his boot-leather. A rather pitiful figure he made, this small boy in +an Eton jacket, his waistcoat now unbuttoned and his school cap crumpled +in his hot hands. He walked and ran straight upward, as though the devil +were at his heels; sometimes looking behind him to see if there were any +one in pursuit, sometimes wiping the sweat from his forehead with the +crumpled cap. + +A wagonette, drawn by a pair of horses and burdened with trippers, jolted +past him, throwing up a cloud of chalk-dust that made his eyes smart. +Inside it swayed seven fat women in black bodices. The guard, who was +sufficiently sober, in his own opinion, to ride on the step, was seen to +laugh at the dust-smothered boy in the road. + +“Poor lamb,” said the most motherly of the seven. “Wouldn’t ’e like a +lift?” + +“Gowing the hopposite way, mem,” said the guard. “One of them College +lads.” + +“’Ot ’e looks!” said the lady. “Going to rine kets and dorgs, too.” + +Edwin Ingleby rubbed the dust out of, or into, his eyes and went plugging +on to the top of the ridge where the road dipped through a belt of +beeches into the trough between two billows of down, losing itself within +high banks of turf which bordered the plough-land, satiny now with +bearded wheat and infinitely restful. He sat down on the bank with his +feet in the gutter and began to mop up tears with the cap that he had +lately used for mopping up sweat. All the time that he was crying, his +heart was really full of almost incontinent valour, and that was why his +tears made him angry. He began talking to himself:— + +“Damned beast . . . great beefy beast. . . . If only the men could see +what a damned beast he is. If Layton or some one could give him what he +wants. Only no one could fight him. . . . He’s got a weak heart, and it +might kill him. I suppose that would be murder. . . .” + +The word suddenly got a new significance. They called this road +Murderer’s Cross Road. High up in the grassy bank some pious person had +cut a St. Andrew’s cross to commemorate the murder of a postman who had +been relieved of his bags and his life on a dark night a century ago. +The college tradition said that it was haunted. Certainly it had an ugly +sound. Murderer’s Cross Road: a name to be whispered. + +“Funny . . .” said Edwin. “There’s nothing very awful about it. I could +understand a chap wanting to murder a chap. Quite easily. Only he might +be sorry about it afterwards. I wouldn’t mind murdering Griffin.” + +He took a silver watch out of his pocket and laid it on the bank beside +him. He could see that there was a full hour to spare before the bell in +the water tower would jangle for the evening roll-call in the corner of +the Quad; and so he lay back easily on the bank, stretching out his legs +and arms in the form of the St. Andrew’s cross scored in the hedge a +little farther on. Lying thus he could watch the shimmer on the bearded +wheat. He had always loved the softness of this dip in the downs. He +had loved it on winter mornings delicately dusted with rime, in November +when flints lay like a bloom on the pale fallow, in March when the bloom +turned green. Now the thunder-clouds had rolled away, rumbling, from the +south, and a breath of cooler air was moving through the valley, throwing +the surface of that green sea into wave-like motion; the waves shuddered +faintly and the sound came to his ears as though re-echoed from the heavy +woods which stood still in the heat, bounding the green ripples; and +lying there, with his eyes half-closed, Edwin was already afloat, bearing +westward with the set of the tide in the track of Cortes and Columbus and +Pizarro and other adventurous voyagers. It was not really very difficult +for him to forget his tears. Although the fear of Griffin, that had +first driven him afield, was a cruel obsession to which he was liable by +night and day, he had long ago discovered that silence and solitude could +make him free of any wonder which he chose to imagine. It had been like +that even when he was quite little; he had always possessed the faculty +of day-dreaming; and now that his imagination was beginning to flush at +the sound of great names, and the pomps of chivalry and legend were +slowly unfolding before him with their subtle suggestiveness unhampered +by such knowledge of detail as would be alive to incongruities, his +idleness became daily more precious. He suddenly remembered that Achaean +assembly stirred by Agamemnon’s words “as when the West wind cometh to +stir a deep cornfield with violent blast, and the ears bow down. . . .” +And now the wind-moved wheat bent like a stricken army before knightly +lances, and the roll of retreating thunder awoke echoes of the guns of +Waterloo. . . . + + +II + + +It was nearly three years since Edwin had first seen Griffin, oddly +enough on the very first day of his life at St. Luke’s. Mrs. Ingleby had +come down from the Midlands with him, a little anxious, for there were +pitfalls in public school life (it was in ninety-five), but immensely +proud of Edwin’s entrance scholarship. They had crossed London together +in a hansom, and on the smoky platform at Victoria, she had bidden him a +good-bye which cost her some pangs, for the poor boy was half dead with +train-sickness. Edwin was her only child, and some smouldering ethic +decreed that he must not be pampered, but when she raised her veil to +kiss him, tears escaped beneath its rim. Those tears were very +unsettling; they gave him a sudden glimpse of his mother in a new light; +but he felt too ill even to watch her hurrying to the end of the +platform. His head ached so violently in the sulphurous station air that +he wouldn’t have minded much if some one, say his next-door neighbour in +the train, a city clerk who smoked the most manly tobacco, had relieved +him of the half-sovereign, the last gift of all, that he clutched +mechanically in his left-hand trouser pocket—or if the porters, in the +fine free way they have, had smashed all the jampots in the playbox so +obstrusively white and new, with + + E. INGLEBY + 115 + +in black lettering on the lid. + +The rest of that journey he had been too prostrate and lethargic to +realise. Somewhere the shouting of a familiar word had bundled him out +of his corner; a porter whom he had tipped fumblingly had bundled him +into a cab which smelt of straw, and at last the martial-looking +personage who received him at the grand entrance had conveyed him up a +broad flight of stone stairs and along a corridor that echoed their two +pairs of foot-steps, to the housemaster’s room, where, in an atmosphere +of mellow honeydew, Mr. Selby sat at his desk, trifling with a bath-list +of the big dormitory. Ingleby sat at one end of a luxurious sofa, +feeling very sick. It seemed as though he could never escape from the +smell of tobacco. At the other end of the sofa sat another boy, perhaps +three years older than Edwin. He was tall for his age and inclined to be +fat. His feet were small and shapely, and their smallness accentuated +the heavy build of his shoulders, so that the whole boy seemed to taper +downwards on the lines of a peg-top. He had a broad face, covered with +freckles, regular but undistinguished features, and eyes, rather wide +apart, of a peculiar cold and light blue. His hair was crisp and sandy; +his whole get-up a little dandiacal within the limits of black and gray. +He kept on fingering silver coins, that jingled together faintly in the +depths of his pocket; perhaps he was counting them in the dark; perhaps +he was merely fidgeting. + +Mr. Selby looked up from his bath-list. + +“Well, Griffin, and what is your pleasure?” + +“Letter from father, sir.” + +A letter from father would need an answer. Mr. Selby, although an expert +in the tortuous psychology of parents, was a lazy man. He sighed as he +opened it. “H’m . . . No games? You don’t look particularly ill, +Griffin.” + +“Doctor said I was growing too fast, sir . . . something about my heart.” +Griffin’s manners were irreproachable. + +Mr. Selby smiled. + +“Very well, Griffin, very well. I will speak to the head-master about +you. And who is this miserable weed?” + +There had been no break in the drawl of Mr. Selby’s voice with this +change of subject, and Edwin did not hear, or heard without +understanding. Griffin shook him by the shoulder. He lurched forward +like a creature coming out of a cellar into day light. + +“Ingleby, sir,” he said. + +“Ingleby . . . Oh, yes. Let me see. You won’t need to take the placing +exam. to-morrow because of your scholarship papers. You’ll be in the +lower fourth. So Griffin will look after you. Do you hear, Griffin? I +think Ingleby will be in your form. You are not overwhelmingly likely to +get a move, are you?” + +Griffin murmured “No, sir.” + +“Then you can conduct this Ingleby to D dormitory, Griffin.” + +Griffin whispered “Come on,” and walked ahead down the length of the +corridor and another flight of stairs to a room of immense length, with +whitewashed walls, along which were ranged as many as thirty +red-blanketed beds. Down the centre of the dormitory a trestled table of +well-scoured wood held a double row of wash-hand basins and soap-dishes. + +“There you are,” said Griffin, in a very off-hand way. “You’d better bag +a bed.” + +“Which one is mine, please?” Edwin asked. His head was aching so +furiously that he could have lain down on the floor. + +“I’ve told you, you’ve got to bag one. Don’t you hear? You’d better go +and ask that man over there. Try the next one to his.” + +That man over there was a stumpy boy with the face of a hyena and a shock +of black hair, who scowled at Ingleby’s approach. + +“Here, get away. You can’t come here. I don’t want any new kids near +me. Keep him to yourself, Griffin.” + +Ingleby was thrown violently into Griffin’s arms, and then buffeted +backwards and forwards like a shuttlecock between them. This game proved +to be such excellent fun that wherever he sought a bed on which to lay +his things it was continued by his immediate neighbours. He was greenly +pale and beginning to cry when a tall, dark boy, wearing glasses, arrived +and made straight for the group that surrounded him. + +“Here’s Layton,” whispered some one. + +“What’s this?” he asked. “A new boy?—What’s your name?” + +“Ingleby.” + +“What’s the matter?” + +“They won’t let me find a bed.” + +“Come along down this end, then.” He moved majestically to the end of +the dormitory nearest to the door and pointed to a vacant bedstead, +“There you are,” he said. He was kindly without the least trace of +unbending. Ingleby took him for a prefect; already he had received the +canonisation of heroism. He stood and watched Edwin spread out his +nightshirt on the bed. At this moment the climax of his migraine +arrived. Edwin was sick. + +Layton’s lips curled. “Dirty little skunk,” he said as he hurried away. + +A slipper, cleverly aimed from the other end of the room, caught Ingleby +full on his burning cheek. The pain seemed to blind him. + +And a skunk, in spite of himself, he remained, for small boys are as +persistently unintelligent as parrots in their memory for names. +Ingleby’s “skunkhood” became a tradition that he never wholly lived down +during his first years at St. Luke’s. In them he experienced all the +inevitable qualms of homesickness, although even these were more +tolerable than the physical qualms which had complicated his arrival, for +they passed quickly in the excitement of a new life, the adoption of new +standards, the spring of new ambitions. It was a thousand times +unfortunate that he should have made such a sensational débût, that +chance should have included such circumstances as Griffin and a +sick-headache in his first day; for all that was instinct in the boy +rebelled against the category in which he found himself placed, the +definition of his status that had been hastily formulated by a few small +boys, and almost tacitly accepted by the masters. + +To begin with, he had very few of the attributes of the skunk. He was +neither dirty nor undersized: indeed he had a nice instinct for personal +cleanliness, and all the slim, balanced beauty of a young boy’s figure. +He was far from unintelligent—though this counts for little enough in the +schedules of precedence at school. It amounted to this: he was not used +to the company of other boys; he had never played games; he had made +himself objectionable on his first night in the dormitory—and Layton had +called him a skunk. Griffin saw to the rest, seconded by the lad with +the hyena face, who bore the illustrious name of Douglas. Strangely +enough no one but Ingleby seemed to have tapped the romance in the +hyena-faced’s name. Setting out to find any tokens of Chevy Chase +beneath the black mop, he was caught staring in Hall, and as a proper +retribution for such insolence, subjected to the pain and indignity of a +“tight six” with a gym shoe, his head wedged in two stocks of Mr. +Griffin’s thighs. New boys of his own age, and smaller, seeing this +exhibition, formed a very low estimate of Ingleby. They shuddered also +at the knowledge that he had been heard to ask the difference between a +drop-kick and a punt. + +This isolation, except for purposes of chastisement, weighed heavily on +Edwin. He didn’t wish to be different from others, although he felt that +his mind was somehow of a painfully foreign texture. He knew that things +somehow struck him differently . . . but he was so far from taking this +as a mark of superiority that he was heartily ashamed of it. His whole +ambition was towards the normal; he tried vigorously to suppress +imagination, humour, all the inconvenient things with which he had been +cursed; to starve them, to destroy them. He became studious of the ways +of normality. Griffin and the noble Douglas were handy exemplars; +Layton, the head of the house, an unattainable ideal. Layton, indeed, +was something of a variant; but Layton, by means of his slim skull’s +capacity for retaining facts and an ingratiating piety, had passed beyond +the pale of everyday endeavour. Edwin longed to be normal, and they +wouldn’t let him. He cultivated assiduously the use of the fashionable +slang; and that, of course, was easy. He whipped up an interest in +outdoor games; played his very hardest in the ordinary house football, +and even volunteered to take part in the Soccer games organised on +fag-days for small boys by Mr. Selby, who nursed a lazy grudge against +the Rugby Code. “The Miserable Weeds,” they were called, enshrining his +favourite epithet. But though he plunged out of school every morning to +practise place-kicking in the fields before dinner, Ingleby was not +destined to shine in sport. His habit of dropping off to sleep between +fitful bursts of brilliance almost caused him to be uprooted from Mr. +Selby’s plantation of weeds. This didn’t worry him much, because Soccer +was not popular; but after two trials in the house third, which the +baleful Douglas captained, he was degraded to the scratch side known as +Small Boys; and even here the scrum extinguished a talent that might have +shone in the three-quarter line. + +And since he failed in every endeavour to attain normality, whether by +devotion to games or by those attempts which he made to prove that he was +neither “coxy” nor “pi,” by a retiring manner and a foul tongue, he began +to crawl back into his shell, nursing a passionate hatred, not unmixed +with envy, for all those people whom he couldn’t hope to be like. And +so, in a little time, this dangerous humiliation turned to a sort of +pride. It pleased him to count himself their superior even when he was +most downtrodden. His form master had recently been boring the class +with a little dissertation on Marcus Aurelius. Edwin became a Stoic, +spending his days in far corners of the box-room, munching a slowly +dwindling store of biscuits. Once Griffin caught him with his locker +door open and pinioned him against the benches while Douglas made free +with his Petits-Beurres to the rest of the box-room. For such +contingencies as this the Emperor’s system of philosophy seemed hardly +adequate. + +Most of all he dreaded the dormitory; for here the abandonment of clothes +laid him open to particularly painful forms of oppression; the shock and +horror of bedclothes ragged just as he was falling off to sleep; the +numbing swing of a pillow, the lancinating flick of wet towels; Oh!—a +hell of a life, only to be terminated by the arrival of Layton, who had +the privilege of sitting up till eleven, with black rings round his +spectacled eyes. He was reading for a scholarship at Cambridge. Then +Ingleby would really get off to sleep, or sometimes, if he were too +excited, watch the moonlight, broken by the stone mullions of the +windows, whiten the long washing-table and cast blue shadows so intense +that they heightened the bareness of the dormitory; or else he would +listen to the harsh breathing of Douglas, who slept with his mouth open, +and wonder what all those heavy sleepers were dreaming of, or if they +dreamed at all. And then his own magic casements were opened. + +At St. Luke’s he had discovered the trick—quite a new thing for him—of +historical dreaming. His form were busy with the age of the Stuarts, +under the direction of a master named Leeming, a mild-eyed cleric, rather +shy of boys and feverishly grateful whenever he sprung a response to his +own enthusiasms. + +Ingleby drank deep of the period’s romance, and this heady wine coloured +his dreams. He would dream sometimes of the tenanted oak of Boscobel, +watching with agony the movements of the Roundhead searchers; sometimes +he would stand elbowing in the crowd about that scaffold at Whitehall, +when the martyr king stepped out. The man at his left hand had been +eating garlic. Ha!—a Frenchman. One of those musketeers! . . . He +would tremble with delight. He wished that he could tell Mr. Leeming of +his dreams, but they were far too precious to risk being bruised by +laughter or unconcern. All night long this queer panoramic rubbish would +go seething through his brain, until, at six-fifteen, one of the waiters +swung a harsh bell outside the dormitory door and he would turn over, +trying to piece together the thin stuff that its clangour had so suddenly +broken, until the _ten-bell_ rang, and the rush for early school began. +He grew to love the winter terms because the darkness lasted longer. + +But he did write to his mother about it. Always on Sunday mornings the +sergeant would come in with a letter from her, full of the strangely +remote news of home; how the garden was looking, what Aunt Laura was +doing, and how they talked of felling the elm-trees in the lane. +Sometimes, with the lavishness of an angel, she would put a couple of +penny stamps inside for his reply. The odd stamp would buy a stick of +chocolate or a packet of nougat at the tuck shop. And in these letters +she rose, quite unexpectedly, to the recitation of his dreams. “How +lovely it must be for you,” she wrote. “When you come home for the +holidays at Christmas we will read some of Scott’s novels +aloud—_Waverley_ and _Nigel_, and that will give you something more to +dream about.” He began to realise what he hadn’t seen before: that his +mother was really a wonderful playfellow—much better, when he came to +think of it, than any of the boys. He would have so much to explain to +her. . . . “Oh, you dear, you are lovely!” he wrote in reply. + +And then one day, that sneak Douglas, fooling about in the dormitory with +Edwin’s toothbrush, happened to see the words that were faintly printed +on the ivory handle:— + + INGLEBY, CHEMIST, HALESBY. + +“Oho,” he said. + +At breakfast, after a propitiatory but futile helping of jam from Edwin’s +pot, he broke the glad news to Griffin. + +“Ingleby’s father’s a chemist, Griff.” + +“Then that’s why he’s such a skunk, Duggy. Is it true, Ingleby?” + +“Yes. He’s a chemist.” + +“Then he isn’t a gentleman.” + +“Of course he’s a gentleman.” + +“Not if he’s in trade. They oughtn’t to have sent you to school here. +It’s a bally shame.” + +That same afternoon Edwin was poring over a letter at his desk in Big +School. His mother always told him to keep her letters. “Some day you +may like to look at them,” she said. He was reading this letter for the +tenth time to see if he could extract some last scrapings of the +atmosphere of home which it had brought him. + +“Who’s that letter from? . . . Girl?” said Griffin rudely. + +“A lady.” + +“What!” + +“My mother.” + +“Christ! Your mother isn’t a lady, or she wouldn’t have married a +chemist . . . or be your mother.” + +And then Edwin jumped up, overturning the form on which he had been +sitting, and lashed out at Griffin’s face. He wanted to smash the +freckled thing. He only caught the boy’s cheek with the flat of his +hand, and then, after a second of dazed wonder at his own achievement, he +rushed out of Big School, across the Quad, and up that white, dust-felted +road to the downs. + + + +CHAPTER II +GOLDEN MEDIOCRITY + + +I + + +OF course he got his thrashing in return; but, in the end, he found +himself the gainer by that unthinkable outburst. The incident had been +noted, and there were those who relished the blow to Griffin’s prestige, +a blow which no recriminatory lickings could efface. Edwin assured +himself that he had that day lighted such a candle in England as should +never be put out. It seemed, indeed, as though the affair had revealed +to some of his own classmates that intellectual superiority which they +had overlooked before; and, in particular, it made the basis of a +friendship between himself and one of his rivals, a boy named Widdup, who +combined with a head for mathematics—Edwin’s blank despair—a certain +proficiency in games. Widdup disliked Griffin. + +“Great beefy beast,” he said. “If they’d make him play footer and sweat +some of the fat off him he’d have been a bit quicker on you. He wasn’t +half waxy about it. He hates being laughed at. . . .” + +And so, as the terms slipped by, St. Luke’s ceased to be a purgatory. +Edwin contracted certain timid friendships—as this with Widdup—and adored +a series of perfectly ordinary prefects. He shook down into his proper +place in the scheme of things, and after that nobody took much notice of +him. Even the Griffin-Douglas coalition, who never forgave, troubled him +very little. Certain outbursts of persecution he took as a matter of +course; such was the teaching of history; but the ways of these two were +now widely divergent from those in which he trod. The dormitory was the +only place in which they inevitably met, for he had managed to move his +seat in Hall some way from that of Griffin; and in chapel, the only other +place they had in common, he was safe. + +The friendship with Widdup notably ripened. They were both members of +the same branch of the Natural History Society, the one that was labelled +astronomical. The subject was unpopular, for its pursuit was nocturnal +and made no exciting appeal to the hunting instinct of boys. The section +met every fortnight in the room of one of the mathematical masters. And +since they met at night, they managed to escape second Prep. Their +president, Mr. Heal, was a rather melancholy performer on the flute, and +Edwin, generally contriving to turn up some minutes before the meeting +began, would stand at the door listening to the innocent gentleman +playing to himself unaccompanied folk-tunes that he had collected in the +holidays. At the first sound of a door-knock Heal would unscrew his +flute and pack it into a case lined with puce-coloured plush; but it +seemed as though an afterglow of tenderness still lingered on his +unusually dull features. As for astronomy, they never got much farther +than the mere names of constellations and their figures, although Widdup +often asked questions which almost tapped the mathematical master’s +subject. These adventures were discouraged, for Mr. Heal had grown to +hate mathematics. But they did learn to find their way about the paths +of the sky, and often, on frosty winter evenings, when the clear vault +above the downs was like jet, Edwin and Widdup would walk up and down the +Quad and imagine that they could feel the heave of the spinning world, +while they watched Capella scale the dome of sky. And once, when he had +come to the master’s room a little early on the night of the section +meeting, Mr. Heal cleared his throat and, taking Edwin by the ear, began +to read from an olive-green book that he held in his hand. He read +atrociously. “How do you like this?” he said. “H’m?” He said “H’m” +with a little snarl in it. + +“The Dog Star and Aldebaran, pointing to the restless Pleiades, were half +up the southern sky, and between them hung Orion, which gorgeous +constellation never burnt more vividly than now, as it swung itself forth +above the rim of the landscape; Castor and Pollux with their quiet shine +were almost on the meridian: the barren and gloomy square of Pegasus was +creeping round to the North-West; far away through the plantation Vega +sparkled like a lamp suspended amid the leafless trees, and Cassiopeia’s +chair stood daintily poised in the uppermost boughs.” + +Edwin thought it was “fine.” + +“Better than the _Story of the Heavens_?” asked Mr. Heal. “Come, come, +Ingleby . . . surely not?” + +“Rather, sir,” said Edwin. + +Mr. Heal shut the book. “The barren and gloomy square of Pegasus,” he +murmured to himself. And all the rest of that evening Edwin found +himself remembering the phrase. The bareness and the gloom of Pegasus +had never struck him before; and now, at a sudden suggestion, the whole +atmosphere of the sky had changed; the vague heavens became habitable to +his fancy; new and immense territory opened before him. . . . + +He told Widdup what he remembered of the passage that Heal had read. + +“Poor old Tommy,” said Widdup compassionately. “It isn’t an exact square +at all. It’s an irregular quadrilateral, and I don’t see anything gloomy +about it. Stars aren’t gloomy anyway. Look how they sparkle. Look at +Vega.” + +Above the gable of the swimming bath that wonderful star throbbed white. + + +II + + +In the Lent term they both had measles and woke with swollen eyes to find +each other side by side. In the same ward at the Sanatorium was Layton’s +successor, Payne, a thawed, thin, almost unfamiliar Payne; and while they +swam upon the first buoyant spirits of convalescence, the sheer hulk of +Griffin was hove in, in the snivelling misery of the early stages. Edwin +thought that Griffin had never looked so beastly, and rejoiced in the +pig’s humiliation; but when, at last, Griffin recovered he found his +ancient victim a handy plaything, and for want of anything better to do +attempted to seduce Widdup from Edwin’s friendship. Edwin never quite +forgave Widdup his defection; and when they were all better and back in +school again he found that he still had to avoid Griffin on whom the +habit of persecution had been regrafted. It seemed such a pity . . . he +thought he had outgrown all that sort of thing. + +And now he hated Griffin for a new reason. While they were together in +the Sanatorium, after the departure of Payne, Griffin had spoken +boastfully of his relations with one of the “Skivvies” whose morning task +was the making of beds in D dormitory. It appeared that Griffin had met +her first by accident, and later by appointment, and he himself described +her as “very hot pastry.” He was familiar with certain shops in the +neighbourhood of Shaftesbury Avenue, which made persuasion easy. To +Edwin, whose life at home had kept him in ignorance of all that a boy of +fifteen ought to know, everything sounded horrible, and he said so. He +remembered the look of the girl quite well: rather anæmic with black hair +and a pretty oval face. Griffin and Widdup howled over his innocence, +and began to instruct him in the “origins of life.” All these things +came as a great shock to Edwin. He felt a passionate conviction that the +other two were fooling him. Unfortunately his father had never employed +a coachman. + +“I don’t believe a bit of it,” he said with tears in his eyes. + +“You silly kid,” said Widdup. “Everybody knows it’s true.” + +“I don’t believe my father would do a thing like that,” cried Edwin. + +It seemed suddenly as if the world had become a gross and horrible +planet. The fetters of earth were galling his limbs. He felt a sudden +immense yearning for the coolness and cleanliness of stellar space. If +only he could pass the rest of his life in the great square of Pegasus! . . . +And he was consoled by the assurance that in heaven, at any rate, +there was no marrying or giving in marriage. . . . + + +III + + +Next term, to his great joy, he was moved up into the Upper Fourth, and +had for his form-master the gentle Mr. Leeming, a fat and cheerful cleric +with clean-shaven cheeks that shone like those of a trumpet-blowing +cherub. He was very shortsighted, rather lazy, and intensely grateful +for the least spark of intelligence to be found in his class. Edwin soon +attracted him by his history and essays. His mother had fulfilled her +promise of reading _The Fortunes of Nigel_ aloud in the holidays, and, as +luck would have it again, the Upper Fourth were supposed to be +concentrating on the early Stuarts. To the bulk of the form the period +was a vast and almost empty chamber like the big schoolroom, inhabited by +one or two stiff figures, devitalised by dates—a very dreary place. But +to Edwin it was crowded with the swaggerers of Alsatia, the bravoes of +Whitehall, with prentices, and penniless Scotchmen, and all the rest of +Scott’s gallant company. + +“Have any of you read _Nigel_?” Mr. Leeming asked the class. + +“I have, sir,” said Edwin shyly. + +“I have already gathered so, Ingleby. Has anybody else read it?” + +Silence. “I think I shall ask the head master to set it to the Middle +School as a holiday task,” said Mr. Leeming. + +Thus narrowly did Edwin escape the disaster of having Scott spoiled for +him. + +Mr. Leeming was the master in charge of the library, and Edwin began to +spend the long winter lock-ups in this room. Most of the boys who +frequented it came there for the bound volumes of the _Illustrated London +News_, with their pictures of the Franco-Prussian War, Irish evictions, +the launching of the _Great Eastern_, and mild excitements of that kind. +Edwin found himself drawn early to the bookcase that held the poets. To +his great joy he discovered that the key of his playbox fitted the case; +and so he would sometimes sneak into the room at odd moments in the day +and carry away with him certain slim green volumes from the top shelf. +These were Johnson’s _Lives of the Poets_, together with their Complete +Works. He had been attracted to them in the first place by the memory of +a polished urn, about as graceful in contour as a carpenter’s baluster, +that stood in a neglected corner of the parish church at home. This urn +was encircled by a scroll which bore these directions + + “O smite thy breast and drop a tear— + For know thy Shenstone’s dust lies here.” + +A palpable falsehood; for Edwin had already discovered the tomb of the +elegist in another part of the churchyard, elbowed almost into the path +by that of a Victorian ironmonger. + +But it was something to have been born in the same parish as a poet; and +Edwin, at an age when everything is a matter of taking sides, ranged +himself boldly with Shenstone and pitted his judgment against that of +Johnson, who rather sniffed at the poet’s unreality, and quoted Gray’s +letters in his despite. The crook and the pipe and the kid were to Edwin +very real things, as one supposes they were almost real to the age of the +pastoral ballad; and the atmosphere was the more vital to him because he +dimly remembered the sight of the poet’s lawns frosted on misty mornings +of winter, the sighing of the Leasowes beeches, and the damp drippings of +the winter woods. Thus he absorbed not only Shenstone but Shenstone’s +contemporaries: men like Dyer and Lyttleton and Akenside, and since he +had no other standard than that of Johnson he classed them by the same +lights as their contemporaries. Brooding among Augustan poetasters in +the library Mr. Leeming found him. + +“Poetry, Ingleby?” + +“Yes, sir.” + +“Let me see? Prior? Ah, that was a little age, Ingleby! The Augustans +were not great men, and some of them were very coarse, too. Have you +read the Idylls of the King?” + +Mr. Leeming introduced Ingleby to the great Victorian, for he himself was +an ardent believer in all the Galahad nonsense, and was astonished at +Ingleby’s ignorance of the school in which those cherubic cheeks had +expanded. He was very fond of talking about purity and conceived it his +duty to keep his class spotless. In the Lent Term, when the form were +working through the catechism, his glosses were most apparent. The +explanation of some passages troubled him. “_From fornication_ . . . +that’s a bad thing,” he would mutter. + +And once having put Edwin in the way of perfection he was not going to +look back. A week or two later he asked him how he was getting on with +Tennyson. “Who is your favourite character in the Idylls?” he asked. + +Edwin glowed. “Oh, sir, Launcelot—or Bors.” + +“But what about Sir Percivale? ‘Sir Percivale whom Arthur and his +knighthood called “The Pure,”’” he quoted in the Oxford variety of +Cockney. + +“I don’t know, sir,” stammered Edwin. “They seem somehow made +differently from me.” + +“Arthur,” said Mr. Leeming impressively, “has a great and wonderful +prototype whom we should all try to imitate no matter how distantly.” + +Edwin, who had read the dedication, wondered why Mr. Leeming lowered his +voice like that in speaking of the Prince Consort. + +In some ways he was grateful to Mr. Leeming for superintending his +literary diet, but he soon detected a sameness in the fare. One day he +had got hold of a big Maroon edition of George Gordon, Lord Byron, with +romantic engravings of the Newstead ruins and the poet’s own handsome +head, and Mr. Leeming had swooped down on him, faintly flushed. “Lord +Byron,” he had said, “was not a good man. Have you read _Hiawatha_?” +And he reached down Longfellow . . . Longfellow in green boards decorated +with a geometrical design in gold, and irritating to the touch. + +At last Edwin was almost driven from the library by Mr. Leeming’s +attentions. He never read Byron because the books were too big to be +sneaked out of the room beneath a buttoned coat; but he did read, without +distinction, nearly every volume of poetry that he could smuggle out in +this way. He read these books in second “prep” when Layton was poring +over Plato at his high desk, when Widdup was working out the cricket +averages of the second eleven, and Griffin was looking for spicy bits in +the Bible. And as second prep was generally a period of great +sleepiness—since the boys had risen so early, and by that time of evening +the air of the house classroom had been breathed and rebreathed so many +times as to be almost narcotic, the poetry that he read became interwoven +with the strands of his dreams. Dreamy and exalted, poppy-drenched, all +poetry seemed at this time; and it was to intensify this feeling of +sensuous languor that he so often chose the poems of Keats. + +In an introduction to the volume he had discovered that Keats had been an +apothecary, and this filled him with a strange glow; for since the +unforgettable incident of the toothbrush he had been (against his will) +diffident about his father. He determined never again to be ashamed of +the shop. When he read of “rich lucent syrops tinct with cinnamon,” he +remembered a great cut-glass bottle of some cough linctus that glowed +like a ruby in the shop window when the gas was lit at night. In other +ways he tapped a good deal of the romance of his father’s calling. He +remembered a drawer labelled “Dragon’s blood” . . . the very next best +thing to a dragon’s teeth with their steely harvest. He recalled a whole +pomander-full of provocative scents; he shuddered at the remembered names +of poisons, and other names that suggested alchemy. He almost wanted to +tell Mr. Leeming when next they spoke together, of his father’s trade, +but he wasn’t quite sure if Mr. Leeming approved of Keats. It was not +likely that he would see very much more of this master, for he was high +up in his form and certain to get a move into the Lower Fifth at the end +of the term. In some ways he was not sorry; for the signs of Mr. +Leeming’s affection, the warm encircling arm, the pervading scent of +honeydew, and the naïve glances of those watery eyes were embarrassing. +Before they parted Mr. Leeming showed his intentions more clearly. + +“Would you like to learn Hebrew, Ingleby?” he said. + +Edwin would have liked to learn Hebrew—but not out of school hours. He +hesitated. + +“I thought you might some day wish to take Holy Orders, and I should be +glad to teach you.” + +“I will ask my father, sir,” said Edwin modestly. That was one of the +penalties of having interesting eyes. + + + +CHAPTER III +THE GREEN TREES . . . + + +I + + +THE holidays that followed this term were the most marvellous. From +first to last they were bathed in the atmosphere of mellow gold that +makes beautiful some evenings of spring, all tender and bird-haunted; and +his mother, too, was more wonderful than she had ever been before. On +the very first evening when she had come upstairs to tuck him in and to +kiss him good-night, she sat on the bedstead leaning over him with both +her arms round his neck and whispering secrets to him. Very +extraordinary they were; and as she told him, her lips were soft on his +cheek. She said that only a month before she had expected to have a baby +sister for him—she had always longed so much to have a baby girl—and +before the first jealousy that had flamed up into his mind had died away, +she told him how the baby had been born dead, and how terribly she had +felt the disappointment. He wondered, in the dark, if she were crying. + +“But now that I’ve got my other baby again,” she said, “I am going to +forget all about it. We’ll be ever so happy by ourselves, Eddie, won’t +we? In the evenings when father is down at business we will read +together. This time we’ll take turns reading, for you’re growing such a +big boy. And we’ll go wonderful walks, only not very far, because Dr. +Thornhouse says I’m not strong enough yet. I want you to tell me +everything—everything you do and think about at school, because you’re +all I’ve got now. And you’re part of me, Eddie, really.” At this she +clutched him passionately. + +For a moment Edwin was nearly crying, and then, suddenly, he saw another +side of it: her expressed feelings were somehow foreign to him and made +him ashamed, as did Mr. Leeming’s watery eyes when he talked about +Arthur’s prototype. In the face of this eager emotion he felt himself +unresponsive and a little consciously superior and male. He didn’t want +to feel superior to his mother—but there it was! Even at breakfast next +morning he was shy, and it surprised him when he saw her clear gray-green +eyes wholly free from any answering shame. So unconscious was she of his +scrutiny that he went on looking at her—really looked at her for the +first time in his life. And looking, he began to differentiate this new +being, so fragile and eager and girlish, from the old traditional mother +whom he had loved and accepted as unquestionably as the miles of blue sky +above him. He discovered that she was a woman, remembered Griffin, and +blushed. + +“What a colour you’ve got, boy,” said his father. And it struck him also +that she was smaller than she used to be. + +“Isn’t mother rather thin?” he asked his father. Mr. Ingleby smiled, and +in his grave, shy way put out his hand to touch hers as it lay on the +table. + +“You silly boy,” said his mother. + +But her denials did not satisfy him. He knew, for certain, that she was +different from the mother whom he had known. He noticed, too, that she +was not allowed to eat the same food as the rest of them. Sometimes she +would forget their rules and taste things that were forbidden, and then +his father would gravely reprove her. Instead of bread she was ordered +to eat a sort of biscuit which Edwin’s curiosity made him anxious to +taste. He was disappointed; for they had no taste at all. “What are +they made of?” he asked; and they told him “Gluten. . . . That’s the +sticky part of wheat without starch.” + +And yet, in spite of her illness, they had never been happier together. +The new intimacy, that had begun with her painful confidences of the +first evening, continued. In particular she told him of the difficulties +which she was having with his Aunt Laura, her sister, who had lately +married a small manufacturer and come to live near Halesby. The story +was an old one and rather unhappy. It began years and years ago in the +days of his mother’s childhood, days that she remembered so unhappily +that she never really wanted to recall them. He had never before known +anything about his mother’s childhood. He had just taken her for granted +in her present surroundings. Now, in the long firelight evenings, she +told him how her forefathers and his had once been great people, living +in a stone border castle high above the Monmouth marches, and how, with +the lapse of time and the decay of the bloody age in which their violence +had prospered, the family had fallen from its estate and lost its lands; +how the tower of the castle had been broken and under its shadow a +farmhouse had arisen in which they had lived and scraped what income they +could make from a little valley-land and many acres of mountain pasture. +Now there were none of them left there; but still, where the tracks grew +stony and the orchards began to thin away, the walls of the house +crumbled patiently under the shadow of overhanging mountain-ridges. +“Your grandfather was the last of them, Eddie,” she said. “He was a +farmer.” And for a moment consciousness of Griffin and his social +prejudices invaded the picture. She told him of spring days, when the +clouds would come sweeping out of England on the back of the east wind +and be hurried like the frothy comb of a wave against the mountains, and +how they would then break asunder on the darens and fall back in a +drenching mist over the lonely house by Felindre, and for days the farm +would be islanded in fog. But on the summit above them, the sheep were +grazing in the sunlight and the buzzards hunting, and in the misty +lowlands beneath lay orchards full of faint-scented apple blossom. “We +were not the only decayed family there,” she said. “There were others, +and greater—such as the Grosmonts of Trecastel. But old Mr. Grosmont had +two sons, and father only had three daughters. I was a sort of ugly +duckling, Eddie; they never really liked me. And I was never happy +there.” + +“I think I must be like you, darling,” said Edwin. “I had a rotten time +at St. Luke’s at first. Even now I don’t quite seem to be . . . I don’t +know . . . ordinary.” + +She smiled and kissed him. + +“My father was a dear,” she said, “but mother really hated me. Your Aunt +Carrie was much cleverer and better-looking than me, and so they always +made a fuss of her and left me to myself. She had all the advantages. +You see, I suppose they thought she was worth it. She was a beautiful, +selfish creature, with the most lovely hair.” + +“I’m sure it wasn’t lovelier than yours, darling,” said Edwin. + +“Then she went and threw herself away, as mother called it, on a man she +met at a hunt ball in Hereford. And she died, poor thing, with her first +baby. It was an awful blow to mother. It made her more horrid to me +than ever. I suppose she found me such a poor substitute. If it had +been me it wouldn’t have mattered. I went to keep house for your +great-uncle in North Bromwich; and there I met your father. I have never +been really happy. You see, nobody had ever taken any notice of +me—before that. Then mother began to put all the hopes that had been +disappointed in Carrie on Aunt Laura. Nothing was too good for her. +They spoiled her, and spoiled her. It was worse when father died and +mother was left to do what she liked with the money. And when your Aunt +Laura came here and met Mr. Fellows and married him, your grandmother +blamed me. I couldn’t help it . . . and in any case Mr. Fellows is an +awfully nice, quiet man. I did all I could for her, too, getting her +house ready and that sort of thing, and now she’s so dreadfully +difficult. I suppose she’s really annoyed to think that she hasn’t done +better for herself with all her advantages of education, and just lets it +off on me. It’s dreadfully awkward, Eddie. I think she’s even jealous +that their house isn’t as big as ours. I simply daren’t tell your father +the sort of things she’s said. If he knew one of them he’d never forgive +her. He’s like that about anything that affects me.” + +“I should be, too,” said Edwin. + +“Would you?” she smiled. + +“Yes. . . . You’ve made me hate Aunt Laura already.” + +“You mustn’t feel like that, Eddie. She’s young, and she’s been spoilt. +It isn’t all her fault, probably.” + +“If it were any one but you I wouldn’t mind. But you’re so wonderful.” +He loved to look into her eyes when she loved him. + + +II + + +After this they had wonderful times together. In the mornings Edwin +would indulge his glorious idleness among the books of the dining-room +shelves, and after middle-day dinner, when his father had gone back to +the shop, he would set out with his mother up the lane under the tall +elms and through the sloping field that led to the mill pond. They did +not walk very far because she must not be over-tired; but the field was +so crowded with wonders that they were tempted further. Cowslips steeped +the meadows in their vinous perfume; and between the saplings of the +hazel copse they saw the sheeted hyacinths gleaming like pools that +mirror the sky in open places. Beyond the land of meadows and copses +they came to a belt of the old forest, through which they could see up a +broad green lane to the very shoulders of the hills: Pen Beacon heaving +its fleece of black firs, and the domed head of Uffdown. + +His mother would sigh a little when she saw the hills. In weather that +threatened rain from the west they would seem so near, with their contour +hard against the watery sky and the cloud shadows all prussian blue. + +“Oh, I should love to be there, Edwin,” she would say. + +“Can’t we walk there some day, dearest?” + +“It’s such a terrible drag up. We should both be dreadfully tired.” + +“Oh, I wish we could, mother; I do wish we could.” + +The day of their last walk together, when they came to the end of the +green lane and were sitting on the gate, she jumped down on the far side +and set off walking up the track. + +“Come along, Eddie,” she said, “I’m going up to Uffdown.” + +“Oh, mother,” he cried. “Isn’t it too far? I should like to carry you!” + +And half-doubting, but fearfully eager for adventure, they set off +together. As they climbed upward it seemed that the air grew sweeter +every moment, and when they had left the wood behind them they came out +on to a stony lane with a surface of grit veined by the tracks of +storm-water, and on either side banks of tufted grass along which gorse +was swaying in the breeze. And here the clouds seemed to be racing close +above their heads, all dazzling white, and the blue in which they moved +was deep and limpid. Mrs. Ingleby’s gray-green eyes were full of +laughter and her face flushed with the climb. + +“Oh, mother,” Edwin panted, “what an awful lick you go! Hadn’t we better +sit down a bit?” + +“And catch cold! You careless boy. We’ll get to the top soon now.” + +“But you mustn’t tire yourself.” + +She laughed at him. + +“Oh, this air is wonderful,” she said. “Just as if it had come straight +out of the blue, all washed and clean.” + +On the top of Uffdown where the cloak of pine droops to a hollow between +the two peaks, they sat on a dry, yielding hedge-side, where the grass +was thick as the fleece of a mountain sheep, and four lovely counties +dreamed below them. + +“Eddie,” she asked, half joking, “where does the west wind come from?” + +Edwin was willing to instruct. + +“Oh, I don’t know, dearest—from Wales and the sea, I suppose.” + +“Put your head close to mine and I’ll show you. . . . Those hills that +look like mountains cut out of blue cardboard are the Malverns, and far, +ever so far beyond them—yes, just to the left you see a level ridge that +drops suddenly in the west. You don’t know what that is, Eddie, do you?” + +“No—I don’t like to look at single things. I like to feel it’s all—what +d’you call it?—all dreamy underneath one.” + +“But you must look at that. It’s the mountain, Eddie, close to where I +was born.” + +“Felindre?” he asked. + +“Yes.” + +“But I never knew that you could see it from here. You never told me.” + +“You know why. I told you that I was never happy there. And now, you +see, since the old people died and the land was sold, it really has +nothing to do with us.” + +“Still, it’s rather wonderful to be looking into—into another country. +It is Wales, isn’t it?” + +“Yes—part of it’s in Wales. Felindre is in England.” + +Edwin pondered for a moment. + +“I’m rather glad I’m not half-Welsh, anyway,” he said. “But I wish I’d +been there.” + +“Do you?” she answered dreamily. “Yes—I wish we had been there together. +It was a different sort of life. I thought—I just thought I should like +to see it again.” + +He was a little alarmed at the wistfulness in her voice. + +“Mother—what do you mean?” he cried. + +“Nothing, Eddie, nothing. It was another life.” + +She put her arms round his neck and pulled him gently to her. He was +content to lie there, with his head on her breast, while she talked in a +low voice of that distant place and of her own childhood. He listened in +a dream and did not speak at all until she began to tell him a long story +which the Felindre shepherd, Morgan, had told her when she was a child. +Then Edwin opened his eyes and stopped her. + +“Dearest, I know that story,” he said. “Oh, go on, it’s wonderful. . . .” + +“Perhaps I’ve told it to you before: perhaps I told you when you were a +baby—I used to talk to you a great deal in your cradle. Perhaps . . . I +was rather lonely when you came, Eddie.” + +“Oh, no, I’m sure you haven’t. . . .” + +“Look, the cloud is blotting out my mountain now,” she said. “It is time +we were going.” The counties were asleep already. + +Over the brow of the hill they stepped into a different world, for where +the smoke of the black country had blotted the fading skyline a hundred +pit fires were beginning to blink out, and nearer still a pillar of flame +shot up into the sky. + +“Oh, look, mother,” Edwin cried. + +“They’re puddling the iron at the great Mawne furnaces. Stand still a +moment, we might almost hear their roar.” + +But no sound came to them but the clear tinkle of a stream plunging into +its mossy cup, and this seemed to bring them back into touch with the +lands that they had left. They hurried down through the dark woodland +paths, and when they reached the little town lights had bloomed in all +the ugly cottage windows, and the streets seemed deserted, for the +children were indoors. + + +III + + +She told him that she was rather tired, and would like to lie down and +rest for a little time before supper; and with the glow of the hill air +still on his cheeks and his limbs full of a delicious lassitude he +strolled down the lane and into the ill-lighted street of the town. He +passed through the little passage at the side of the shop and through the +dark bottle-room where he had to pick his way among drug hampers and +empty acid-carboys. Through the upper part of the glass door he could +see his father sitting on a high stool at the desk, his spectacles +half-way down his nose, dreaming among the bad debts in his ledger. +Edwin stood there for several minutes, for the picture fascinated him. + +Mr. Ingleby had now reached the indeterminate period of middle age: his +hair was gray, rather thin about the crown, and wanted cutting. In the +shop he always wore a black alpaca jacket, and this, by reason of its +thinness, made his chest look mean and skimpy. In this state of +comparative repose he was not impressive. From time to time he raised +his hand to scratch his shoulder. A customer came in to buy a cake of +soap and Mr. Ingleby climbed down from his stool to attend to her. He +opened a glass case, and, groping for this particular soap, upset at +least half a dozen others. Edwin noticed his hands, which were clumsy +and heavily veined on the back, and felt sorry for him when he stooped to +pick up the cakes of soap that he had upset. It all seemed so inelastic, +so different from the eager youth of his mother. Examining his father +from a physical standpoint he recalled the day on which Widdup had begun +his sexual education and had laughed at his innocent ideals. Now Edwin +laughed at himself; and the laugh made Mr. Ingleby look up as if a flying +beetle had banged against his ear. + +“Hallo, boy,” he said. “You were late for tea, you two!” + +“Oh, we had a lovely walk—right on to Uffdown.” + +“I hope you didn’t tire your mother. You must be careful, Eddie. Do you +want me to give you something to do? You shall weigh these powders then: +Phenacetin, five grains in each. Only try to be quiet; I have to get on +with these Lady-day bills.” + +Mr. Ingleby yawned and Edwin started to weigh powders. + +“Father, what is Dragon’s Blood?” + +“It isn’t the blood of dragons, Edwin. . . .” Mr. Ingleby smiled under +his glasses. + +“Oh, father, don’t rot.” + +“Dragon’s Blood is a resin. It’s prepared from _Dracæna Draco_, and it’s +used for mahogany varnishes.” + +“O-oh.” + +“I’m sorry to disappoint you, Edwin.” + +Silence for five minutes. + +“Father . . . Keats was a chemist.” + +“Keats?” Mr. Ingleby pronounced the word in the same tone as he would +have used if he had been saying “Keatings, madam?” + +“The poet.” + +“Oh—Keats. Yes, of course he was. He was consumptive, too. Died in +Italy.” + +“Yes, father.” Edwin was thankful to leave it at that; thankful that his +father knew just so much, even if he didn’t know any more. It would be +terrible to know more than your father, to feel that he was a sort of +intellectual inferior to you—a boy of fifteen. He would not talk of +these things any more. + +They walked home in silence. It seemed as if Mr. Ingleby were still +worrying about his wife’s tiredness, for when she tried to joke with him +at the supper table he was moody and restrained. + +“I’m not really a bit overdone,” she protested, kissing his forehead. + +“You’re like a pair of children, the two of you,” he said, and indeed his +gray seriousness seemed to isolate him from all the joy of youth that was +in them. + +That night Edwin’s mother sat for a long time on the bed talking to him +in a low voice. She would not tell him any more about the mountain +farmstead that had once been a castle, even when he begged her to do so. +She wanted to talk, she said, about all that he was to do during the +term, to make wonderful plans for the holidays, when the days would be +longer and they would be able to sit out under the limes on the lawn in +the twilight. + +“I am going to plant evening stock,” she said, “all along the lawn border +in between the irises. Besides, I shall be stronger then and we will +often take our tea with us to Uffdown.” And at last she said, “Eddie, +you bad boy, you must really go to sleep now, darling. You’ve got such a +big journey before you to-morrow, and you’re sure to get a headache if +you don’t have a good night’s sleep.” She kissed him many times. + + +IV + + +And when she had passed downstairs to the dining-room where her husband +sat before the fire in a plush arm-chair, lightly dozing, she kissed him, +too. She was feeling queerly flushed and emotional, and somehow the +atmosphere of that little room felt stuffy to her after the air of the +open spaces. + +“I’m restless to-night, dear,” she said. “I hate Eddie going back to +school. It’s dreadful to be parted from your baby just when he’s +beginning to be more and more part of you.” + +“Come close to me, by the fire, child,” he said. + +“No . . . I want some music, I think.” + +She went into the drawing-room and lit the candles on the piano. Sitting +there, in the pale light, with a shawl thrown over her muslin tea-gown, +she looked very frail and pathetic, against the piano’s ebony. She +played the _Sonata Appassionata_ of Beethoven, and the rather tawdry +little knick-knacks on the piano danced as if they were made +uncomfortable by the rugged passion. The whole room seemed a little bit +artificial and threadbare, ministering to her discontent. When the +_Sonata_ was finished she still sat at the piano, conscious of her own +reflection in its polished panels, and wanting to cry. She could not +bear the taunting of that image, and so she snuffed the candles and sat +in the dark. + +Edwin tossing on the verge of sleep was conscious of the music ceasing, +and, in the silence that followed, the cool cries of the owls. + + + +CHAPTER IV +MIDSUMMER + + +I + + +EDWIN had expected that the wrench of going back to school after these +holidays would be unbearable: but when he returned to St. Luke’s next day +he was almost astonished at his own acceptance of the change. It was +evening when he arrived, and boys who had come from a greater distance +than he were already unpacking their play-boxes in the long box-room. +Edwin sniffed the smell which he had once found so alien—that mingled +odour of cricket flannels, biscuits, bat-oil, and faint mustiness, with +relish. He passed through the swing-doorway into the library, dark and +echoing and groped his way towards the poetry bookshelves. He ran his +fingers over the brass netting that protected their case, he even tried +his play-box key to see if it had lost its cunning. The lock opened +easily, and he felt for the backs of the big maroon volumes of Byron with +their shiny title-plates. He thought of Mr. Leeming and of Sir +Percivale. A foolish phrase, one of a kind that he had often lately +found running through his brain—rhythmical groups of words that meant +nothing in particular—formed itself in his mind and stuck there. “_The +white lie of a blameless life_.” He laughed at himself. These words +that came from nowhere were the strangest things. He heard the echo of +his own laugh in the dark and empty room. The white lie of a blameless +life. . . . It pleased him to think that he had done with Mr. Leeming as +a form-master, even though the question of Hebrew and Holy Orders +remained unanswered. + +Stepping out of the library he was hailed by Widdup; a plumper, +sunbrowned Widdup fresh from three weeks with a doctor uncle in +Devonshire. There had been long drives through the lanes at the back of +Start Bay where the primroses (so Widdup assured him) were as big as +door-handles; there had actually been sea-bathing in April, and the joy +of watching huge liners, homeward bound from India, making the Start. +“And hills . . .” said Widdup, “you never saw such hills. Talk about +these downs. . . .” + +“It’s awfully hilly country at home,” said Edwin. + +They were walking side by side and up and down the quadrangle, from the +gym to the swimming bath, and dozens of couples were crossing and +recrossing in the same track. From time to time they would catch a few +words of conversation, eager and excited, as they passed. Above them +stretched a deep sky powdered with dust of gold. + +“What did you say?” said Widdup. “I’m awfully sorry, old chap. I didn’t +catch it. Douglas shouted to me. . . .” + +“I don’t know . . .” said Edwin. “Oh, yes . . . hills. I said there are +some ripping hills at home. One called Uffdown.” + +“But these hills in Devonshire . . . you’ve got to get out of the trap +for nearly every one. I used to drive my uncle. It was awful sport. +You’d think I was rotting, but it’s true.” + +The chapel bell started tolling in short jerks. The couples began to +drift towards the northern end of the Quad, where the gates were being +unbolted. For five minutes exactly the gravel of the wide path sloping +to the chapel gave out a grating sound beneath the pressure of many +hundred feet. The last stragglers hurried in. The master on duty +entered the porch. All the life of that dark mass of buildings spread +upon the bare edge of the downs became concentrated within the walls of +the chapel. Its stained glass windows glowed as with some spiritual +radiance. Inside they began to sing the hymn which is used at the +beginning of the term:— + + “Rank by rank again we stand + From the four winds gathered hither, + Loud the hallowed walls demand + Whence we come and how and whither . . .” + +and from the open doors there issued a faintly musty smell, as though +indeed the dead air of the holiday-time were dispossessed and young life +had again invaded its ancient haunt. + + +II + + +It seemed to Edwin from the first as though the concentrated delights of +this summer term were surely enough to efface every memory of discomfort +and suffering that had clouded his early days at St. Luke’s. He was +exceptionally happy in his new form. The form-master, whose name was +Cleaver, was an idle man with a young wife and a small income of his own, +circumstances that combined to make him contented with the conditions of +servitude at St. Luke’s which weighed so heavily on the disappointed and +underpaid Selby. He was also a fine cricketer, accepting the worship +which was the prerogative of an old “blue,” and convinced in his own +mind—if ever that kingdom were possessed by anything so positive as a +conviction—that the main business of the summer term was cricket. The +atmosphere of the cricket-field, with its alternations of strenuousness +and summery lassitude, pervaded his classroom, and the traditions of that +aristocratic game, in which nobody could conceivably behave in a violent +or unsportsmanlike manner, regulated his attitude towards the work of his +form. + +Edwin found it fairly easy to keep his average going at the departments +of the game in which Mr. Cleaver was concerned: Latin and Greek and +English. If, as occasionally happened, he made a century, Cleaver was +ready to congratulate him as a sportsman and a brother. To be beaten by +some yorker of Tacitus was no crime if he had played with a straight bat +and didn’t slog. Even a fool who could keep his end up had Mr. Cleaver’s +sympathy. + +It was not only in a spiritual atmosphere of the Lower Fifth that Edwin +found content. The classroom which the form inhabited was the most +pleasant in the whole school, placed high with a bow-window overlooking a +pleasant lawn that a poplar overshadowed. Beyond the lawn lay a belt of +dense thickets full of singing birds, on the edge of which laburnum and +lilac were now in flower: so that when Edwin’s innings was over, or Mr. +Cleaver was gently tossing up classical lobs to the weaker members of the +form, he could let his eyes wander over the warm air of the lawn to +plumes of purple lilac waving in the summer breeze, or the tops of the +avenue of lime-trees leading to the chapel spire. Even in the heat of +the day the Lower Fifth classroom was cool and airy, visited only by +wandering bees and scents of lime and lilac beckoning towards a golden +afternoon. + +The term was full of lovely animal delights; the luxury of flannels and +soft felt hats; the warmth of a caressing sun; the contrast of cool +drinks and water-ices; the languors of muscular fatigue; the reviving +ecstasy of a plunge into the green depths of the swimming bath; the joy +of extended twilights, and, in the thin air of evening, a multitude of +sounds, soothing because they were so familiar as to be no more +disturbing to consciousness than silence: boys’ voices calling in the +fields, the clear click of bat and ball, the stinging echoes of the +fives-court. Great days . . . great days . . . + +Edwin found himself becoming keen on cricket—not indeed from any +ambitions towards excellence, though the mere fact of sitting at Mr. +Cleaver’s feet was an inspiration, but for the sheer joy of tiring +himself at the nets and the peculiar charm of the game’s setting of +sunburn and white flannels and green fields. Cricket was a part of this +divine summer, and therefore to be worshipped. Little by little as he +practised he found he was beginning to improve, and before the middle of +the term he was developing into a fair bowler of medium pace and had +taken his own place in the house second eleven. It did him good in other +ways; for in this capacity he found that he was at length accepted +naturally and without any exceptional effort on his part. So, +miraculously, he seemed to have arrived at a degree of normality. This, +in itself, was a triumph. + +Spending long afternoons with his team in the lower fields, he found that +he could feel really at home with other “men.” He discovered qualities +in them that he had never guessed before. In the cricket field even +Douglas became tolerable; no longer a terrible and baleful influence with +scowling brows under a mop of black hair, but just a jolly good +wicket-keeper. Edwin began to be feverishly interested in the fortunes +of the second eleven: kept their averages, produced an elaborate table of +league results, conceived a secondary but violent interest in the +progress of his own County, Worcestershire, in those days, thanks to the +brilliancy of the Foster brothers—slowly rising to fame. Sometimes while +he lay on the grass, watching his own side bat, he would see the figure +of old, fat Leeming ambling along the path. He would shrink into the +concealment of his uniform flannel, being afraid that his patron would +speak to him and isolate him from his pleasant company. Leeming was not +fond of cricket and his shadow would mar this particular joy. Only when +he had passed relief would come. Great days . . . great days. + + +III + + +In the pursuit of these joys it is not to be supposed that Ingleby +forsook his friends the poets. In the flush of early June, before the +crowding of midsummer’s high pomps, there came to him many moments of +ecstasy. In the spinney at the back of the head master’s house there was +a nightingale to which his evening dreams were dedicated. All the +twilights were full of delicious scents and sounds. Of all other times +he remembered most clearly certain evenings when he would walk all alone +up the long slope of the gravel-path from the chapel, hearing the +whizzing wings of the cockchafers that made their home in the shrubs on +either side. Sunday evenings . . . Sundays were the most wonderful days +of all; not, indeed, because the chapel services made any religious +appeal to him—the advances of Mr. Leeming had scotched that long ago—but +because of the peculiar atmosphere of freedom which the long day +possessed and which, somehow, even the Head’s sermons failed to mar. He +hated the Head’s sermons; he hated, in particular, the sight of Griffin, +who was a useful member of the choir, singing, like any golden-headed +cherub, a solo in the anthem. But he loved the music, and particularly +the psalms, with which the daily matins and evensong made him so familiar +that he couldn’t help knowing many of them by heart. + +The chants to which the psalms were sung at St. Luke’s had been specially +composed for the school chapel by Dr. Downton, the organist, who had +fitted them with modulations that were, at the least, surprising to ears +which could not be happy or feel secure far from the present help of +tonic and dominant. Most of the congregation at St. Luke’s considered +that Sammy’s tunes were rotten. At first they were inflicted upon the +choir in manuscript; but in Edwin’s second summer they appeared collected +in a slim gray volume, and Heal, who acted as choirmaster, explained that +they were the results of the most careful study of the Hebrew text, of +night-long ecstasies, and the deep brooding of Dr. Downton’s mind. It +gave Edwin a picture of Sammy, with his gray, impassive face, weaving his +tunes out of the silence of the night by candlelight in the high +turret-room which that solitary master inhabited, and for this alone he +began to love the St. Luke’s Psalter. It is certain, at any rate, that +his early acquaintance with strange harmonic ideas made a great deal of +the most modern music easy to him in after years. Later, in North +Bromwich, when he became immersed in the flood of Wagner, he often +wondered whether Sammy in his lonely tower, had known these wonders, and +cherished them up there all by himself. He certainly couldn’t associate +that sort of music with the naïvetés of Mr. Heal’s flute. And yet, you +never can tell. . . . Mr. Heal knew his Hardy. . . . + +Then there were Sunday walks with Widdup over the downs under a grilling +sun, and through the woods of York Park, where Griffin and Douglas, +poaching, had encountered keepers; but the glare and dryness of a chalk +country in summer does not invite exercise, and the most precious hours +of all were spent on the sloping banks between the Grand Entrance and the +chapel. Here, early on a Sunday morning, Edwin and Widdup would carry +out an armful of rugs and cushions: and there all day they would lie in +the shade of the limes, reading, writing letters (Ingleby always had a +letter from his mother to answer on Sundays), watching the restless +flight of little copper butterflies, seeing the hot sky deepen to an +almost southern blue behind the pointed gables of the school. Against +such skies the red brick of St. Luke’s became amazingly beautiful. It +seemed to Edwin that in his home, on the edge of the black country, the +sky was never so clear and deep. Lying there he would read the books +that he had smuggled out of the library . . . poetry . . . a great deal +of it. Novels . . . he read, and he always remembered reading, Poe’s +_Tales of Mystery and Imagination_: “The Murder in the Rue Morgue,” “The +Pit and the Pendulum,” “The Masque of the Red Death.” Such titles! +There seemed to be no end to the leisure of those days. + +With the middle of the term came the Race Meeting on the Downs. During +the whole of Race Week the college bounds were tightened, so that no boy +dared show his face outside the iron gates. Within the short memory of +the school, a prefect—no less!—had been expelled, confronting his own +housemaster on the edge of Tattersall’s ring. + +On Wednesday of the week the race for the Six Thousand Guineas, the +greatest of the classics, was to be run. St. Luke’s within its closed +gates buzzed like a hive. In every house and every form there were +sweepstakes. Griffin made a book; boasted in Hall that he meant to see +the “Guineas” run or die. Ingleby very nearly admired him for his +courage. The great day came. All morning from the open windows of the +Lower Fifth classroom he could hear the rumble of loaded brakes climbing +the Downs road. In those days there were no motors, but white dust, +up-churned by many hundreds of wheels, filled the air and drifted in +clouds into the college quad. From a high wall at the back of the +swimming-bath they could see the road itself and the unceasing, hot +procession moving upwards; brakes full of men who carried beer-bottles; +bookies in white top-hats; costers with buttons as big as half-crowns +driving carts drawn by little donkeys whose thick coats were matted with +sweat; gipsies out to prey upon the rest of mankind; smart gentlemen in +dog-skin gloves driving tandem; regimental drags. All the road was full +of dust and torn paper and the odour of beer and sweat, and every member +of the crowd looked anxiously forward, as though he feared he would be +too late for the “Guineas,” toward the summit of the Downs where the +grand stand, like a magnificent paper-rack, stood up white against the +sky. Down in the playing-fields that afternoon nobody thought much of +cricket. For all the locked iron gates, the eager consciousness of the +crowd on the Downs had invaded St. Luke’s. Ingleby was scoring for his +own side’s innings. Douglas, who was sitting astride of a bat, kept his +eyes fixed on the airy summit of the grand stand, now fringed with the +black bodies of a thousand spectators. He pulled out his watch. + +“They’re off!” he said. “My God, don’t I envy old Griff!” + +Ingleby forgot his scoring. He, too, was wondering what had happened. +He could imagine it easily, for several times on the Downs he had crossed +the tan gallops on which, it was said, horses from the royal racing +stables were trained, and seen; incredibly slender creatures, lithe as +greyhounds, thundering neck and neck, over the sprinkled bark. He could +think of nothing swifter or more exciting on earth. The game stopped. +All the players were looking at the grand stand, as though their eyes +could tell them which horse had won. Two minutes. Three. From the top +of the Downs a great roar came down to them. Some monstrous beast, no +congregation of men, was roaring there. The black fringe on the grand +stand became animated by waving arms and hats and sticks. A cloud of +tinier specks detached themselves. These were the carrier pigeons; and +in a very little time they were flying high above the playing-fields, +seeing, no doubt, the black mass of London outstretched so many miles +away. + +“God . . . I wish I could shoot one,” said Douglas. “I never heard such +a row as they made up there. Ingleby, I’ll lay you two to one the +Prince’s horse has won.” + +That evening witnessed the canonisation of Griffin. Veritably he had +seen the Guineas. A crowd of admirers listened to his story between +preps in the house classroom. His manner was indolent and boastful. +This was to be no more than the first of many exploits. On +Friday—Ladies’ Day—the race for the Birches would be run. He had put the +money he had won over the Guineas on a horse called Airs and Graces, and +was going to see her bring his money home. + +Ingleby had never heard the name of this horse before, but when the house +sweepstakes for the Birches was drawn he found that Airs and Graces had +fallen to him. Griffin, who evidently considered that this animal’s +destinies were in his keeping, offered him a pound for his ticket. +Ingleby wasn’t having any. Douglas, called in to give an opinion on the +damnableness of that skunk Ingleby’s sticking to a sweepstake ticket for +which he had been given a fair offer, agreed it was a bloody shame that a +man like that should have drawn anything but a blank. What did he know +about racing? Racing was a pastime of gentlemen in which he couldn’t +obviously have any interest. Did Ingleby understand that Griffin was +going to see the race itself, a thing that he would never have the guts +to do in all his life? + +A couple of years before Ingleby would not have known how to meet the +coalition; it is possible, even, that he would have given up his ticket, +and improbable that he would have received the pound that Griffin +offered. By this time he had learnt that no answer at all was better +than the softest; that when Griffin and Douglas started that sort of game +the best thing was to keep his temper and clear out as quickly as +possible. On this occasion the chapel bell saved him. All through the +service that evening he was pondering on Griffin’s words, trying, rather +obstinately, to convince himself that they weren’t true; that he wasn’t +the skunk they had agreed to call him; that he was sufficiently gentle in +birth to have an interest in what the newspapers called “the sport of +kings,” that, at a pinch, he might summon up sufficient “guts” to emulate +the boldness of such a daring customer as Griffin. Perhaps it was all +too horribly true. . . . + +He couldn’t accept it. It was inconceivable that all the attributes of +knightly courage should be vested in people like Griffin; and yet he +couldn’t be certain that he wasn’t deceiving himself. It was so easy to +imagine oneself brave . . . the easiest thing in the world. “That’s the +worst of me,” he said to himself, “I can imagine anything. I could +imagine myself hiring a coach and wearing a white top-hat and asking old +fat Leeming to come to the Birches with me on Friday. I’m all +imagination and silly rot of that kind; but when it comes to the point +I’m no damned good at all.” + +It wasn’t the first time that he had realised defects of this kind. Term +after term he had been reproaching himself for the lack of moral or +physical courage. + +There was only one way out of it: to prove that he was capable of the +things which he feared by doing them. In this way he had driven himself +to batter his hands to pulp by playing fives without gloves; for this he +had taken a dive into the deep end of the swimming-bath for the sole +reason that he found it impossible to float in the shallow water and had +determined to swim; for this he had forced himself to spend long hours, +or to waste long hours, over Geometry, the subject that he hated most. +Now, in the same way, and wholly for his own satisfaction, he determined +to go to the Birches. + +That night, walking up and down the Quad, he opened the subject to +Widdup. He said,— + +“Do you know I drew Airs and Graces in the house sweep? Griffin offered +me a quid for the ticket.” + +“I should jolly well let him have it,” said Widdup, explaining the +mathematical side of the question. “You see, you’ve won a twenty to one +chance already. The chances against the horse winning are . . . well you +can work it out easily. I’ll do it for you in second prep. Besides, old +Griff has a lot of money on the horse and he’s going to see the race +run.” + +“Well, so am I,” said Ingleby. Widdup laughed, and that annoyed him. + +“What do you think of it?” + +“I think you’re a damned fool,” said Widdup. + +Ingleby left it at that. Perhaps Widdup was right. But why in the world +should the same thing count for heroism in the case of Griffin and folly +in his own? He distrusted the mathematical Widdup’s sense of proportion. +In any case he had to go through with it. If he didn’t, no subsequent +heroism could ever persuade him that he wasn’t a coward and worthy of +every epithet with which Griffin had loaded him. It was in the same +spirit, he imagined, that knights in the ages of chivalry had set +themselves to perform extravagant tasks, that saints had undergone +monstrous privations; just to convince themselves that they weren’t as +deficient in “guts” as they feared. + +The business came more easily than he had expected when first he tied +himself to his resolve. Friday at St. Luke’s was a “fag-day.” On Friday +afternoon, that is to say, there were no organised games. The afternoon +prep started at half-past three, and afternoon school at four-fifteen. +The great race, he learned, was to be run at three o’clock; and this +would give him time to miss the hour of prep which was not supervised and +to be ready for an innings of Greek with Cleaver. An easy game, Greek. . . . +For once in a way he was prepared to slog like blazes. + +Up to the last moment Widdup refused to think that he would go through +with it. He didn’t believe, indeed, until he saw Edwin climb on to the +top of the wooden fence in the nightingale’s spinney at the back of the +Head’s house and drop over into the road. + +“Now, I should think you’ve had enough of it,” said Widdup. “If the old +man came along and saw you there, you’d be bunked to-morrow. Come along. +. . .” + +“I’ll be back just after three,” said Edwin. “You’ll be here to give me +a hand over?” + +“All right,” said Widdup. “You are a bloody fool, you know.” + + + +CHAPTER V +AIRS AND GRACES + + +HE didn’t need telling that. With every step the conviction was borne in +on him, and when he came to the end of the wooden palings that marked the +school boundary he was very near to giving up his enterprise. He could +easily, so easily, slip over the hedge on the opposite side of the road +and wait there until the race was over and the bookies’ messenger-boys +came racing down the hill on their bicycles, bells tingling all the way; +and then he could meet Widdup at the appointed place and say that he had +seen the race. By that time rumour would have told him the winner’s +name. But that wouldn’t do. Not that he cared two-pence-halfpenny +whether he told the truth or a lie to Widdup, but because he would feel +such a wretched coward in his own mind. He had got to prove to himself +that he possessed the moral courage which he doubted. It was only the +existence of the very real danger—and he envisaged not only his own +expulsion, but harrowing scenes of remorse and distress at home—that made +the thing a fair test. He had to go through with it. + +Beyond the line of fencing, even standing in midstream of that determined +crowd, he felt himself curiously unprotected. He did a curious thing. +He turned his college cap, with its circular stripes of green, inside +out, presenting to the world a dirty brown lining. This wasn’t enough +for him: he also turned up the collar of his Eton coat. But the crowd +was thinking of one thing only and none seemed to notice him. They +noticed nothing. Even the sellers of the race cards and the tawny +gipsies who cried for a piece of silver to cross their palms, and +promised good luck, were unheeded. Edwin concealed himself, or imagined +some measure of concealment, in an eddy of dust between a heavy +wagonette, crammed with men who looked like licensed victuallers, and a +coster’s donkey cart. He found that by holding on to the step of the +wagonette he felt safer. It was reassuring to hold something. What a +rotten coward he was! + +At last one of the men in the last seat of the wagonette who had been +rolling about with his eyes closed, opened them and looked at Edwin. +They were curiously watery eyes, and his mouth was all over the shop. +When he had dreamily considered the phenomenon of Edwin for a little +while he addressed him,— + +“You look ’ot, young man.” + +It _was_ hot, Edwin panted. + +“Bloody ’ot,” said the man in the wagonette. As an afterthought he took +a bottle of beer, about a quarter full, from his pocket. The cork came +out with a pop. “Gas,” said the fat man, and chuckled. “Gas . . . eh?” +He took a swig, and with the froth fringing his moustache, offered the +bottle to Edwin. Edwin shook his head. + +“You won’t?” said the fat man. “You’re workin’ ’arder than I am. Oh, +well, if ’e won’t,” he continued dreamily, and finished the bottle. Then +he pitched it over the hedge. + +The dust was terrible. On either side of the track the hedges and banks +were as white as the road. The horses pulled well, and even hanging on +the step Edwin found it difficult to keep up with them. At the crest of +the hill the driver whipped them into a trot. Edwin let go the step and +was cursed fluently by the coster for standing in the way of his +donkey-cart. His friend waved him good-bye. He found himself caught up +in a stream of other walkers, hurrying in a bee-line for the grand stand, +now distantly visible with the royal standard drooping above it. Behind +him and in front the black snake of that procession stretched, sliding, +literally, over the shiny convolutions of the Down that the feet of the +foremost had polished, and moving in a sort of vapour of its own, compact +of beer and strong tobacco and intolerable human odours. From the crown +of the Downs Edwin looked back at the playing-fields, the tiny white +figures at the nets and in the fives-court that sometimes stopped in +their play to watch the black serpent in whose belly he now moved. They +seemed very near—far too near to be comfortable; and even though he knew +that nobody down there could possibly see him, he felt happier when a +billow of the Down hid the plain from sight. + +It was only when he reached the grand stand, losing himself in the thick +of the crowd that clustered about it, that he began to feel safe. He +looked at his watch and found that he had a quarter of an hour to spare. +A little old man in seedy black clothes grabbed his elbow fiercely. +“Young sir, young sir,” he said, “take my advice . . . gratis; free; for +nothing.” He laughed, and Edwin saw gray bristles stretched on his +underlip. “Take my advice. Never expose your watch at a race-meeting. +Myself . . . I’ve learnt it from long experience, my own and my friends’. +. . . Never even take a watch when I go racing. No, I leave it at home. +A beautiful half-hunter by Benson of Ludgate Hill, with enamelled face. +Yes. . . . You take my advice. A thing to always remember. Yes. . . .” + +Edwin seriously thanked him. A roar went up from the crowd. “The +Prince. The Prince has entered the Royal Box,” said the old man. “God +bless him.” He raised a dusty top-hat. An extraordinary gesture for +this wrinkled, gnomish creature. “Yes,” he mumbled; “a handsome +time-piece. . . . Benson of Ludgate Hill. A very prominent firm. We +shall see nothing here. You follow me.” + +Edwin followed. More beer, more tobacco, more of the curious composite +smell, more positively vegetable than human, that he had begun to +associate with trampled pieces of paper, probably the debris of bags that +had once held fruit of some kind. The little man pushed his way deftly +through the crowd. He was so small and inoffensive that nobody seemed to +notice him; and indeed the leading characteristics of this crowd’s vast +consciousness seemed to be good humour. The bookies in their white hats, +the many-buttoned costers, the sweating men in black coats, the very +waiters in the refreshment tents, staggering under leaning towers of beef +plates, seemed determined to enjoy themselves in spite of the heat and +the smell of their neighbours under the white-hot sky. + +Edwin, too, forgot his anxieties. The vastness of the crowd subtly +shielded him. He felt newly secure, and his spirit was caught up into +its excitement and good humour. He even turned down his collar. And all +the time his mind exulted in a queer sense of clarity, an intoxication +due, perhaps, to his successful daring. In this state he found all his +surroundings vivid and amusing; all colours and sounds came to him with a +heightened brilliancy. He smiled, and suddenly found that a young gipsy +woman with her head in a bright handkerchief was smiling back at him. He +thought it was jolly that people should smile like that. He thought what +jolly good luck it was meeting his guide, the shiny shoulders of whose +frock coat he saw in front of him. His quick mind had placed the little +man already: a solicitor’s clerk in some ancient worm-eaten Inn of Court, +a relic of the dark, lamp-litten London of Dickens: a city of yellow fog +and cobbled pavements shining in the rain: of dusty, cobwebbed +law-stationers’ windows and cosy parlours behind them where kettles were +singing on the hob of a toasting fire, and punch was mixed at night. + +It seemed to him that he could have met no more suitable person than his +friend; for really all this racing crowd were making a sort of Cockney +holiday of the kind that the greatest Victorian loved most dearly. He +began to find words for it all. He _must_ find words for it, for it +would be such fun writing to his mother about it. If he dared. . . . It +would be time enough to write a letter about it when the business was +finished without disaster. There was always the possibility that he +would be found out and expelled. Even if that should happen, he thought, +he would like to tell his mother. . . . + +Together they passed the level of the grand stand. This huge erection of +white-painted wood provided the only constant landmark, for Edwin was not +tall enough to see above the shoulders of the adult crowd in which he was +moving. Now they had left the grand stand behind it seemed that they +must surely be crossing the course. And then a bell clanged and the +crowd parted like a great wave of the Red Sea in pictures of the Exodus. +Edwin found himself clinging to the coat-tails of his friend, and the +little man, in turn, hanging on, as if for his life, to a whitewashed +post from which the next wave would have sucked him back. The crowd +swayed gently, settling down and leaving them stranded upon the very edge +of the course. “That’s a trick worth knowing,” said Edwin’s friend. + +Opposite them the stands, well known to him on Sunday walks as a vast +skeletal erection, stood clothed in flesh and blood: tier upon tier of +human faces packed one above the other looked down on him. Edwin had +never before realised how pale the faces of men and women were. From the +midst of them there rose a ceaseless murmur of human speech, shrilling +occasionally like the voices of starlings when they whirl above an autumn +reed bed, and then, as suddenly, still. For one extraordinary moment +they were nearly silent. “They’re off!” said the little man. . . . + +Again the murmur of the stands arose. A bookie just behind them was +doing his best to get in a last few bets, entreating, proclaiming +passionately the virtues of “the old firm.” His red face lifted above +the crowd, and while he shouted saliva dribbled from his mouth. A +curious roaring sound came from the other side of the horse-shoe course a +mile or more away. He stopped with his mouth open in the middle of a +sentence. Something had happened over there. Everybody, even those who +couldn’t see anything, turned in the direction from which the sound came. +Edwin turned with them. He couldn’t imagine why. And when he turned his +eyes gazed straight into those of Miss Denning, the matron of the College +Sanatorium, marvellously dressed for the occasion and leaning upon the +innocent arm of Mr. Heal. Thank God, Mr. Heal was short-sighted! Edwin +felt himself blushing. He knew for certain that she had seen and +recognised him; for his sick headaches had often taken him to the +Sanatorium and he had always been rather a favourite of hers. She stared +straight at him and her eyes never wavered. Obviously the game was up. +He fancied that her lips smiled faintly. Never was a smile more +sinister. + +Edwin had an impulse to bolt . . . simply to turn tail and run at his +hardest straight back to the college. He couldn’t do that. Between him +and escape, an impassable river, lay the parabola of yellow grass over +which the Birches was even now being run. Feeling almost physically +sick, he slipped round to the other side of his companion. He wished +that gnomish creature had been bigger. “They’re at the corner . . . if +you lean out you can see . . . look, they’re coming into the straight . . . +Airs and Graces leading. Down they come. The finest sight in the +civilised world.” + +Edwin didn’t see them. He saw nothing but the phantom of Miss Denning’s +eyes, her faint and curiously sinister smile. He wished to goodness the +race were over. Now everybody was shouting. The stands rose with a +growl like great beasts heaving in the air. Something incredibly swift +and strepitant passed him in a whirl of wind and dust. The crowd about +him and the heaving stands broke into an inhuman roar. The little old +man beside him was jumping up and down, throwing his top-hat into the air +and catching it again. The whole world had gone shouting and laughing +mad. Edwin heard on a hundred lips the name of Airs and Graces. It +meant nothing to him. Now he could only think of escape; and as the +crowd bulged and burst once more over the course he made a dash for the +other side. + +Mounted police were pressing back the tide; but Edwin was small, and +quick enough to get over. He pushed and wriggled his way through masses +to which there seemed to be no end. Only in the rear of the stands the +density of the crowd thinned. Then he broke into a run and though he was +soaked with sweat and his head was aching fiercely, he did not stop +running until a billow of the Down had hidden the stands from sight. + +In a little hollow littered with tins and other debris, and choked with +nettles and some other hot-smelling herb, he lay, recovering his breath, +and, for the first time, thinking, beside a diminished dew-pond of dirty +water. He was miserable. Fate now brooded over him as heavily as the +white-hot sky, and he couldn’t, for the life of him, imagine why. It was +ridiculous, in any case, that the mere sight of a woman’s eyes should +have worked so extraordinary a miracle. Yet this was no less than the +truth. Suddenly, without a shadow of warning, all the happiness and +light and colour had gone out of his adventure. That which had been, at +least, magnificent, had now become childish or nearly silly. Reflecting, +he couldn’t be satisfied that anything was changed. Nothing had really +changed except himself; and he didn’t want to admit that he had changed +either. No, he hadn’t changed. Only his mind was just like the dewpond +at his feet in which the burning sky was mirrored. Some days it would be +blue and white and others black with thunder. But the pool would be just +the same. “I oughtn’t to be more miserable now than I was when I came up +here; and then, apart from being a bit funky, I felt ripping.” None of +these sober reflections relieved him. All the rest of the way back he +felt hunted and miserable, and something very near to panic seized him at +the point when he reached the college palings. + +At the corner, looking horribly scared, Widdup was waiting. + +“Thank goodness you’ve come,” he said. Then he suddenly went white. + +“What’s the matter?” cried Edwin. + +“Oh, Lord, it’s the Head.” + +The voice of the head-master came next,—“Hallo, what are you doing here? +Let me see—Widdup, isn’t it?” + +“Yes, sir.” + +A mortar-board topped the palings. “Ingleby—What’s this? What’s this? +What are you doing there?” + +A moment of brilliant inspiration. + +“Widdup and I were fooling, sir, and he chucked my cap over the fence. +May I get it, sir?” + +“Serious—very serious,” muttered the Head. “The letter of the law. +Race-week. You’re out of bounds, you know—technically out of bounds. +Boys have been expelled for less. Yes, expelled. Ruin your whole +career.” + +Edwin saw that he was in a good humour; saw, in the same flash, the +too-literal Widdup, white with fear. + +“I’m sorry, sir,” he said . . . “awfully sorry.” + +“Mph. . . . What were you two doing here?” + +“I wanted to get some poplar leaves for my puss-moth caterpillars.” +Silence—then, rather lamely,—“They’re in the fourth stage, sir.” + +“Are they?” The Head smiled, possibly because he approved of this +fervent manifestation of what the head-masters’ conference called “nature +study,” possibly at Edwin’s sudden revelation of schoolboy psychology. +Decidedly he approved of the puss-moths. He had been reading Fabre aloud +to his wife. Fabre, too, was a schoolmaster, poor devil! He did not +speak his thoughts: schoolmasters never can. He said,— + +“Let me see, Ingleby, you’re in the Lower Fifth?” + +“Yes, sir.” + +“I must speak to Mr. Cleaver. . . .” He didn’t say what he must speak +about. “All right—get along with you.” He left them, walking away with +his hands joined behind his back supporting an immense flounce of black +silk gown. Edwin scrambled over the fence; his hands, as they clutched +the top of it, were trembling violently. + +“Well, you are a prize liar,” said Widdup, “and the old man believed +every word of it.” + +“I know,” said Edwin. “That’s the rotten part of it. . . .” + +“What on earth do you mean?” + +“Oh, I don’t know. . . .” He knew perfectly well what he meant. + +“Who won?” + +“Airs and Graces.” + +“Then you’ve won the sweep.” + +“Yes.” + +Ten minutes later he was back in Mr. Cleaver’s classroom trying to make +himself so inconspicuous that he wouldn’t be called upon to make an +exhibition of himself, and, as luck would have it, nothing of any +difficulty came his way to drag him from his comfortable obscurity. Even +though the intense excitement of his adventure had now faded, the +atmosphere of that high room had changed. He felt that he didn’t somehow +belong to it; or, rather, that he had left something behind. All through +that drowsy hour some part of him was still being hurried over the hot +downs, swept along in the sweating crowds of the racecourse, and this +circumstance made his present life strangely unreal, as though he were a +changeling with whom it had nothing in common. Gradually, very +gradually, the old conditions reasserted themselves, but it was not until +the insistent discipline of the evening service in chapel had dragged him +back into normality that his adventure and the influence of the strange +people with whom he had rubbed shoulders began to fade. Widdup, with his +unblushing admiration, helped. There was no shutting him up. + +“Well, you have a nerve,” he said. “I wonder what you’ll do next. . . .” + +“Oh, stow it,” said Edwin. “I’ve finished with that sort of thing. I’m +not cut out for a blood.” + +“I can’t think how you did it.” + +“Neither can I. It was damned silly of me. I just wanted to satisfy +myself that . . . that I had some guts, you know. I didn’t really care +what you chaps thought about it. It was sort of private. . .” + + + +CHAPTER VI +THUNDER WEATHER + + +I + + +THAT night a thrilled but incredulous dormitory discussed the exploit of +Ingleby. Without pretending to have approached the dizzy achievements of +Griffin, Edwin perceived that in addition to reassuring himself he had +managed to atone for a little of his former reputation. He found himself +treated with something that was almost respect, partly for the daring of +the whole expedition, but even more for the crowning achievement of his +inspired lie. + +“I wish you hadn’t told them that,” he said to Widdup. + +“Why not?” said Widdup. “That was the best part of it.” + +“I don’t think so. I don’t mind telling a lie, but it’s rotten if the +chap you tell it to believes you.” + +“Get out,” said Widdup. “If you want to know the truth it’s only another +example of your rotten cockiness.” + +Why? Why? Why? . . . He couldn’t understand it. It seemed to him that +the most natural decent things in the world were all labelled as +abnormalities. Even if he had proved to his own satisfaction that he +possessed the usual amount of “guts,” it seemed that he was a kind of +freak. There was no getting to the bottom of the mystery. Yet, when he +came to consider himself, he was certain that his attitude was infinitely +humble. Perhaps that was the trouble. Other chaps didn’t think about +themselves. Edwin envied them unfeignedly. He felt that he was +condemned to travel a sort of vicious circle. Thus, if he were honest to +himself he was bound to fail in the ordinary normal standard and to be +considered, if not a prig, an oddity. If, by enormous efforts, he were +to compel himself into the trodden ways of thought and conduct, he +couldn’t be honest—and in the process of regaining his honesty he found +himself fighting his way back to the original misfortune. There was no +way out of it. Isolated he must be. He determined, above all things, +that even if he were not ashamed of his isolation, he wouldn’t be proud +of it. It wasn’t easy. + +The whole incident of the Birches—which, after all, he had meant for a +sort of private trial—was becoming a nuisance. He almost welcomed the +attitude of Griffin, who scoffed at the whole business and refused to +believe he had been there. Griffin, his own reputation for valour and +cunning being in question, determined to prove that Edwin had not been +near the race. In the dormitory that night the coalition set themselves +to this business, beginning with an examination at the hands of Griffin +himself. + +“Widdup says you went to see the Birches run.” + +“Does he?” said Edwin. + +“Now, none of your fooling, Ingleby. You’re a damned little liar. You +never put your nose near the races.” + +“Well, it doesn’t matter to you anyway.” + +“Doesn’t it? You’ll soon know that it does. We’re not going to have any +liars in this house. You’d better tell the truth at once.” + +“All right, then. I did go to the races.” + +“The swine! . . . Get a towel, Duggie.” + +“Well . . . you asked me. . .” + +“Now, I’m going to prove that you’re a liar. Of course you know that +already. But you ought to be shown up for your own good. Then you’ll +get a tight six. What were Airs and Graces’ colours?” + +“I don’t know what his colours were.” + +Griffin howled. “HIS . . . listen to the swine. He doesn’t know a horse +from a mare, Duggie. Ingleby, how do you tell a horse from a mare?” +Edwin blushing, was overwhelmed with laughter. By this time the towel +was ready, wet, and twisted into a cable. “I’ll teach you the colours of +Airs and Graces,” said Griffin. “We’ve had quite enough of your airs and +graces here. Next time you’ll find it pays to tell the truth in this +dormitory.” + +Edwin got his six, having been bent double over the end of his own bed by +the other seekers after truth. It was worth it. When the lights were +out and he was comfortably settled in bed he decided that that sort of +thing oughtn’t to make any difference. “My mind to me a kingdom is,” he +said to himself; and in his mind the great guts question had been settled +for ever. As for the lamming. . . . Well, it might have been a gym +shoe. . . . While he lay thinking of these things he was surprised to +hear the voice of Widdup, who slept next to him, speaking in a whisper. +“I say,” he said, “did you really go to the Birches, or were you pulling +my leg?” + +“Of course I did,” he replied. It gave him a little shock to find that +so slight a thing as a display of physical violence had shaken Widdup’s +faith. + +“I’m glad of that,” came Widdup’s apologetic whisper. A long silence. +“You’ve won the sweep, anyway,” said Widdup. “Thirty-eight and +sixpence.” Edwin grunted. + +“If you reckon that you’ll be here four more years, taking into account +the number of men—average, you know—who go in for the house sweep every +year, you could calculate the exact chances against your ever—” + +He was asleep. + + +II + + +And while he slept after that day of unusual excitement and fierce +colour, he had a curious dream. In the beginning it reflected a little +of the anxieties of the afternoon, for he found himself hurrying in the +middle of a huge and sweaty crowd which made no way for him. He did not +know why he was running so violently; but of one thing he was certain, +and this was that he was going to be late. At first he had in front of +him the little man in the rusty coat who had been his companion on the +Downs: the same queer creature now endowed with an aspect even more +grotesque and an agility more elfish, so that Edwin knew from the first +that this time he was sure to lose him and never to catch him up again. +All the masses of people through whom he pressed were moving even faster +than himself and in the same direction, so that it seemed as if he could +never gain ground at all, but must go on running for ever with no sight +of his goal, nor any hope of getting nearer to it. At last his breath +gave out, and he stopped. It wasn’t a bit of good; for the moving crowd +wouldn’t stop with him, and he was pushed forward by this multitude of +tall people, knowing that if he faltered for a moment or fell (as in the +end he must), he would certainly be trampled to death by the feet of +those who followed. + +At last the little man outstripped him altogether, and feeling that he +had lost all hope, Edwin gave a cry. When he cried out the whole +hurrying crowd melted away, the noise of their padding footsteps left a +clear patch of silence (it was like that) and a puff of cool, thin air +blew suddenly right into his nostrils. He thought, “I’m not going to be +late after all. . . . Why didn’t they tell me that I was going to +Uffdown?” There was no air like that in the world. He drank it down in +gulps as a horse drinks water. “Eddie, you’ll choke yourself,” his +mother said. . . . “The light won’t last much longer.” “But why should +it last, darling?” he replied. “You’ve got to look over there,” she +said, “in the west. You see that level ridge dropping suddenly? Well, +it’s the third farm from the end. Do you see?” + +“Yes, darling, I can see it quite clearly. . . .” And he did see it. A +long building of bluish stone with small windows set flush in the walls +and no dripstones save one above the oak doorway. Not a soul to be seen. +It looked as if the place had been deserted by living creatures for many +years. “I can see it,” he said, “but I don’t think anybody lives there.” + +“But you can see it?” she asked him eagerly. “Can you see the little +bedroom window on the left—the third from the end—quite a little window?” + +It was difficult to see, for, after all, it was more than a hundred miles +away, and all the time that he was looking, the streamers of cloud kept +rolling down from the darens on the mountain and drenching the whole +scene in mist. “Eddie . . . there’s not much time,” she pleaded. “Do +tell me.” + +“Yes,” he said. “I can see the window you mean.” + +She sighed. “I’m so glad, Eddie. I did want to show it you.” + +“But why were you in such a hurry?” + +“It was my last chance of showing it to you.” + +“Whatever do you mean, darling?” + +She turned her face away. Now it was quite dark. “I’m really dreaming,” +he thought, “and this is a sort of stage on which they can do lightning +tricks like that.” But there was no doubt about it being Uffdown. All +round the sky the pit-fires of the black-country were flickering out. +And though he couldn’t see her face, he could feel her soft hand in his. +“At any rate, I’ve written . . .” she said at last. + +That was the sentence which he carried in his mind when he awoke. A +letter. But she didn’t usually write to him before Sunday, and it was +now only Saturday. Yet, when he came into Hall for breakfast a letter +was lying on his plate. There was something so strange about the whole +business that he was almost afraid to open it. He had a sudden, awful +intuition that she was dead. Ridiculous, of course, for dead people +didn’t write letters. Smiling at himself, yet scarcely reassured, he +opened the letter and read it. + + “_My Darling Boy_ (she wrote),—_Did you really make fifteen_? _You + must be getting on_. _Aunt Laura has just been in to tea_, _and we + talked such a lot that I have only just time to write this before + father goes down to business and can post it_. _I have some very + interesting news for you_. _The other afternoon Mrs. Willis of Mawne + came in to see me_. _She and Lilian are going to Switzerland for a + month this summer_, _and now she suggests that I should join them + there_. _It won’t be just yet_, _and I think—no_, _I’m sure_—_that I + should be back again before your holidays_. _Father wants me to go_. + _I haven’t been very well_, _and the doctor says he’s sure it would + do me good_. _All my life I’ve wanted to see Switzerland_. _I’m + most awfully excited about it_, _Eddie_, _and father says he can + spare me_. _Won’t it be wonderful_? _They are going about the end + of June_. _I won’t forget that postal order_, _but I’m rather poor + myself just at present_. _Eddie_, _do you keep my letters_? _I + think I should like you to_. _The double stocks which father planted + in the long bed are just coming out_. + + “_Good-bye_, _my darling_, + + “_Your loving_ + “_Mother_.” + +Of course nothing, in spite of the news of the Swiss excursion, could be +more ordinary. That would be wonderful for her . . . of course it would. +And yet, in spite of all these reasonable convictions he couldn’t get +that dream out of his head. Something, he felt sure, was going wrong. + +He tried to analyse the source of his disquietude. “Perhaps I’m +jealous,” he thought. He was most awfully jealous of anything that other +people had to do with his mother, and, anyway, he didn’t know these +Willis people very well. They were new friends of hers: a family of +wealthy iron-masters whose works had suddenly risen in the year of the +Franco-Prussian war, and were now slowly but gigantically expanding. +They lived at Mawne Hall, a sad but pretentious mansion of the departed +Pomfrets, of which Edwin knew only the wrought-iron gates at the bottom +of a steep drive. They had a son, Edward, of very much the same age as +himself, but the Willises had no great educational ambitions (that was +where Edwin’s mother came in), and had sent him to the ancient but +decaying Grammar School of Halesby, an impossible concern in the eyes of +any public-schoolboy. The Willises had pots of money. Here again Edwin +suspected them. It rather looked as if they had “taken up” his mother; +and nobody on earth had the right to do that. He hated the Willises (and +particularly Edward) in advance. He always hated people he hadn’t met +when he heard too much about them. He thought that the new intimacy +probably had something to do with his Aunt Laura, who was diffuse and +fussy and ornate, and not a patch on his mother. Nobody was a patch on +his mother . . . + +He couldn’t get rid of his anxiety, and so, in the heat of the moment, +before morning school, he answered her letter. “Oh, darling, don’t go to +Switzerland with a lot of strangers. If you do go, I feel that I shall +never see you again,” he wrote. He knew it wouldn’t be any good. She +couldn’t reasonably do anything but smile at his fancies. But he +couldn’t help it. He even took the trouble to post the letter in the box +at the Grand Entrance, so as to make certain that he couldn’t change his +mind. + +On the way into the classroom he met Griffin, who pushed a packet into +his hand. “Here you are,” he said. “Take it.” It was thirty-eight +shillings in silver, the first prize in the house sweep on the Birches. +He wished he had remembered about it. He would have told his mother in +the letter not to bother about the postal order. It was an awful thing +to think of her being hard-up and himself rolling in this prodigious and +ill-gotten fortune. + +The morning class was listless, for the weather remained at a great pitch +of heat, and the only thing that any one thought of was the fixture with +the M.C.C. which would begin at noon. Cleaver always assisted as umpire +at this match, and so the deserted Lower Fifth occupied a corner of the +Big Schoolroom by themselves. In this great chamber—it was said that the +roof-span was as wide as any in England—Edwin dreamed away the morning, +reading, sometimes, the gilt lettering on the boards on which the names +of scholars were recorded: giants who had passed before him along the +same corridors, and whose names were only memorable as those of heroes in +a mythology, or more ponderably evident in reports of parliamentary +debates and the scores of county cricket teams. + +Opposite him hung the board devoted to the winners of entrance +scholarships. His own name was there. Edwin Ingleby . . . 1895. He +remembered the day when it had almost embarrassed him with its fresh gold +lettering. Now the leaf had toned down, and the name had sunk into +obscurity beneath a dozen others. So the passage of fleet time was +measured on these tables. In a few more years nobody who didn’t take the +trouble would read his name. Even those of the batch before him were +half-buried in obscurity. One other name arrested him: G. H. Giles. He +knew nothing of Giles except that this brilliant beginning had been +followed by disaster. The name of Giles appeared on no other board; for +the term before Edwin came to St. Luke’s Giles had been expelled from the +school. Edwin didn’t know what he had been expelled for; but the +circumstance, remembered, afflicted him with a kind of awe. “It might +happen so easily,” he thought. Why, if he hadn’t lied to the Head the +day before he might have been expelled himself, and years afterwards some +one sitting in his place would stare at the name of Ingleby with the +selfsame awe. The voice of Mr. Leeming, stuck fast where Edwin had left +him a year before, in the Stuart period, recalled him. “We will pass +over the unpleasant . . . most unpleasant side of Charles the Second’s +reign. Unfortunately, he was a thoroughly bad man, and his court . . .” + +Edwin heard no more, but he heard another sound peculiar to the Big +Schoolroom on Saturday mornings: the measured steps of the school +sergeant plodding down the long stone corridor which led to the folding +doors. On Saturday morning the form-masters presented their weekly +reports to the Head, and boys whose names came badly out of the ordeal +were summoned to the office to be lectured, to be put on the sort of +probation known as “Satisfecit,” or even to be caned. + +The Lower Fifth knew none of these terrors. Cleaver was far too +easy-going to take his weekly report seriously; but the lower ranks of +Mr. Leeming’s form trembled. You could never be sure of old Leeming. +The folding doors opened. Mr. Leeming stopped speaking, and the sergeant +walked up to his desk and stood waiting at attention while Leeming read +his list. He looked over his glasses. “Let me see . . . Sherard . . .” +he said. “Sherard, the head-master wishes to see you at twelve-thirty.” +His voice was so gently sympathetic that nobody could possibly imagine +that he had had anything to do with this calamity. “Then . . . the Lower +Fifth . . .” he fumbled with the paper. “Ingleby. The head-master will +see you at the same time.” He looked over at Edwin with the most pained +surprise. “Very good, sergeant,” he said. + +Edwin felt himself going white. Yes, that was it. That was the +explanation of his feeling of unrest. He was going to share the fate of +the traditional Giles. Good Lord . . . think of it! Miss Denning had +done this. And yet he could hardly believe it—she had always been far +too nice for that. Now his face was burning. It struck him that it +wasn’t a bit of good worrying. If it weren’t . . . if it weren’t for his +mother it really wouldn’t be so bad. He couldn’t bear to think of her +disappointment in his disgrace. She thought so much of him. It wouldn’t +be quite so bad if she were not ill. It might kill her. Good God! . . . +that would be awful! Suppose, after all (it was no good supposing), that +the Head wanted to see him about something else. . . . There wasn’t +anything else. Unless . . . unless it were something to do with his +mother. Unless she were seriously ill . . . even something worse. But +he had her letter. It couldn’t be that. Yesterday she was well enough +to write to him. No . . . the story was out, and he was going to be +expelled. In three quarters of an hour he would know the worst. He +wished that the time would pass more quickly. Time had never been so +slow in passing. The clock in the tower chimed the quarter. From where +he sat he could see the tower through the upper lights of the long +window. He could see the minute-hand give a little lurch and move +infinitesimally forward. He remembered Widdup telling him exactly how +many times it moved to the minute. Was it twice . . . or three times? +He had forgotten. There must be something wrong with the clock to-day. +In the middle of this purgatory one half-humorous fancy came to him: “At +any rate old Griff will know that I did go to the races now.” + + +III + + +They waited, ten or twelve of them, in the twilight of the passage +outside the Head’s study. The atmosphere of this place resembled that of +a crypt, or more properly—since the keynote of the St. Luke’s +architecture was baronial rather than monastic—a dungeon. The only light +that came to them entered by way of certain dusty windows of lancet shape +on either side of the gothic porch. Beneath these windows languished a +pale array of botanical specimens rotting in their test tubes and bearing +witness to the week-old zeal of the Head’s particular section of the +Natural History Society. + +They waited, a miserable company of all shapes and sizes: some, who knew +the worst, with a rather exaggerated jauntiness, determined to make the +best of it: others, such as Edwin, being in doubt of their fate and +burdened with a spiritual apprehension far worse than any physical +penalty which might overtake them. + +The sergeant opened the door. “Sherard W.,” he said. Sherard W. crammed +a sweaty cap into his pocket and started forward, eager to get it over. +The aperture which admitted him showed no more than the end of a table +crammed with books, a number of highly-varnished shelves, a polished +floor covered with Turkey carpet, and a blaze of mocking sunshine. The +nails in the heels of Sherard W.’s boots rang on the stone flags. When +he reached the Turkey carpet his steps became silent. The door closed. +The rest of them strained to listen. They heard little: nothing but the +quiet rumour of the head-master’s voice, and little patches of silence in +which the replies of Sherard W. were not heard at all. A moment later he +emerged. A number of whispered questions assailed him, but Sherard W. +didn’t feel like answering questions. He brushed by the rest of them as +quickly as he could go, with his school-cap pressed to his eyes. Another +patch of sunlight was revealed. “Frazer . . .” called the sergeant. And +Frazer, a tall lout of a boy with sallow face, came forward and was +swallowed up in the same way as Sherard W. A minute later the sound of +dull blows was heard. + +“Frazer’s got it,” said somebody. “One . . . two . . . three . . . four +. . . five . . . six . . . Poor old Frazer!” + +“Six from the Head isn’t equal to three from Cleaver. You should see +Cleaver’s biceps in the gym.” + +One by one the members of the crowd entered and returned. It seemed to +Edwin that his turn would never come. All the time that he waited his +imagination (accursed gift!) was playing with the hidden scene within: +the long table, that he had seen only once before, and, at the head of +it, the lean, bearded figure in the silk gown wielding an absolute power +of life and death like God in the Old Testament. Yes, it was just like +that. He remembered a minatory text that hung cobwebbed in one of the +attics at home: PREPARE TO MEET THY GOD. It was not pleasant to hear +these muffled sounds of chastisement, but what was a flogging (the Head’s +favourite word) compared with the more devastating fate that awaited him? +“That’s why he’s keeping me till last,” he thought. + +“Ingleby . . .” said the sergeant. Edwin had time to fancy that his tone +implied a more awful enormity than he had put into any other name. He +entered, and stood waiting in the sunlight. It was rather less +frightening than he had imagined, this long room, relatively luxurious, +and the pale man at the head of the table with his lined, black-bearded +face, and the peculiar twitching of his left arm which had always added +to the sinister side of his equipment. For a moment he took no notice of +Edwin. Then he looked up and smiled. Would the storm never break? + +“Ah . . . Ingleby.” + +“Yes, sir.” + +“I hope your entomological zeal isn’t going to take you up to the +racecourse, Ingleby. How are the puss-caterpillars getting on?” + +He smiled again, and showed his teeth beneath his shaggy moustache. +Edwin was seized with a sudden terror. The worst had happened, and now +the Head was playing with him. He could say nothing. + +“Eh? . . . What’s the matter with you? You aren’t faint, are you? +You’d better sit down.” Edwin trembled into a chair. + +“Now, are you all right?” + +“Yes, sir.” + +“I sent for you, Ingleby, because I have been having a talk with Mr. +Leeming.” + +What in the world had old fat Leeming to do with it? Edwin wished he +would get it over. + +“Mr. Leeming has always given me good reports of you . . . I don’t know +if you deserve them . . . and last night I saw Mr. Cleaver, who . . . um +. . . um . . . tells me that you are one of . . . No, I’ll leave that +part out . . . that you’ve got plenty of brains when you choose to use +them, but that you are somewhat lacking in application. H’m?” + +“Yes, sir.” + +Why wouldn’t he get to the point? + +“He says, Ingleby, that you’re a dreamer. Well, you know, there’s no use +for dreamers in this world. They’re not wanted. Even dreamers with the +blessing of good brains. H’m?” + +“Yes, sir.” + +“But Mr. Leeming is satisfied, and so am I, that if you chose to make an +effort, and take a . . . a healthy interest in things, we might do some +good with you. You might win scholarships, and be a credit to the +school. That’s what we want. That’s what your parents sent you here +for. Now . . . now Mr. Leeming tells me that you aspire to becoming a +priest of the church. . . .” + +“No, sir.” + +“No . . .? But Mr. Leeming told me he had talked the matter over with +you?” + +“He mentioned it, sir . . . but I didn’t say anything. I . . . don’t +think I do want to, sir.” + +The Head frowned. “You mean that you don’t feel worthy of so great a +vocation? Well, you’re young. You’re a promising boy. I want to do +what is best for you . . . and the school. At the end of this term you +are likely to get a move, and after a certain time I don’t think, from +the scholarship point of view, you can begin to specialise too early. +You have shown a certain . . . aptitude for English. You might read +History. You might stick to Classics. What do you think about it?” + +“I should like to read History, sir.” + +“Very well, I’ll write to your father about it. We won’t say anything +more about the Church for the present. That will come later. I expect +Mr. Leeming will talk it over with you. You may go now.” + + + +CHAPTER VII +IMPURITY + + +I + + +THE “little chat”—as Mr. Leeming would certainly have called it—did not +take place for a long time, for the reverend gentleman’s mind had become +exercised with a problem of greater importance than the devotion of +Edwin. It wasn’t exactly his fault. Mr. Leeming was a bachelor. He was +now in his forty-third year. Naturally endowed with an intense shyness +of disposition which the forced publicity of his two professions, in the +pulpit and the Classroom, had overlaid with a veneer of suave assurance, +he was none the less a man of ardent, if timid passions. He himself had +always been aware of this powerful sensual element in his nature. With a +certain degree of courage he had subjected it to a deliberate +mortification. Obstinately he had fitted his body to the Procrustean +couch that his conscience recommended: obstinately, and in a degree +successfully. Not quite successfully . . . for his original appetites +were unwieldy, and if they had been coerced in one direction they had +undoubtedly and demonstrably overflowed in another, as witnessed the +growing expanse of his waistcoat. + +This waistcoat, on week-days of broadcloth and on Sundays of a more +sensual silk, was the symbol of Mr. Leeming’s possibilities. He didn’t +know it. Even if he were aware, in the lacing of his boots, of its +physical existence; he hadn’t the least idea of its spiritual +significance. If he had realised this, if he had been content to see +himself as he actually stood upon the brink of his morning bath instead +of as a snowy surpliced priest of God or a knightly figure in the armour +of Sir Percivale (such, indeed, was his Christian name), Mr. Leeming +might have been a healthier and a happier man. As it was, the devil that +he believed he had conquered, in reality possessed his soul. + +In his quest for the thing which he had labelled purity he had +unconsciously allowed the idea of “Impurity” to become an obsession. In +the activities of a parish, hustled by the continual accidents of stark +life and stabilised by the actual responsibility of a wife and an +increasing family, Mr. Leeming might have become a thinner and a wiser +man. In the sedentary and monotonous duties of a public school, he had +become gradually more fat and introspective, and, as the years advanced, +more perpetually conscious of the unashamed presence throughout human +nature of his own suppressed desires,—more frightened . . . and more +curious . . . of their terrible existence and more terrible power. Mr. +Leeming, with the best intentions in the world, was in a bad way. + +A number of circumstances favoured the development of the unfortunate +gentleman’s obsession. In the last Easter holidays he had attended a +conference of assistant masters in London, at which the whole question +had been discussed with the greatest solemnity, and plans had been +formulated for the stamping out of “impurity” in every public school in +England. The speeches of the delegates had convinced him of his own +blindness. It was impossible that St. Luke’s should be so very different +from any other public school, yet other people had assured the meeting +that in their own schools the disease was “rampant,” and Mr. Leeming had +returned to his summer duties convinced that if only he looked with +sufficient care more ills than he had ever suspected might be found. He +had become a man with a mission. + +For a crusade of this kind St. Luke’s was not by any means an ideal +field. The head-master, for all his imposing presence, was not a +practical man. He was intolerant of enthusiasms in his staff, not so +much because they were symptomatic of ill-breeding, but because they +tended to disturb the pleasant ordered tenor of his life. Croquet and +botany were sciences of more interest to him than education. He believed +in hard games, corporal punishment, nature study, and the classics. He +hated extremes. The golden mean was his creed, his weakness, and his +apology. He hadn’t any use for Mr. Leeming’s intensities. He could even +be picturesque on occasion. “If you are going to appoint yourself +inspector of our dirty linen, Leeming,” he said, “you really mustn’t +expect me to do the washing.” + +“I don’t think you understand me, sir,” Mr. Leeming began. . . . + +“Oh, don’t I?” said the Head. The word Impurity formed voicelessly on +Mr. Leeming’s lips. + +“It is a scandalous thing . . . scandalous . . .” he complained to the +common-room, “that a man who knows what is right and is determined to +follow it shouldn’t be properly backed by the headmaster. The matter is +vital. It is the most important . . . by far the most important problem +in modern education. Any means are justified to purge the schools of +this sort of thing. . . .” + +“I can see you, Leeming,” drawled Selby, “in the rôle of _agent +provocateur_.” The common-room exploded. + +“What is wanted in the public schoolmaster is a higher sense of +seriousness,” Leeming spluttered. “You have no sense of suspicion.” + +“What is more wanted in the public schools,” said Cleaver, “is a +suspicion of sense—common sense.” + +“All you fellows talk,” said Dr. Downton, “as if the whole thing were a +problem for the public schools purely and simply. It’s nothing of the +kind. It’s not the ignorance of the average schoolmaster as much as the +ignorance of the average parent. I mean ignorance of the nature of boys +. . . lack of sympathy, lack of responsibility. And when ugly things +happen they shove it on to us.” + +“That’s what they pay a hundred and fifty a year for,” said Cleaver. + +“Of which we don’t see any too much . . .” Selby growled. + +“None of you take it seriously. The thing is enormous,” said Leeming. +“What can you expect in a way of improvement when a housemaster like +Selby makes jokes about it? I’m convinced that there’s only one way. . . . +You can’t drive boys. You’ve got to understand their hearts.” + +“You’ve got to understand their bodies,” said Cleaver. + +Mr. Leeming flushed. “I think you are merely disgusting, Cleaver.” + +“He’s quite right,” said Downton. “It isn’t sexual education, it isn’t +moral instruction that’s going to work the miracle. When a boy reaches a +certain age—and it isn’t the same age with all boys—he begins to be +conscious, and quite properly, of his physical passions. You needn’t +shudder, Leeming. They exist. You know they exist as well as anybody. +Well, when he reaches that stage a public school isn’t the proper place +for him.” + +“The games would go to pot,” said Cleaver. From his point of view there +was no more to be said. + +“It depends entirely on your boy. Some are too old at seventeen. Some +are perfectly safe at nineteen. The trouble is that just when you get +them in sight of these dangers you put them in supreme authority. A +prefect can do pretty well as he likes. . . .” + +“It’s the essence of the system . . . responsibility,” said Selby. + +“It gives them what Shaw said about something else: the maximum of +inclination with the maximum of opportunity.” + +“Shaw?” said Cleaver. “You fellows are too deep for me. Anyway, I don’t +believe there’s much wrong here. So long.” He swung out of the room. + +“That kind of man,” said Mr. Leeming, “is at the root of the whole +business.” + +Dr. Downton was almost angry. “Yon know, Leeming, you’re talking bosh. +The thing’s solving itself. All over the world schoolboys are getting +wider interests at school. In their homes they’re taking a more equal +place in family life. It is no longer a matter of being seen and not +heard. They’re being treated like human beings. The more you treat them +like human beings the less likely they are to behave like young animals. +And the greatest mistake of all is to keep on talking to them about it. +Every boy of a certain age is curious, and quite naturally curious, about +his physical possibilities. So is every girl. . . .” + +“My dear Downton,” said Leeming flushing, “I shall be obliged if you +won’t—er—pursue the subject. You make it painful. . . .” + +“Very well,” said Downton gathering up the skirts of his gown. + +“Thank you.” Leeming left the room. Selby smiled lazily. + +“If only,” he said, “if only our friend Leeming had ever enjoyed the +advantage of a really bad woman’s society.” + + +II + + +Unconscious of the doom which was being forged for their chastisement in +the white heat of Mr. Leeming’s troubled brain, the school lay scattered +along the perimeter of the cricket-field waiting for the players to +emerge from the pavilion. They came, and the great expanse of green was +made more beautiful by their scattered figures. Everything in the game +seemed spacious and smooth and clean—the white flannels of the players; +the paler green of the rolled pitch; the new red ball; the sharp click of +the bat. Before lunch the school had lost three wickets, but now it +seemed as if a stand were to be made. The studious Carr, the head of +Edwin’s house, was batting steadily; while Gilson, the school’s most +showy batsman, who would play for Surrey in the holidays, was beginning +to get set. Edwin and Widdup had their deck-chairs side by side, and +Douglas, for want of Griffin, absent on some deeper business, had pitched +himself near them, reclining upon a positive divan of downy cushions. + +The winnings of the house sweepstake, easily gained, and therefore easily +to be spent, supplied the natural accompaniment of ices and ginger beer +or that inimitable compound of both that was known as the Strawberry +Cooler. Under such circumstances the mere fact of lazy existence was a +pleasure. Even when the cautious Carr was bowled, the long partnership +ended, and the St. Luke’s wickets began to fall like autumn leaves, the +serene beauty of the day was scarcely clouded. + +In the middle of the afternoon the figure of Mr. Leeming drifted along +the edge of the field. He halted on the path immediately in front of +Edwin with his back to the spectators, considerably incommoding Douglas’s +view of the play. “Old Beelzebub’s a friend of yours, isn’t he, +Ingleby?” said Douglas lazily. “You might tell him that he isn’t made of +glass.” But Mr. Leeming, suddenly aware of a voice behind him, turned +and came towards them, smiling. + +“Ah, Ingleby,” he said. “Is that you?” + +He sat on the grass beside them, very carefully, as befitted a man of his +figure. “A beautiful day. Let me see, who are we playing?” + +“The M.C.C., sir.” + +“Ah, yes . . . the Marylebone Cricket Club. Are you fond of cricket, +Ingleby?” + +“Of course I am, sir.” + +“I very seldom see you now. That’s the pity of it. The better a boy is +the less you see of him. He passes through your form quickly, and that’s +the end of it. And how is Widdup?” + +Widdup was very well, if a little impatient + +“You and Ingleby are great friends, Widdup. Quite inseparable. I’ve +often seen you walking up and down the quad at night. I wonder what it +is you have in common, eh?” + +Widdup didn’t know. They’d always been pals. They’d always slept +alongside each other. That was how you got to know a chap. + +“Well, Ingleby, what are you reading in these days?” + +“Well hit, sir; oh, well hit. . . . Make it five. I beg your pardon, +sir. . . I don’t think I’m reading anything in particular.” + +Slowly it became evident to Mr. Leeming that the audience which he had +honoured with his company was bored. With great dignity he picked +himself up and left them. + +“He’s a funny old swine,” said Douglas. + +“I used to think he was rather decent,” said Edwin. “Horribly ‘pi’ you +know.” + +“I don’t trust him,” said Douglas. “I always feel as if he’s up to some +low-down business or other. He goes mooching about in those old felt +slippers of his, and you never know where he is. The other day he came +into the long box-room when Griff and I were there playing Nap. You +couldn’t tell he was coming. He’s like a damned old tomcat. I can’t +think how you stick him, Ingleby. . . .” + +“I don’t, really,” Edwin confessed. + +“And old Griff says he follows him like a shadow. Just lately he’s taken +to haunting the swimming-bath. I don’t know what he goes there for. He +never used to. He never goes in. I don’t suppose the fat beast can +swim.” + +“He could float . . .” said the practical Widdup. + +The golden afternoon dragged out its lovely length. The atmosphere of +luxurious indolence grew so heavy that it became too great an effort to +think of carrying the rugs and deck-chairs back to the studies; and when +Douglas had left them to keep an appointment with Griffin, Widdup and +Edwin sat on till the meadows swam with soft golden light, till the tops +of the pyramidal lime-trees became the colour of their blossoms, and the +sun cast long shadows upon the yellow fields. In this delightful hour +the sounds of the match from which excitement had faded almost as the +fierceness had faded from the sky, became no more than a placid +accompaniment to the dying day. At six-thirty stumps were drawn. The +wide fields began to empty and soon no life was seen upon them but low +dipping swallows who skimmed the smooth lawn as though it were the +surface of some placid lake. Upon the hillside a straggling trail of +boys could be seen taking home their rugs and cushions as though they +were returning from a day of toil instead of one of the most exquisite +idleness. + +“Come on,” said Widdup at last; “we shall be late for chapel.” And +indeed another twenty minutes found them assembled in the oak pews for +evensong. They sang the _Nunc Dimittis_, a canticle which for all the +rest of his life Edwin associated with the placid closing of a summer +day, and the mild rays of the departing sun blazed through the stained +glass of the west window upon the pale mosaic of the nave. When they +emerged from the chapel the sun had set, the skyline of the downs lay low +and almost cold, and cockchafers were whirring blindly among the sticky +tops of the conifers along the chapel path. + +In the middle of the crowd that stuck congested in the porch Edwin found +himself wedged between Douglas and Griffin. They whispered together +behind his back. “Well, are you going?” + +“Of course I’m going, I told you.” + +“You’ve fixed it up with her?” + +“Yes, she’s up to any sport. Why don’t you come with us?” + +“Two’s company. . . .” + +“Go on with you. . . . You can easily pick up another. You’re not a +sportsman, Duggie.” + +“I don’t take risks of that kind. You bet your boots I don’t. Why don’t +you ask Ingleby? He’s a blood. Says he went to see the Birches. And +he’s flush, too. Won the sweep.” + +“Ingleby?” Griffin scoffed. “I bet you he’d funk it.” + +“Funk what?” said Edwin. + +“Going down town to-night. There’s a fair on. I’m taking the skivvy +from J dorm. She’s all right. She knows a thing or two.” + +“Don’t talk so loud, you ass,” said Douglas. “Well, will you come?” + +“No, I won’t,” said Edwin. + +“You said you went to the Birches.” + +“I did go to the Birches.” + +“Well, nobody believes you. Now’s your chance to show your pluck. Come +along, gentlemen, show your pluck. . . . Three to one bar one. . . . +’Ere you are, sir. The old and trusted firm. Ingleby . . . you are a +rotten little funk!” + +Edwin said nothing. “He’s got more sense than you have, anyway, Griff,” +said Douglas. + +That night in the dormitory when the lights were turned down Griffin had +not appeared. Douglas, who slept next to him, had constructed, by means +of his own bolster and another confiscated from the bed of the small boy +on whom the animosity of the coalition was now chiefly lavished, a very +plausible imitation of Griffin’s prostrate figure. As Griffin habitually +slept in a position which enabled him to absorb his own fugginess, this +was not difficult. When Edwin went to sleep Griffin had not arrived. +Drugged with fresh air he slept untroubled by any dream. In the middle +of the night (as it seemed) he awoke, not because he had heard any sound +but rather because he had become aware in his sleep of some unusual +presence. He did not move, but slowly opened his eyes, and all he saw +was the figure of Mr. Selby, gigantically tall, clad in a long bath-gown +of Turkish towelling and carrying a lighted candle that cast a shadow +even more gigantic on the whitewashed walls. He moved slowly and his +bedroom slippers made no sound on the boarded floor. Opposite the foot +of Edwin’s and Widdup’s bed he paused for a moment. Edwin closed his +eyes. He felt the eyelids quiver. Why on earth should Selby want to +look at him? He passed on, and Edwin, cautiously opening his eyes, saw +him pause again opposite the gap between Douglas and Griffin. At this +point he waited longer. He appeared to be thinking. He passed on and +then suddenly turned back and gently lifted the sheet from Griffin’s +pillow. Gently he replaced it. Edwin was almost too sleepy to realize +that Griffin wasn’t there; but when he did, the first thought which came +into his mind was one of spontaneous and inexplicable loyalty. He +thought, “Poor old Griff: He’s in for it.” And yet, if there was one +person in the world against whom he had a reasonable excuse for hatred . . . +Very silently Selby left the dormitory. Edwin became conscious of +the ghostly noises of the night: a night-jar spinning in the wood at the +back of the Schoolhouse: the boom of a cockchafer that some enthusiast +had captured and imported into the dormitory. The clock in the high +turret struck twelve. The chime wandered clanging over the empty +quadrangle. + + +III + + +The next week was the most sensational that had ever shaken the placid +life of St. Luke’s. The fall of Griffin was no startling +matter—deliberately he had been “asking for it,” and the escapade of the +fair in race-week was no more than a crowning glory. Still, it was an +impressive affair. Immediately after breakfast next morning it was +whispered that Griffin had been sent to the infectious ward in the +sanatorium, which was always devoted, by reason of its size rather than +any conscious attempt at symbolism, to the isolation of moral leprosy. +It became certain—and Edwin, after his vision of Selby’s visit in the +night had taken it for granted—that Griffin was to be “bunked.” In the +afternoon, Douglas, faithfully prowling near his comrade’s prison, had +seen Griffin, splendidly unrepentant, at the high window of his condemned +cell. Griffin had smiled. Griffin, evidently, didn’t give a damn for +the whole business. The house thrilled. Of such stuff heroes were made. +It remained to be seen, in the opinion of the critical, how Griffin would +shape in the supreme test of the scaffold on which he would probably be +birched before the assembled school. The betting was all on Griffin’s +being a sportsman. + +There followed a day of suspense. Consultations between masters were +noticed. Selby, for a whole hour, had been closeted with the Head. Old +fat Leeming had been sent for at last to join their deliberations. What +had Leeming to do with it? Other housemasters had been summoned to the +room beneath the clock and emerged with unusually serious faces. Who was +this Griffin that his fate should shake the foundations of Olympus? The +Head, indeed, showed his seriousness more clearly than all the others. +He arrived late in chapel, where the service had waited on his coming: he +stalked up the aisle, as full of omen as any black crow, with his pale +seamed face and his shaggy black beard, and his arms crossed behind his +back beneath the skirts of his gown. From his high seat at the end of +the chancel he scowled on the whole school as if he hated it. At supper +a message was read out. The school would assemble by classes in the Big +Schoolroom at noon. Poor old Griff. . . . The sergeant, it was said, +had been seen binding a new birch in the porter’s lodge. + +It was all very romantic and thrilling. Edwin, conscious now for the +first time of the extreme foolhardiness of his racecourse adventure, felt +himself a greater dog than ever. And then, when the stage was set, and +the audience attuned to an atmosphere of tragedy by so much +thunder-weather, Griffin, from whom the glamour of the heroic had been +gradually fading in the shame of his captivity, achieved the dramatic. +He bolted. With a ladder of knotted sheets he climbed down the +waterspout and disappeared into open country. Griffin lived somewhere in +Kent. In half a day he would reach home. + +For Selby’s house it was a great morning. Edwin, in spite of his hatred +of Griffin, shared in the general elation. Such private feuds were small +concerns in the face of the common enemy. Douglas was flown with +insolence. + +“I knew old Griff would do them,” he said. “By God . . . that’s a man if +you like. It’s the nastiest knock old Selby’s had in his life. Think of +it . . . a chap with a weak heart like old Griff shinning down a +waterspout!” + +Edwin wondered if the meeting in the Big Schoolroom would be off, or +whether, perhaps, it would be postponed and Griffin hauled back from the +bosom of his family to go through with it. + +“You silly ass,” said Douglas. “Of course they can’t fetch him back. +He’s done them brown.” + +But the morning went on without any alteration in the programme. At +twelve o’clock the solemn procession began: the whole black-coated +population of St. Luke’s filtering through narrow corridors and the wide +folding doors into the big Schoolroom. The whole business was +impressive; for nobody spoke and no sound came from the crowd but the +drag of slowly-moving feet and arms that brushed one another. They were +like a flock of sheep driven away from market on a narrow road between +dusty hedges, for none of them knew what was coming. Rumour was busy +with whispers. + +Griffin had been found in a ditch with his leg broken and had been hauled +back to fulfil his sentence. Like Monmouth, Edwin thought. Griffin, in +company with the pale skivvy from “D” had been arrested by the police at +Waterloo. Other rumours, less credible, as, for instance, that Cleaver, +meeting a jockey friend of his in a little pub called the Grenadier in +the Downs Road, had walked into a taproom full of School House bloods on +Sunday morning. Indeed, these were strenuous days. + +The school settled down. The Head, lean, crow-like, flapped the wings of +his gown. He seemed to find it difficult to make a beginning, and while +he waited for a word his left arm twitched. Then he began. It was +obvious that his pause had been nothing more than a rhetorical trick +designed to fix the attention of an audience already thrilled by +uncertainty. He wasn’t at a loss for words at all. He boomed, he +ranted, he bellowed, he rolled his “r’s” and his eyes. The masters, +sitting at their high desks, remained discreet and rather bored . . . all +except Mr. Leeming, to whom the orator appeared as an inspired prophet of +God. For the subject of his harangue was Mr. Leeming’s own: Impurity; +and the whole meeting the immediate result of Mr. Leeming’s +investigations. The curtain had gone up with a most theatrical flourish +upon the Great Smut Row. + +The essence of the Head’s speech was a general threat. Certain things +had been discovered; certain further inquiries were to be made; the fate +of a large number of boys lay in the balance; more details were known, in +all probability, than any of the victims suspected; to the youngest among +them he made a special appeal; confession, immediate confession, would be +the better part of valour; he looked to every member of the school to aid +him in the task, the sacred duty, of purging St. Luke’s of this +abominable thing. Indeed it is possible that he meant what he said. His +port was bad, and he knew better than to drink it; but the heady vintage +that he brewed from sonorous words knocked him over every time. + +The meeting dissolved in silence. For the moment the school was +impressed, less by the gravity of the charge than by its indefiniteness. +The same evening brought tales of segregated suspects, of tearful and +terrible interviews in the rooms of housemasters, of prefects suspended: +of a veritable reign of terror—_lettres de cachet_ and the rest of it—in +Citizen Leeming’s house. “D” dormitory and the others in charge of the +languid Selby suffered least. When evening came to set a term to rumours +only two were missing—the black Douglas, and an insignificant inky +creature of the name of Hearn, whom the threats of the headmaster had +driven to some grubby confession. An atmosphere of immense relief fell +upon the awed dormitory and found vent in a memorable “rag.” + +But Edwin did not sleep. There was no reason why he should not have +slept; but he couldn’t help feeling, against reason, that in some way he +might be dragged into the toils of vengeance; that some peculiar +combination of circumstances might implicate him in the business, even +though he had never had anything to do with it. Somehow appearances +might be against him. In particular he became suspicious of Mr. +Leeming’s attentions to him in the past. He imagined that the wily +creature had suspected him, and tried, for that reason, to find a way +into his confidence. What other explanation could there be? His +avoidance of Mr. Leeming could only have increased the suspicion. +Plainly, he was done for. + +He remembered, with a perilous clearness, words that had passed between +them to which he had given no thought. Now they appeared terribly +significant. “You and Ingleby are great friends, Widdup,” Leeming had +said only a few days before. “Quite inseparable. I’ve often seen you +walking up and down the quad at night. I wonder what you have in common, +eh?” Now Edwin knew why he wondered. And Widdup, like a damned fool, +had said that they slept alongside each other. Supposing old Leeming +imagined. . . . It was too bad. He lay there staring at the rafters and +wondering what could be done. He would like to write to his mother about +it. But a man couldn’t write to his mother about a thing like that. And +his father wouldn’t understand. In the end he determined that the only +thing he could possibly do was to go and see Leeming next day and assure +him that there was nothing wrong with their friendship. “And then,” he +thought, “the old beast won’t believe me. He’ll think that I’ve gone to +him because I have a guilty conscience, and he’ll suspect me more than +ever. He’ll go and make all sorts of inquiries and something will come +out that will be difficult to explain.” How could anything come out when +there wasn’t anything wrong? He could not give a reasonable answer to +this question, and yet he was afraid. From this spiritual purgatory of +his own making he passed into an uneasy sleep. + +Next morning, in the middle of early school, the sergeant entered with a +message for Mr. Cleaver, and waited while the master read it. + +“Ingleby,” he said at last, “Mr. Selby wants to speak to you. You had +better go at once.” + +Edwin packed up his books with trembling hands. He went very white. It +seemed to him that the eyes of the whole form were on him. They were +thinking, “Hallo, here’s another of them. Ingleby! Who would have +thought it?” He heard the footsteps of the sergeant go echoing down the +corridor as steadily and implacably as the fate that was overtaking him. +He only wanted to get it over. As soon as he was out of the classroom he +ran, for every moment of uncertainty was torture to him. He ran across +the quad and climbed the stairs, breathless, to the low room still +steeped in stale honeydew, where his life at St. Luke’s had begun and +must now so abruptly end. Mr. Selby sat at his desk waiting for him. +When Edwin entered the room he looked suddenly embarrassed and fingered +an envelope on his desk. + +“Ingleby, I sent for you urgently . .” + +“Yes, sir.” + +“It probably came as a shock to you . . . or perhaps you were prepared?” + +“No, sir.” + +“Then you must pull yourself together. You can’t guess what it is?” + +“No, sir.” . . . But he could. It came to him suddenly, huge and +annihilating, swamping in the space of a second all the uneasiness and +terror that had shadowed him in the night. Those things were nothing . . . +nothing. + +“Oh, sir . . . my mother . . .” + +“Yes. . . It’s your mother, Ingleby. I’m sorry to be the bearer of bad +news. Very sorry. . . .” + +“Tell me, sir. She’s dead. Oh . . . she’s dead . . . ?” + +Mr. Selby unfolded the telegram although he already knew its contents. + +“No. It’s not so bad as that. But she’s ill . . . very ill . . .” + +“I knew. . . . The minute you spoke I knew, sir. . . .” + +“You had better catch the eight o’clock train at the Downs station. You +need only take your little bag. You can get it from the matron!’ + +“Yes, sir. . . .” + +“Have you any money?” Mr. Selby almost smiled to see him so eager to go. + +“No, sir. . . . Only about eightpence.” + +“You can’t go without money, you know. Here’s a sovereign. Now, cheer +up, there’s a good fellow. Cheer up!” He smiled wanly, and Edwin burst +into tears. Mr. Selby laid an awkward hand on his shoulder. It was very +decent of him, Edwin thought, as he stood with his fists in his eyes, one +of them clutching the sovereign that Selby had given him. + +“Thank you, sir . . . but it’s awful, it’s awful. . . .” + +“Of course, of course. . . .” + +He shepherded Edwin out of the room. When the boy had gone, Mr. Selby, +an unemotional man, tore the telegram into small pieces and placed them, +with a confirmed bachelor’s tidiness, in the waste-paper basket. Then he +lit a pipe of honeydew; and the blue smoke from the bowl together with +the brown smoke that he expelled from his nostrils shone cheerily in the +morning sun that beat through the latticed window on to a woman’s +photograph standing on the desk in front of him. For a moment he gazed +at the faded image. He had not thought of her for years. + + + +CHAPTER VIII +HOMEWARDS + + +IN a morning air of miraculous freshness Edwin left the quad by the iron +gates on the eastern side. The square was quite empty, for all its usual +inhabitants were now in early school. He noticed an unusual aspect of +space and cleanliness. He could not remember ever having seen it empty +before. He noticed the tuck-shop in the corner by the swimming-bath. +This, too, was closed, and the windows were heavily shuttered. It was a +small thing, but it suddenly occurred to him that people put up their +shutters or pulled down their blinds when some one lay dead in a house. +It seemed to him like a sort of omen. He said to himself, “I must think +of something else . . . I must think of something else. I can’t bear +it.” The only other time when he had ever thought of death had been a +single moment a week or so before when his mother had written about her +plan of a visit to Switzerland. And then the thought had been no more +than an indefinite shadow, too remote to be threatening. Now it was +different. The threat was ponderable and vast. “Death . . . I mustn’t +think of it. I must think of something else.” + +He had to think of something else; for by the time the gate clanged +behind him the clock in the tower struck the quarter, and he knew that he +had barely time to catch his train. With his bag in his hand he started +running up the road between the tufted grassy banks; past the scene of +his last adventure, the oak paling beside the nightingale’s spinney, past +the last of the new villas, and so, on to the open downs. It was a +strange adventure for him to reach them so early in the morning. Their +turf was silvered still with a fine dew that made it even paler than a +chalk down should be. Fold beyond beautiful fold they stretched before +him. The woody belts of beech and pine lay veiled in milky mist, and the +air which moved to meet him, as it seemed, over that expanse of breathing +grass, was of an intoxicating coolness and sweetness which went to his +head and made him want to shout or sing. The spring of a summer morning +in the spring of life! It was all wrong. Surely no awful devastation of +death could overshadow such an ecstasy of physical happiness? He refused +to believe it. It was all fantastic nonsense. Of course she wasn’t +dead. Your mother couldn’t die without your feeling it. . . . + +At the station he had five minutes to spare. He changed his sovereign, +and was relieved to be rid of the responsibility of one coin, and to fill +his pocket with silver. There were several coppers in the change, and +these he placed in a penny-in-the-slot machine, extracting several +metallic ingots of chocolate cream. He was ready for these at once, for +his only breakfast had been a hurried cup of tea and a slice of bread and +butter in the matron’s room. The train jolted out of the station, and +soon he was travelling eastward with the high water-tower of St. Luke’s +dipping gradually beneath a long horizon. + +The morning grew more beautiful. In some strange way its beauty seemed +to have got into his blood; for he tingled with a kind of mild ecstasy +which he couldn’t help feeling unsuitable—almost irreverent, to the +tragic occasion. There was adventure in it and the added charm of the +unexpected. He was going home. Surely it was reasonable enough to be +excited at such a prospect as that, to smell the fine summer scents that +were so different in a midland shire; to see the gorse ablaze on Pen +Beacon and Uffdown and the green glades of the old Mercian wood. Of +course it was always wonderful to be going home. + +He remembered other homecomings from St. Luke’s; the first, and best of +all, when, on a December morning they had crowded into the housemaster’s +room where Mr. Selby sat in his dressing-gown, with a gaslight flaring, +handing out the little paper packets of travelling money; how the damp +platform at the station had been crowded with human happiness and such a +holiday spirit of independence that Griffin and Douglas had lighted +cigarettes while they waited for the train. That was the town station. +He reflected that he had only once before been to the Downs, where the +train service, except on race days, was not so good; that had been on the +occasion of his first visit to St. Luke’s for the scholarship exam. He +had come down in an Eton suit, fortunately correct, and an unfortunate +topper that he would have given his life to hide when he found that they +were not worn. And his mother had come down with him. At the thought of +her the old numbing dread fell upon his heart. Perhaps this was the very +carriage in which they had travelled. He remembered the journey so well: +how she had sat in the right-hand corner, with her face to the engine, +wearing a tailor-made grey coat and skirt, a velvet hat and a veil. He +had been looking at her rather critically, for he was anxious that she +should seem what she was—the most beautiful creature in the world. And +when he was looking at her with this in his mind she had smiled at him, +for no other reason in the world probably but that she loved him; and +with that smile he had been satisfied that she really was beautiful. And +he had noticed how lovely her hands were when she took her gloves off. . . . +Now, the memory of the moment made him want to cry, just as the +beauty of the morning made him full of exultation. It was a most +perilous mixture of emotions. + +By this time the region of downs had been left far behind. They were +gliding, more smoothly, it seemed, through the heavily-wooded park +country of the home counties. Stations became more frequent, and the +train began to fill with business people hurrying to London for their +morning’s work. They settled themselves in their carriages as though +they were confident that their seats had been reserved for them. They +were all rather carefully, rather shabbily dressed: the cuffs of their +coats were shiny, and the cuffs of their shirts fringed, and one of them, +a gentleman with a top-hat half-covered by a mourning-band, wore +cuff-covers of white paper. They all read their morning papers and +rarely spoke; but when they did speak to each other they used an almost +formal respect in their addresses which implied that they were all +respectable, God-fearing people with responsibilities and semi-detached +houses. Edwin they ignored—not so much as a wilful intrusion as an +unfortunate accident. He began to feel ashamed that, by starting from +the terminus, he had occupied a corner seat to which the gentleman with +the paper cuffs had an inalienable right. + +In a little while the villas from which this population had emerged began +to creep closer to the track, and by the seventh station their backs were +crowding close to the embankment with long, narrow gardens in which the +crimson rambler rose seemed to have established itself like a weed. The +houses, too, or rather the backs of them, grew more uniform, being all +built with bricks of an unhealthy yellow or putty colour. Soon there +were no more buildings semi-detached. The endless rows seemed to be +suffering some process of squeezing or constriction that made them +coalesce and edged them closer and closer to the railway line. Soon the +gardens grew so small that there was no room in them for green things, +only for a patch of black earth occupied by lean cats, and posts +connected by untidy pieces of rope on which torn laundry was hung out to +collect the smuts or flap drearily in a night of drizzle. Then the +gardens went altogether; and the beautiful and natural love of green +things showed itself in sodden window-boxes full of languishing geranium +cuttings or mignonette. The very atmosphere seemed to have been +subjected to the increasing squeeze; for the mild air of the downs had +here a yellow tinge as though it were being curdled. To complete the +process the train plunged, at last, into a sulphurous tunnel, emerging +amid acrid fumes in a sort of underground vault where the door was opened +by a ticket-collector with a red tie, tired already, who shouted +“Tickets, please.” + +None of the respectable suburban gentlemen took any notice of him, for by +purchasing season tickets they had rendered themselves immune from his +attentions; but he glared at Edwin, and Edwin passed him his ticket, +which was handed on as if it were a curiosity and a rather vulgar +possession by the gentlemen on his side of the compartment. The door was +slammed. The man with the top-hat placed it carefully on his head and +adjusted the paper cuffs. Others folded their morning papers and put +them in their pockets. One, apparently recognizing a friend who was +sitting opposite to him, for the first time, said “Good-morning,” and the +train passed amid thunderous echoes under the arch and into Victoria +Station. All his fellow-passengers were adepts at evacuation, and before +he knew where he was Edwin was alone in the carriage. + +He was very lonely and yet, somehow, a little important. Usually, at +term end, he had crossed London with Widdup, whose westward train also +started from Paddington. He hailed a hansom, and one that was worthy of +its name: a shining chariot, all coach-builders’ varnish, with yellow +wheels and polished brass door-handles and clean straw that smelt of the +stable on its floor. The cabman was youngish, mahogany-complexioned, and +ready to be facetious. He called Edwin “My lord,” and Edwin hardly knew +whether to treat him seriously or not. “Geawing to the races, my lord?” +he said. The Lord knew Edwin had had enough of races for a bit. He said +“Paddington.” “Ascot or Newbury?” said the cabby, climbing to his seat. + +It was a great moment. The movement was all so swift and luxurious, the +hansom so delicately sprung that it swayed gently with the horse’s +motion. The polished lamps on either side were filled with wedding +rosettes. Inside on either hand were oblong mirrors in which Edwin could +almost see his own profile: a subject of endless curiosity. There was +even a little brass receptacle for cigar-ash. A Cunarder of a cab! The +cabby whistled “Little Dolly Daydreams” with a ravishing tremolo. The +cab, which had jolted a trifle on the setts of the station-yard, passed +among a flight of feeding pigeons out of the iron gates into the bowling +smoothness of the Palace Road. My word, this was life. . . . Life! . . . +Perhaps she was dead already. Oh, why should a day like this be +marred? + +It seemed to him, after a moment’s thought, that it was possible—even if +it were wrong—to be possessed by two and opposite emotions at once. He +was miserable to feel an alarm which wasn’t exactly definite or real, and +yet he could not help enjoying this astounding and unforeseen adventure. +“If I _do_ feel like that,” he thought, “it can’t be exactly wrong.” And +that comforted him. + +He surrendered himself to the joys of the morning. The streets were so +wide and clean, the green fringe of the park so pleasant: through the +railings he could see men and women on horseback taking an early ride, +enjoying, like him, the coolness of the morning air. He wondered at the +great white stucco houses of Park Lane, standing back from the wide +pavement with an air of pompous reticence. Before one of them, remnant +of a summer dance the night before, a tented portico, striped with red +and white, overstretched the pavement. Edwin did not know what kind of +people lived in these houses, but in the light of this morning it seemed +to him that theirs must be an existence of fabulous happiness, all clean +and bright and shining as the morning itself or the rubber-tired hansom, +spinning along with its yellow spokes beside the neat park railings. All +of them were surely exalted, splendid creatures, born to great names and +a clear-cut way of life without the least complication, dowered with a +kind of instinctive physical cleanliness. + +At the corner, by Marble Arch, the hansom cab, silent but for its jolly +jingling bells, nearly ran over an old gentleman in a frock coat with an +exquisite white stock and a noble nose. His name was probably Cohen; but +Edwin thought he must be at least an Earl. + +Once again the resorts of elegance were left behind. The hansom, heaving +heavily, was checked on the slope of the gradient descending to the +departure platform at Paddington. Opposite the booking-office it +stopped, and Edwin was released from this paradisaical loosebox. The +cabby, wishing him the best of luck at Goodwood, patted his horse, whom +he had christened Jeddah, and climbed up again to his seat whistling +divinely. Edwin was disgorged upon the long platform at Paddington that +rumbled with the sound of many moving trollies below a faint hiss of +escaping steam, and smelt, as he had always remembered it, of sulphur +mingled with axle grease and the peculiar odour that hangs about tin +milk-cans. He was thankful to be free of it, sitting in the corner of a +third-class carriage opposite a stout woman with eyes that looked as if +she had been crying all night, and a heavy black veil, whose hat was +surmounted by coloured photographs of the Memorial Theatre at Stratford +and Brixham Trawlers waiting for a Breeze. + +This train ran out of London more easily than the other had entered it. +The area of painful constriction seemed more narrow, and in an incredibly +short time he found himself gliding along the Thames valley with the +ghostly round tower of Windsor Castle on his left. + +At Reading, where the sidings of the biscuit factory reminded him of teas +which he had “brewed” with Widdup, the woman opposite took out a crumpled +paper bag, and began to eat sandwiches. She lifted her veil to do so, +and the process suddenly proclaimed her human. Edwin saw that she +wasn’t, as he had imagined, a sombre, mute-like creature, but a woman of +middle age with a comfortable face and a methodical appetite. + +He began to wonder what he should say if she offered him a sandwich, for +he dreaded the idea of accepting anything from a stranger, and at the +same time could not deny that he was awfully hungry, for the chocolate +creams that he had absorbed at the Downs station had failed to dull his +normal appetite. This emergency, however, never arose. The woman in +black worked steadily through her meal, and when she had finished her +packet of sandwiches folded the paper bag tidily and placed it in a +wicker travelling basket, from which she produced one of those +flask-shaped bottles in which spirits are sold at railways stations. +From this she took a prolonged and delicious gulp; recorked and replaced +it, smiled to herself, sighed, and lowered her portcullis once more. + +It cheered Edwin to think that she wasn’t as inhuman and sinister as he +had imagined; and in a little while he saw beneath her veil that she had +closed her eyes and was gradually falling asleep. The sun, meanwhile, +was climbing towards the south, and the railway carriage began to reflect +the summery atmosphere of the green and pleasant land through which the +train was passing. It made golden the dust on the window-pane at Edwin’s +elbow and discovered warm colours in the pile of the russet cloth with +which the carriage was upholstered. + +It was a country of green woods and fields of ripening mowing-grass from +which the sound of a machine could sometimes be heard above the rumble of +the train. It all seemed extraordinarily peaceful. A cuckoo passed in +level flight from one of the hedgerow elms to the dark edge of a wood. +In the heart of the wood itself a straight green clearing appeared. It +reminded Edwin of the green roads that pierced the woods below Uffdown, +and he remembered, poignantly, the walk with his mother in the Easter +holidays when they had reached the crown of the hills at sunset. Some +day, they had said, they would make that journey again. Some day . . . +perhaps never. Was it quite impossible to get away from that threatening +shadow? But even while he was thinking how unreasonable and how cruel +the whole business was, another sight fell upon his eyes and filled him +with a new and strange excitement: a small cluster of spires set in a +city of pale smoke, and one commanding dome. He held his breath. He +knew that it was Oxford. + +This, then, was the city of his dreams. Here, in a little while, he +would find himself living the new life of leisure and spaciousness and +culture which had become his chief ambition. This was his Mecca: “That +lovely city with her dreaming spires,” he whispered to himself. It was +indeed merciful that the vision of his second dream should come to cheer +him when the first became so perilously near extinction. + +Even when the train began to slow down among red-brick suburbs of an +appalling ugliness the mood of excitement had not faded. The train ran +in smoothly, and the woman in black awoke and blew her nose. Edwin, +looking out of the carriage window, saw a congregation of demigods in +grey flannel trousers, celestial socks, and tweed Norfolk coats lounging +with a grace that was Olympian upon the platform. All of them, he +thought, were supremely happy. In this holy city happiness had her +dwelling. One of them—his back was turned to Edwin—reminded him of +Layton, the old head of the house. He remembered with a thrill, that +Layton, who had won a scholarship at New College, was now in Oxford. Of +course it must be he. Very excited, Edwin slipped out of the carriage +and ran after him. “Layton!” he called. And the young man looked round. +“What do you want?” he said. It wasn’t Layton at all. Edwin apologised. +“I’m awfully sorry. I thought you were a chap I knew.” + +The porters were slamming the doors and he only just managed to scramble +into his seat before the train started. The woman in black spoke for the +first time. She had a soothing voice, with a west-country burr that +reminded him of his father and Widdup. “I thought you were going to be +left behind,” she said. “I saw your bag was labelled North Bromwich.” + +Shouts were heard on the platform. “North Bromwich next stop. . . . +Next stop North Bromwich . . .” Edwin sat down panting, and the train +moved off. “Next stop North Bromwich. . .” The words echoed in his +brain, and chilled him. He didn’t want to look back to see the last of +Oxford. Next stop North Bromwich. At North Bromwich he would know the +worst. Swiftly, inevitably, the train was carrying him towards it. The +tragedy had to be faced. + +He was seized with a sudden inconsolable fear of desolation. His eyes +brimmed with tears so that the coloured landscape could not be seen any +longer. The tears gathered and fell. He could feel them trickling down +his cheeks, and when he knew that he could not hold them back any longer +the strain of his emotion was too strong for him, and, against his will, +he sobbed aloud, burying his face in his hands. + +The woman in black, hearing the sobs, raised her veil and looked at him. + +“What is it, my dear?” she said. + +“Oh, nothing . . . nothing.” + +“Folks don’t cry about nothing. . . .” + +She spoke quite kindly, and her kindness was too much for him. It gave +him quite an unaccountable feeling of relief to speak about it. + +“It’s . . . it’s my mother,” he said. + +“There now. . . . Is it really? That’s bad for ’ee. When did she pass +away?” + +“She isn’t dead. I . . . I hope she isn’t. But she’s awfully ill.” + +“Don’t cry now, boy. While there’s life there’s hope. I always tells +them that.” + +“Who do you tell that to?” + +The black woman laughed. “Who do I tell that to? Ha . . . that’s a good +’un. Why, dearie, my patients, of course.” + +“I don’t understand. . . . What sort of patients?” + +“Well, Mr. Inquisitive, if you must know, I’m a monthly nurse.” + +Still Edwin did not understand. He asked,—“Do many of them die?” + +“Why, bless my heart, no. It’s more a matter of births than deaths. Not +that I haven’t a’ seen deaths. And laid them out. But I’ll tell you +something. It’s my belief that they all die happy. And though it’s hard +on a young boy like you to lose his best friend—that’s his mother—it’s my +belief that death is a happy release. Yes, a happy release. I always +tell them that. Especially after a long illness. I wonder, has your +dear mother been ill for a long time?” + +Edwin thought. “Yes.” + +“Perhaps,” said the black woman with relish, “Perhaps you could give me +some idea of what she was suffering from and then I could tell you near +enough.” + +“I think,” said Edwin, “it was diabetes.” + +“Diabetes . . . think of that! I’ve a’ had several with that. It’s a +bad complaint. Very. I’m afraid I can’t give you the hopes that I’d +like to.” + +“But don’t they ever get better?” Edwin asked in agony. “I expect they +do sometimes, don’t they?” + +“It all goes to sugar,” said the woman enigmatically. “I ought to know +for I’ve had them. Yes . . . I’ve had them. But while there’s life +there’s hope. That’s what I always say. And a boy’s best friend is his +mother. You must never forget her.” + +“I couldn’t forget her. Oh, I wish you’d never told me,” said Edwin, +sobbing once more. + +“Now, dearie, don’t take on so. You mustn’t take on so. You must take +what God gives you. I always tell them that.” + +“I won’t take what God gives me,” he cried. “I won’t. I can’t bear to +lose her.” + +“Ssh. . . . You mustn’t say that. It’s wicked to say that; I should be +frightened to be struck dead myself if I said a thing like that in God’s +hearing.” + +She looked nervously at the luggage rack above her head as if she +expected to find the Almighty in hiding there. Edwin followed the +direction of her glance and read: “_This rack is provided for light +articles only it must not be used for heavy luggage_.” He wondered +inconsequently, whether the stop, which was missing, should come before +or after the word “only.” + +“You must cheer up, dearie,” said the black woman soothingly. “While +there’s life . . .” + +Edwin wished she would shut up. He was sorry that she had ever spoken, +and yet he couldn’t quite suppress a desire to be further informed on +certain technical details which this authority had at her finger-tips. +“Is it a painful death?” he asked slowly, wiping away the last of his +tears. + +“Painful? . . . Well . . . not to say painful. Not as painful as some. +Most of mine passed away in their sleep like. And they look so peaceful +and happy. It’s a great consolation to their friends. Just like a doll, +they look. That’s better. You mustn’t cry. That’s a brave boy. Upon +my word, even though I’m used to it, it’s quite upset me talking to you.” +She gave a little laugh and dived once more for the bottle of spirits. +“This wouldn’t be no use to you,” she said, as she took a swig. Edwin +shook his head. + +“Every woman has a mother’s feelings. And I know what they go through. +I understand. I do. Now, that’s right. Cheer up and be a good lad. +Hope for the best. That’s what I tell them. . . .” + +“This rack is intended for light articles only. It must not be used for +heavy luggage. This rack is intended for light articles. Only it must +not be used for heavy luggage. While there’s life there’s hope. While +there’s life there’s hope. While there’s life there’s hope.” + +So, in the pitiful whirl of Edwin’s brain, foolish words re-echoed, and +in the end the empty phrase seemed to attach itself to the regular beat +of the train’s rhythm as the wheels rolled over the joints in the rails. +Mesmerised by the formula he only dimly realised that they were now +roaring, under a sky far paler and less blue, towards the huge pall of +yellowish atmosphere beneath which the black country sweltered. + +Soon the prim small gardens told that they were touching the tentacles of +a great town. A patch of desert country, scarred with forgotten workings +in which water reflected the pale sky, and scattered with heaps of slag. +A pair of conical blast furnaces standing side by side and towering above +the black factory sheds like temples of some savage religion, as indeed +they were. Gloomy canal wharfs, fronting on smoke-blackened walls where +leaky steampipes, bound with asbestos, hissed. The exhaust of a single +small engine, puffing regular jets of dazzling white steam, seen but not +heard. A canal barge painted in garish colours, swimming in yellow +water, foul with alkali refuse. A disused factory with a tall chimney on +which the words Harris and Co., Brass Founders, was painted in vertical +letters which the mesmeric eye must read. Another mile of black desert, +pools, and slag heaps, and ragged children flying kites. Everywhere a +vast debris of rusty iron, old wheels, corroded boilers, tubes writhen +and tangled as if they had been struck by lightning. An asphalt +school-yard on a slope, with a tall, gothic school and children screaming +their lungs out, but silent to Edwin’s ears. Endless mean streets of +dusky brick houses with roofs of purple slate and blue brick footpaths. +Dust and an acrid smell as of smoking pit heaps. More houses, and above +them, misty, and almost beautiful, the high clock tower of the Art +Gallery. A thunderous tunnel. . . . The clamour of the wheels swelled +to an uproar. “While there’s life there’s hope. While there’s life +there’s hope.” Under the gloom of the great glass roof the train +emerged. + +“Good-bye, dearie,” said the black woman, smiling. “I hope it’s not as +bad as you think. You never know. Don’t forget your bag, now.” + +He could easily have done so. + + + +CHAPTER IX +THE DARK HOUSE + + +I + + +AUNT LAURA was waiting for him on the platform. It was a very strange +sensation. Always at other times when he had come home from St. Luke’s +his mother had met him at North Bromwich, and even now it seemed natural +to look for her, to pick out her fragile figure from all the others on +the platform, and then to kiss her cool face through her veil. On these +occasions neither of them would speak, but he would see her eyes smiling +and full of love looking him all over, drowning him in their particular +kindness. Aunt Laura was a poor substitute. To-day she was a little +more diffuse and emotional than usual, and at the same time curiously +kinder. She kissed him—her lips were hot—and he felt that the kiss was +really nothing more than an attempt to conceal an entirely different +emotion and to hide her eyes. On his cheek her lips trembled. He dared +not look at her for he was afraid that in her eyes he would be able to +read the worst. It had to be faced. At last he managed to say, + +“How is she?” + +And above the roar of the station he heard an uncertain voice answer. +“She’s very ill, Eddie . . . very ill indeed.” + +“Not dead? . . . she’s not dead?” + +“No, no. We must all be brave, Eddie.” + +“We must all be brave.” . . . He hated to hear her talk like that. +What had she to be brave about? It wasn’t her mother who was dying, only +her sister. A sister wasn’t like a mother. It was all very well to say +these conventional things. He didn’t believe she really meant them. She +could cry her eyes out before he’d believe her, however kind she might +try to be. It wasn’t any good her trying to be kind now. She hadn’t +been kind to his mother. He remembered the day when her callousness had +made his mother cry. He couldn’t pity her now; he couldn’t put up with +her condolences; he believed he hated her. He would hate any one in the +world who had given his mother a moment’s pain. She was so little and +beautiful and perfect. . . . + +And yet, when he sat opposite to Aunt Laura in the Halesby train, and +examined her more closely, he could see for himself that the strain of +the last few days had somehow chastened her—she seemed to have lost some +of her florid assurance, and her eyes looked as if she had been crying. +She even seemed to have shrunk a little. And this made matters worse, +for it seemed to him that the very thing which had obliterated what he +most disliked in her had also accentuated the family likeness. All the +time, beneath this face, which he distrusted, he could see a faint and +tantalising resemblance to the other face that he adored. If any one had +suggested to him that Aunt Laura was in any way like his mother, he would +have denied it indignantly; but the likeness was there, a curious, +torturing likeness of feature. He didn’t know then what in after years +he was to realise time after time: that grief has a way of suppressing +individual characteristics and reducing the faces of a whole suffering +family to their original type after the manner of a composite photograph. +It was tantalising, and so harrowing that he dared not look at her any +longer. + +At Halesby they walked up from the station together almost without +speaking. The little house on the edge of the country wore a strangely +tragic air. Downstairs all was quiet. After the big echoing rooms at +St. Luke’s it seemed ridiculously small. Nobody inhabited the rooms, and +the soft carpet created a curious hushed atmosphere in which it seemed +sacrilege to speak in anything but a whisper. Aunt Laura took off her +hat and veil. + +“I’d better carry my bag upstairs,” said Edwin. He felt somehow, that in +his little old room he could be happier. He could even, if he wanted to, +throw himself on the bed and give way to the tears which were bound to +come. + +“No . . . you’d better wait here,” said Aunt Laura. “Your father is +sleeping in your room. You see it wouldn’t do for him to be in hers. +He’s been there for three nights. And I’m in the spare room. I think +you’re going to sleep over at Mrs. Barrow’s.” + +Edwin flamed with jealousy. What was Aunt Laura doing in the house? +She, above all people, had no right to be there. + +“But I could sleep on the sofa in the drawing-room,” he said. + +“You mustn’t make difficulties, Eddie. It’s all arranged. The +specialist has been out this afternoon to see her with Dr. Moorhouse. He +may be upstairs now.” + +“But I can’t, I can’t be so far away. I ought to be here. She would +like me to be here.” + +“Eddie, dear . . . do be a good boy. Here comes your father.” + +And his father came. Strangely, strangely old and worn he looked in the +shabby alpaca coat. Edwin had never realised that he could be so +pathetic. He smiled at Edwin, a smile that was unutterably painful. +“Eddie . . . my boy,” he said, and kissed him, “I’m glad you’ve come. . . . +She was anxious for you to come. . . .” + +“Oh, father. . . .” + +“We must all be brave, Eddie.” Again that terrible smile. + +“Father, may I go and see her . . .?” + +“The doctor says that nobody had better see her to-night.” + +“Yes, Eddie, we must obey the doctor’s orders, dear,” said Aunt Laura. + +“But you’ve seen her . . . you saw her this morning, didn’t you?” + +“That was different,” said Aunt Laura. “I was up all night with her.” + +“It isn’t different, is it, father? Aunt Laura’s nothing to her. . . .” + +“Eddie, Eddie. . . .” Aunt Laura protested. + +“Father, if she asked for me she ought to see me. . .” + +“She’s so ill, Eddie. I’m afraid she wouldn’t know you.” + +“Oh, I’m sure she would. . . .” + +“Edwin, you mustn’t worry your father; there’s a good boy.” + +“Oh, Aunt Laura . . .” Then fiercely, “She’s any mother. . . .” + +Edwin’s father sighed and looked away. Aunt Laura, with a business-like +change of tone which implied that Edwin’s question was disposed of, +whispered to his father, “Is she still sleeping?” + +“Yes. . . . The doctor says it isn’t really sleep, it’s coma.” + +Coma . . . a gloomy and terrible word! What did it mean? Edwin +remembered the woman in the train. “Most of them pass away in their +sleep like.” + +“I think I’ll go and lie down for an hour,” said his father. + +“Yes, do, John,” said Aunt Laura encouragingly. “You need it. I’ll go +upstairs myself to be handy if the nurse wants anything.” + +This was the first that Edwin had heard of a nurse. The idea inspired +him with awe. His father sighed and turned to go. + +“Father . . . can’t I go up, only for a minute?” + +Aunt Laura, who had taken upon herself the role of protectress and +manager of the distressed household, intervened, + +“Eddie, you mustn’t worry your father. We’re all in trouble, and you +mustn’t be a nuisance.” His father went, without speaking. + +“Well, when can I see her?” Edwin demanded. + +“To-morrow. . . . You must be patient like the rest of us. Now I must +go upstairs. You’ll be quiet, won’t you? Mrs. Barrow has your bedroom +ready, and if you take your bag over she’ll give you some tea. She +promised to look after you. She was most kind. Or, if you like, and +will keep very quiet, you can stay here and read.” + +“I didn’t come home to sit down here and read. Why did they send for me +to come if they won’t let me see her? I want her. . . .” + +“Hush . . .” said Aunt Laura, with an air of being scandalised. She left +him, closing the door with exaggerated quietness behind her, leaving him +alone in the room that had once witnessed so much happiness. He didn’t +know what to do. Read? The idea was ridiculous. He looked at the +familiar shelves, on which he knew the place and title of every book. A +sense of the room’s awful emptiness oppressed him, for everything in it +recalled the memory of his darling’s presence; the books that they had +read together; the big chair in which he had sat cuddled in her arms; her +workbasket on the table by the window; and—terribly pathetic—a shopping +list scribbled on the back of an envelope. He couldn’t bear to be alone +in the room with so many inanimate reminders; and while he was debating +where he should go, a sudden angry jealousy flamed up in his heart +towards the other people in the house: his father, Aunt Laura, the +doctor, and the unknown nurse who shared the privilege that was denied +him and didn’t realise its value. He clenched his hands and cried aloud: +“We belong to one another. . . . She’s mine. . . . She’s mine. I hate +them.” + +He opened the door softly and stepped into the hall. Scarcely knowing +what he was doing he looked into the drawing-room. There stood the piano +with a sonata of Beethoven upon the music-stand. The room was full of a +curious penetrating odour which came, he discovered, from a big vase full +of pinks that had faded and gone yellow. Some days ago, he supposed, his +mother had picked them. Her hands . . . he worshipped her hands. A +strange and uncontrollable impulse made him bend and kiss the dead +flowers. + +But the atmosphere of that room was if anything more cruel than the +other. He couldn’t stay there. Once more he found himself in the +darkness and quiet of the hall. The house had never been so silent. +Only, in the corner an oak grandfather’s clock with a brass face engraved +with the name of Carver, Hay, ticked steadily. In the silence he heard +his own heart beating far faster than the clock. + +Scarcely knowing what he was doing he climbed upstairs and crept quietly +to the door of the room where his mother was lying. He knelt on the mat +outside the door and listened. Inside the room there was no sound; not +even a sound of breathing. If only he dared open the door. . . . If +only he could see her for a second she might smile at him and he would be +satisfied. He was thankful to find that the mere fact of being nearer to +her made him feel more happy. For a long time he knelt there, and then, +hearing a slight noise in his own room, where his father was supposed to +be resting, he stole downstairs again, a little comforted, opened the +front door and went out into the garden. + + +II + + +Mrs. Barrow, at whose house it had been arranged that Edwin should put up +for the night, was the Ingleby’s nearest neighbour and their landlady. +The gardens of the two houses stood back to back with a high wall +between, and the relations of the neighbours had always been so friendly +that the little door in the wall was never locked, even though it was so +seldom used that tendrils of ivy had attached themselves to the woodwork, +forming a kind of natural hinge. + +On the Inglebys’ side of the wall lay a modern well-kept garden, not more +than twenty years old. Edwin’s mother had a passion for flowers, and his +father had made the gratification of her pleasure his favourite hobby, so +that Edwin’s earliest memories of both of them were associated with the +gathering of fruits and blooms, with the rich odours of summer, or, above +all, the smell of newly-turned earth. This summer Mr. Ingleby had +planted the long bed that stretched along the side of the house towards +the door in Mrs. Barrow’s wall with masses of delicately-coloured stocks. +Though the form of these flowers was not particularly beautiful their +scent rose to meet him in a hot wave of overpowering sweetness. He +remembered a letter in which his mother had told him how wonderful they +were. Everything reminded him of her. . . . + +He passed through the door in the wall and entered another world. + +Everything connected with Mrs. Barrow was in character. She was a little +old woman, the widow of a small manufacturer who had set his mark upon +the countryside by the erection of a chimney stack taller than any other +in the district, so tall that even from the summit of Pen Beacon it made +a landmark more prominent than the slender spire of Halesby church. In +Edwin’s eyes its presence was so familiar that he had almost become fond +of it. Many and many times on windy days he had watched the immense +structure swaying gently as a reed in a summer breeze. Under the shadow +of Mr. Barrow’s monument lay an old garden designed on the formal lines +of a hundred years ago, full of honeysuckle arbours and narrow twisted +paths: so rich, and so tangled that every year a great part of its +fruitfulness ran to waste. Long rows of lavender were there; and alleys +of hoary apple-trees whose gnarled branches overreached the paths: and +the whole place was so crowded with decaying vegetable matter and the +mould of fallen leaves that even in high summer it had an autumnal savour +and a ripe smell that was not unlike that of an apple loft. + +Through this shady precinct he passed carrying his hand-bag, pausing only +in a sudden patch of light where a bank of tawny scabious diffused an +aromatic perfume in the sun. He paused, not because he was impressed by +their garish beauty, but because many of the heads were now frequented by +a new hatch of Comma butterflies eagerly expanding their serrated wings, +drugged already with the flowers’ harsh honey. Edwin had never seen this +uncommon butterfly before. In the neighbourhood of St. Luke’s the +species, which is notoriously capricious, had never appeared. He wished +that he had a butterfly net with him: for by catching one of them he +would have scored over Widdup. + +So he passed to Mrs. Barrow’s house, a dark Georgian structure as twisted +and autumnal as her garden, and there, in a gloomy sitting-room, he found +the old lady herself, a little demure creature with round-hunched, +shawl-covered shoulders, like the dormouse in _Alice in Wonderland_, +taking tea with her companion, a decorous lady of the same age named Miss +Beecock. + +They did their best to make Edwin feel at home. They never mentioned his +mother, but it was so obvious that their maidenly commonplaces were only +designed to divert his mind from the tragic shadow which he carried with +him, that Edwin felt inclined to scandalise them by talking of it. . . . +Their deliberate awkward kindness, the cautious glances which they +exchanged, the little sniff of emotion which Mrs. Barrow concealed in her +empty teacup, when the pitiful contemplation of Edwin’s youth and +innocence overcame her, would have been amusing if there had been room +for anything amusing on the darkened earth. + +When they had finished the buttered scones and medlar jelly which Mrs. +Barrow made from fruit that fell on the dark leaf-mould of her garden, +Mrs. Barrow herself moved with short steps to a mahogany bureau, and +calling Edwin to her side, showed him one of those secret drawers whose +secret everybody knows, smelling of cedar wood and aged russia leather. +From this drawer she produced a purse made of beadwork, and from the +purse her fragile fingers extracted a Georgian five-shilling piece, +which, with a sigh, she then presented to Edwin. “If I were you,” she +said, “I don’t think I should spend it. Old coins like that are +valuable. Mr. Barrow had a great interest in anything old and +historical.” + +Edwin was so surprised by this generosity that he almost forgot to thank +her; but Miss Beecock, in a shrill, soft voice, reminded him of his duty, +saying: “Now, isn’t that kind of Mrs. Barrow, Edwin?” Edwin hastily +agreed that it was, and the old ladies smiled at one another, as though +they were saying, “Isn’t that clever of us, to give him a toy that will +take his mind off his mother?” In the silence that followed, a canary +which had been pecking at a lump of sugar stuck in the bars of his cage, +attracted by the bright hues of the ribbon on Mrs. Barrow’s cap, broke +into a shrill twitter. + +“Sweet . . . swee . . . t,” said Mrs. Barrow with pursed lips. + +“Sweet . . . sweet,” echoed Miss Beecock, with a little laugh. + +“I think I will take my crochet on to the lawn,” said Mrs. Barrow. + +“If you have your shawl, and the grass is not too damp,” Miss Beecock +reminded her. + +“There was a heavy dew last week,” said Mrs. Barrow. “Which day was it? +I think it must have been Tuesday. Yes . . . it was Tuesday. That was +the day on which I spoke to Mr. Waldron about thinning the grapes. And +now, Edwin, would you like to fetch a book from the drawing-room? You +may prefer to bring it out on to the lawn. You know the way. The key is +on the outside of the door.” + +Edwin said, “Yes.” He left them and climbed the creaking oak stairs, to +the first story landing, a wide passage of polished wood lit by a shining +fanlight that overlooked the street. He knew the room well enough. It +had been one of the delights of his childhood. It was long, and +irregular in shape, and crammed with curious things that he had once +found entertaining. + +He unlocked the door and released immediately a concentrated odour of the +same character as that which had issued from the secret drawer in Mrs. +Barrow’s bureau. Damp and cedar wood and mouldy russia leather. All the +chairs in the room were covered with white draw-sheets as though they +were dead and awaiting burial. The venetian blinds were down, and when +Edwin raised them, the heavy rep curtains at the side of the three tall +windows admitted no more than an ecclesiastical twilight. + +There, however, stood the things which had delighted his youth. Nothing +had been moved a hair’s-breadth for many years: since the day, indeed, +long before Edwin was born, when Mr. Barrow had died. It was the best +room of the house: and so reverenced by Mrs. Barrow that she would never +have dreamed of living in it or using it at all except on Christmas Day, +when a melancholy family party of relatives and possible heirs assembled +to do their duty by the old lady. Then, and only then, a fire was +lighted, extracting from the walls a curious odour of dry rot, which +resembled, curiously enough, the apple-loft odour which pervaded the +garden. + +Edwin was soon at home. Here was a great glass-fronted mahogany bookcase +the wonder of which he had never thoroughly explored. Here was the flat +glass showcase, shaped like a card-table in which a number of Mr. +Barrow’s curiosities reposed. Here was the great musical-box +(glass-topped again) with its prickly brass cylinder and twanging teeth +for notes, and a winding lever that made a sound as impressive as the +winding of a grandfather’s clock. + +Edwin thought he would try a tune. He wound up the mechanism, pressed +over the starting lever, and the prickly cylinder began slowly to +revolve. It made a bad start; for no one knows how many years ago it had +been stopped in the middle of a tune. Then, having finished the broken +cadence, it burst gaily into the song called “Mousetraps for Sale,” a +pathetic ballad which may have sounded sprightly in the ears of young +people fifty years ago, but in this strange room was invested with a +pathetic and faded quality which made Edwin wish it would stop. There +was no need for him to pull back the lever, for the musical box, as +though guessing his wishes, suddenly petered out with a sort of metallic +growl. Edwin laughed in spite of himself, at this peculiar noise, and +hearing the echo of his own laugh turned to find himself staring into the +jealous eyes of a portrait of a Victorian gentleman whom he took to be +the late Mr. Barrow, for whose delectation, over his glass of punch, the +instrument had been purchased. Edwin began to feel a little uneasy. The +feeling annoyed him. “I’m silly to be like this,” he said to himself. +“I suppose it’s the uncertainty. . . . Oh, I wish I knew. . . .” + +He took refuge in the bookcase, from which he extracted, to his great +delight, the complete works of Shenstone in two volumes, bound in +slippery calf and published by Dodsley in the year seventeen-seventy. . . . +The books were in a beautiful state of preservation. Edwin doubted if +they had ever been read. Mr. Barrow, no doubt, had purchased them simply +for their local interest. With a final glance at Mr. Barrow’s portrait, +in a faint hope that he approved of his choice, Edwin let down the +blinds, so that no light penetrated the room but a single gleam reflected +from the glass pane of a wool-worked fire-guard that hung from a bracket +at the side of the fireplace. With a shiver he re-locked the door. . . . + +When he reached the garden with his Shenstone, the light was failing. + +“You were a long time, Edwin,” said Mrs. Barrow. + +“Yes, wasn’t he?” echoed Miss Beecock. “I’m afraid it is time Mrs. +Barrow was going in.” + +Quietly, and with a leisure that seemed to presume an endless placidity +of existence, the old ladies folded their work, sighed, and recrossed the +lawn towards the house. In a little time came supper: biscuits and milk +on which a thick cream had been rising all day. Then Mrs. Barrow kissed +him good-night. He felt her face on his cheek: a little chilly, but lax +and very soft. Miss Beecock lighted him to bed with a candle in a +highly-polished brass candlestick. The sheets were cool and of old +linen. The bedroom smelt of apples. With the air of “Mousetraps for +Sale” in his head, and a sleepy consciousness of ancient creaking +timbers, Edwin fell asleep. + +He slept long and dreamlessly, waking in the morning to find the sun +shining brilliantly through Mrs. Barrow’s lace curtains. At first he +could not remember where he was, so completely had sleep, bred of long +fatigue, obliterated his consciousness. Before he opened his eyes he had +half expected to hear the noise of Widdup turning out of bed with a flop, +or the clangour of the six-thirty bell. And then, with a rush, the whole +situation came back to him: this was Halesby, and the new day might be +full of tragedy. + +At his bedside Miss Beecock, who had stolen into the room an hour or so +before in slippered feet and found him sleeping, had placed a glass of +creamy milk and biscuits. It was awfully kind of her, Edwin thought, as +he sipped the yellow cream at the top of the glass. Outside in the +garden it was very quiet. He had overslept the morning chorus of +birdsong; but he heard the noise of a thrush cracking snail-shells on the +gravel path beneath his window. He had forgotten to wind up his watch +overnight; and when he found it in his waistcoat pocket where he had left +it he saw that it had stopped. “I’d better get up, anyway,” he thought, +and while he stood at the door wondering if Mrs. Barrow’s house ran to a +bathroom, he heard a clock in the hall give a loud whirr and then strike +ten. “Good Lord, I’ve overslept myself,” he thought. “I’d better buck +up.” + +Abandoning the uncertainty of hunting for a bath he dressed and came +downstairs to the sitting-room (that was what it was called) in which the +meals had been served the day before. Mrs. Barrow was sitting there in +pleasant sunlight, wearing a less elaborate cap and a shetland shawl, and +the canary, whose brass cage and saffron plumage now shone brilliantly in +the morning sunlight, was singing like mad. When Edwin came into the +room she smiled at him. + +“We’re so glad that you slept well,” she said. “Miss Beecock went to +have a look at you but you were sleeping so soundly that she didn’t like +to disturb you. You must have been tired out. Now you’ll be ready for +breakfast.” + +At this point Miss Beecock entered the room, her attire modified in the +same degree as that of Mrs. Barrow. + +“Ah . . .” she said with a little laugh. “Here you are. I must ask +Annie for your breakfast.” + +“He’d like a nice brown egg, lightly boiled, and some buttered toast,” +said Mrs. Barrow temptingly. + +“Yes, of course he would,” said Miss Beecock. + +“I think if you don’t mind,” said Edwin, “I’d like to go home. It’s so +late.” + +“Oh, you needn’t mind us,” chimed the two old ladies. + +That wasn’t exactly what Edwin had meant, but he allowed himself to be +persuaded, and even enjoyed his breakfast, to the accompaniment of the +twitterings of the canary and his two hostesses. + +“You’ll sleep here again to-night, won’t you?” they said when he was +ready to go. Edwin thanked them. “Oh, we’re only too pleased to be of +any assistance to your mother,” they said, pursuing his departure with +the kindest and most innocent of smiles. + +This time he did not linger in the old garden: he was far too anxious to +get home and learn how things were going. At the door in the wall his +heart stood still. What was he going to find? It seemed to him that +something terrible might be waiting for him on the other side of the +wall. It was a silly apprehension, he thought, and when he stepped into +it the new garden was as sunny as the old. Only, on the long walk beside +the bed of stocks, a mattress, blankets, and sheets were spread out to +air in the sun. The scent of some disinfectant mingled with that of the +flowers. His fears supplied an awful explanation. It was the bedding +from his mother’s room that was spread out there in the sun. And when he +looked up to the windows of the house above him, he saw that the blinds +were down. That, of course, needn’t mean anything on the sunny side of +the house. In a great hurry he turned the corner to the front and saw +that the blinds on that side were down as well. + + +III + + +In the darkened dining-room Aunt Laura sat at his mother’s desk writing +letters with dashing fluency. When he came in she stopped her writing +and rose to meet him. “Edwin, my poor dear,” she said, holding out her +hands to him. He took no notice of her hands. + +“She’s gone,” he said, “in the night?” + +“Yes. . . . In the night. She passed away quite quietly. It’s a +dreadful blow for us, Edwin, we must be brave. . . .” + +He hadn’t time for sentiments of that kind. “She was alive when I came +yesterday. And you wouldn’t let me see her. _You_, of all people. . . . +She hated you. She told me so. She always hated you . . . and she’d +hate you for this more than anything.” + +“Edwin,” she cried, “don’t say these terrible things!’ + +“They’re true . . . true. I wish it were you who were dead. It was you +who stopped me from seeing her . . . my little darling. . . . Damn you . . . +damn you.” + +“Edwin . . . you don’t know what you’re saying. You’re cruel.” + +“Cruel. . . . I like that. Cruel. _You_ talk about cruelty. . . .” + +“Edwin. . . .” Aunt Laura clutched nervously at her breast. It was +funny to see this big blowzy woman crumple up like that. She flopped +down in a red plush chair and started crying softly in a thin voice. +Edwin didn’t mind. Let her cry. She deserved it. Nothing of that kind +could soften his indignant heart. + +“Where’s father?” he asked at last. + +“I don’t know. He’s upstairs somewhere,” she said between her sobs. +“For goodness’ sake, Edwin, don’t go and say things like this to the poor +man. We all have this trouble to bear. And we’ve had the strain of +nursing her. Now, don’t be hasty,” she pleaded. + +“All right,” said Edwin, and left her. + +Upstairs on the landing he found a pale, shadowy figure in which he could +scarcely recognise his father. Neither of them could speak at all. +Edwin had been ready with the reproaches that had come to his lips in the +presence of Aunt Laura; but he couldn’t do it. This man was too broken. +He was face to face with a grief as great as his own. There were no +words for either of them. The boy and the man clung together in each +other’s arms, overcome with pity and with sorrow. On the landing, +outside the door of the room where she lay dead, they stood together and +cried quietly to each other. And now it seemed to Edwin as if pity for +his father were overriding even the intensity of his own grief; for she +had been everything to him, too, and for so many years. He felt that he +would have done anything in the world to comfort this desolate man, whom +he had always taken for granted and never really loved. But his mother +had loved him. He wondered if they could do anything to assuage the +bitterness of their loss by loving one another. They were two people +left alone with nothing else in the world but each other. Why not . . .? +That, he thought, was what his mother would have wished. + +He felt his father’s tears on his forehead, the roughness of his father’s +grey beard. He felt the man’s body quivering with sobs, and the arms +which clutched his body as if that were the only loved thing left to him +in life. They went together into the little room that had always been +Edwin’s, and there they knelt together beside the bed. He didn’t exactly +know why they knelt, but kneeling there at his side, with his arm still +clasped about his waist, he supposed that his father was praying; and +though Edwin could not understand what good prayer could do, it seemed to +him a simple and a beautiful thing. It made him feel that he loved his +father more than ever. He wished that he could pray himself. He tried +to pray . . . for what? There was nothing left in this world for him to +pray for. At last his father rose to his feet in the dim room, and Edwin +rose with him. He spoke, and the tears still choked his voice and his +bearded lip trembled. “Edwin,” he said, “I shall never be able to get +over this. I’m broken. . . . My life . . . my life has . . .” He +stopped. + +“You don’t know what she was to me, Eddie. I can’t realise, Eddie, there +are only two of us left. We must help each other to bear it. We must be +brave.” + +Strange that a phrase which had sounded like cant on the lips of Aunt +Laura should now seem the truest and most natural thing imaginable. + +“We . . . we were like children together,” said his father. + +Again they stood for a little while in silence. At last Edwin, still +gripping his father’s arm, said,—“Father, may I see her?” + +“Of course, dear. . . .” + +They went together to the room, and his father opened the door and pulled +up one of the blinds. Mrs. Bagley, the charwoman who did odd work in the +house and was an expert in this melancholy office, had drawn a clean +white sheet over the bed. His mother lay there in a cotton nightdress +with her hands folded in front of her, and her lips gently smiling. Even +her cheeks were faintly flushed, but the rest of her face and her hands +were of a waxen pallor. She looked very small and childlike. She looked +like a small wax doll. In this frail and strangely beautiful creature +Edwin could only recognise a shadow of the mother that he knew. It was a +little girl that lay there, not his mother. + +Edwin spoke in a whisper,— + +“Should I kiss her?” + +His father nodded and turned away. + +But he did not kiss her as he had thought he would. For some reason he +dared not, for he could not feel certain that it was she at all. He only +touched her hands, the hands that he had always worshipped, with his +fingers. They were cold; and still her lips smiled. The room was full +of the odour of Sanitas which some one had sprayed or sprinkled over the +floor. For the rest of his life the smell was one which Edwin hated; for +in his mind it became the smell of death. + + +IV + + +On the evening after the funeral Edwin sat alone in the drawing-room. He +sat there because the other room was still cumbered with the remnants of +a melancholy repast: several leaves of mahogany had been dragged down +from the dust of the attic and had lengthened the dining-room table to +such an extent that there was scarcely room to move in it, and round this +table, in the sunny afternoon, had clustered a large collection of people +who smelt of black crape and spoke in lowered, gentle voices, out of +respect for the woman whom, it seemed to Edwin, they had never known. + +Everybody who entered the house—and there were many, for Mr. Ingleby was +much respected in Halesby—wore the same grave air. Even the undertaker, +a brisk little man with a fiery red beard and one shoulder lower than the +other from the constant carrying of coffins, treated his daily task with +the same sort of mute reverence. His face, at any rate, wore an +expression that matched that of the mourners; and Edwin was only +disillusioned as to the sincerity of his expression when he heard him +swearing violently at the driver of the first mourning carriage. This +moment of relaxation caused him to forget himself so far as to whistle a +pantomime song as he crossed the drive. + +The black-coated people in the dining-room did not hear him: they were +far too busy being serious: and behind them, from time to time, Edwin +could see the grey face of his father, with curiously tired and puzzled +eyes. Puzzled . . . that was the only word for them. It was just as if +the man were protesting, in all simplicity, against the unreason and +injustice of the blow which had fallen on him. Edwin, savagely hating +the presence of all these hushed, uninterested people, found in his +father’s suffering face a sudden reinforcement to his anger. It was a +shame, a damned, ghastly shame, that a simple man like that should be hit +in the dark; and even more pathetic that he should be simple enough to +take the sympathy of his neighbours at its face value. Edwin glowed with +a new and protective love for his father. It was as well that some +generous emotion should be born to take the place of his numb grief. + +Above all, the sight of his Aunt Laura, who was conscientiously doing the +honours of the house, maddened him. He could not look at her without +remembering that she had been selfish and unkind to his mother; that, on +the very last day, she had robbed him of the privilege of seeing his +darling alive. Even now, he believed that she was enjoying herself. Her +eyes occasionally brimmed with tears, but that meant nothing. They were +such easy tears . . . so different from the terrible tears that had +shaken his father’s body on the day of desolation. If only she were +dead, he thought, there would be no great loss. + +And yet, while he thought of this, he suddenly caught sight of her +husband, the little manufacturer whom he had lately begun to know as +Uncle Albert, a small man with a shiny bald head and a diffident manner: +and in the eyes of Uncle Albert, which were fixed upon his wife, he saw +an extraordinary mixture of love and admiration for this shallow, diffuse +creature whom he had found himself hating. + +“If Aunt Laura were to die,” he thought, “Uncle Albert might very well be +like father is to-day. That’s a queer idea. . . .” He was amazed at the +complications of human relationships and the potential pain that love +brings with it. He thought, “It’s no good thinking about it. . . . I +give it up. I don’t really wish she were dead. I only wish . . . that +there were no such thing as death. Why does God allow it?” No answer +came to him: but in place of an answer another angry impulse. “Curse +God,” he thought, meaning the God of Mr. Leeming, the God to whom this +queer collection of people were to dedicate his mother’s soul. Another +thought followed quickly: “What’s the good of cursing him? He doesn’t +exist. If he existed this sort of thing couldn’t happen. . . .” + +People were seriously setting themselves to the putting on of black kid +gloves that the undertaker had provided. The horses on the gravel drive +were getting uneasy and the cab wheels made a grating noise. Heavy steps +were heard descending the stairs—awkward steps like those of men moving +furniture. Edwin saw that his father had heard too. He was looking +towards the closed door of the room. He wanted to go and take his +father’s hand and hold it, but the space round the edge of the table was +packed with people. Now they had opened the hall door. He dared not +look out of the window. + +The voice of Aunt Laura, most studiously kind, said to him: “Eddie, +you’ll come along with your father and Uncle Albert and me.” He said, +“All right.” People at the side of the table made way for him. On his +way he found himself abreast of his friend, Miss Beecock. She said +nothing, but smiled at him and put her arm on his sleeve. She was +wearing black silk mittens, and her eyes were full of tears. That weak, +tearful smile nearly did for Edwin. + +The first cab was drawn up at the hall door. Edwin scrambled in last. +Aunt Laura, with a rustle of black silk, made way for him. She took out +her handkerchief, and Edwin was stifled with a wave of scent. He hated +scent: but anyway it was better than Sanitas. He saw his father’s +puzzled eyes on the other side of the cab . . . so old, so awfully old. +Uncle Albert took out his handkerchief, too. Evidently, Edwin thought, +it was the correct thing to do. He had misjudged him. Uncle Albert +proceeded to blow his nose. + +They were driving through the High Street. Aunt Laura noticed that most +of the shop shutters were up, and in several cases tradesmen were +standing at their shop doors bare-headed as they passed. + +“It’s very kind of them . . . very nice to see so much respect, John,” +she said to his father. Mr. Ingleby said “Yes,” and Aunt Laura, with a +little laugh that was merely a symptom of nervousness, went on: “I expect +there’ll be a crowd at the cemetery gate.” This time Mr. Ingleby said +nothing and Uncle Albert once more stolidly blew his nose. “Albert, +dear, I wish you wouldn’t,” said Aunt Laura. The brakes grated, and the +cab stopped with a jerk. “Come along, Edwin, jump out, there’s a good +boy,” said Aunt Laura. “You’ll walk with your father.” + +He walked with his father. The church was full. His father went with +bowed head, seeing nothing; but Edwin was conscious of many faces that he +knew. In the middle of the aisle the thought suddenly came to him that +these people weren’t really there to do honour to his mother: they were +so many that most of them could never have known her: no, they were just +curious people who had flocked there to find something sensational in the +faces of the mourners. In a dull place like Halesby a funeral, and such +an important funeral, was an unusual diversion. And this revelation made +him determined that whatever happened he would show no emotion that might +tickle the sensations of these ghouls. He only wished to goodness that +he could explain the matter to his father so that he too might give them +nothing to gloat over. + +In the church, where a faint mustiness mingled with the exotic scent of +arum lilies that diffused from the heap of wreaths on the coffin, Edwin +held himself upright. They sang a hymn: “I heard the voice of Jesus say +. . . Come unto me and rest”—the first quatrain in unison, and Edwin sang +with them, just as he would have sung in the chapel at St. Luke’s. In +the churchyard, when they walked in procession behind the bearers to the +grave-side, his eyes were still dry, his lips did not tremble, though +Aunt Laura’s scented handkerchief was now drenched with tears, and even +Uncle Albert, a virtual outsider, was on the edge of violent emotion. + +The burial service was nothing to Edwin. There was no consolation in it +nor, to him, the least atom of religious feeling. A mockery, a mockery, +a solemn and pretentious mockery. For she was dead . . . she had +vanished altogether, and the thing that they were burying with muttered +formulas and tears was no more she than the empty parchment of the cocoon +is the glowing butterfly. Let them cry their eyes out. That was not +grief. Beyond tears. Beyond tears. . . . + +With a curious air of relief that was very near to a furtive gaiety, the +party drove back and reassembled in the dining-room. All except Mr. +Ingleby. “He has gone to his room, poor dear,” said Aunt Laura, with her +nervous laugh. “Mrs. Barrow, do have a slice of ginger-cake. Just a +little?” Round the long table conversation began to flow, cautiously at +first, but with an increasing confidence, when it became clear that it +was unattended by any revengeful consequences. + +“Didn’t you think it was awfully nice to see the people in High Street so +respectful, Mrs. Willis?” said Aunt Laura. Edwin looked up. This then +was the Mrs. Willis of Mawne Hall with whom his mother had planned the +visit to Switzerland. He saw a middle-aged woman in black satin, with a +gold watch-chain round her neck and jet in her bonnet. She caught his +interested eyes and in return smiled. Aunt Laura went unanswered. “I +wonder,” Edwin thought, “if she understands what a fraud the whole thing +is.” At any rate she looked kind . . . and she had been kind to his +mother too. A moment later she said good-bye, and when Aunt Laura had +escorted her to the door, for Mrs. Willis was a person of consequence, +the rest of the company began to disappear. At last Edwin was left alone +in the room with his aunt and uncle. Aunt Laura’s face, that had been +glowing with hospitable smiles, now took a more serious cast. + +“Edwin,” she said, “I want to speak to you.” + +“Do you?” said Edwin. “Well . . . go on.” + +“It’s very painful . . . I’m afraid . . . I’m half afraid that it will +have upset your father, poor man—as if he hadn’t enough to put up with.” + +“What on earth do you mean?” + +“How can you ask? I mean your behaviour to-day. In the church. In the +cemetery. You stood there just as if . . . just as if . . . oh, it was +most irreverent. Not a sign of grief! You must have noticed it, +Albert?” + +Uncle Albert, most uncomfortable at his inclusion in this family scene, +but fully aware of the disaster which would follow denial, said, “Yes . . . +yes . . . yes, certainly.” + +“Every one must have noticed it,” Aunt Laura went on. “It was a public +scandal. It was unnatural. It showed such a curious lack of feeling.” + +“Feeling,” said Edwin. “What do you know about feeling?” + +“Steady, Edwin, steady,” from Uncle Albert. + +“If mother were here,” he said, “and could hear you talking this damned +piffle she’d laugh at you. That’s what she’d do.” + +“Edwin!” + +“It’s true. . . . She couldn’t stick your sort of grief at any price.” + +“On the very day of her burial. . . .” + +“She’s not buried. It wasn’t she you buried. Oh, I’m sick of you. . . .” + +“Edwin . . .” said Uncle Albert, who felt that something in the way of +protection was demanded of him. “Really now . . .” + +“Oh, I don’t mean you, uncle,” said Edwin. + +“You cruel boy,” Aunt Laura sobbed. + +He left them there. He carried his bitterness into the drawing-room on +the other side of the passage. . . . It was very quiet there. Through +the bow window floated the perfume of the bed of stocks. In the corner +stood the piano. He had often listened to his mother playing at night +when he was in bed. He loved her to play him to sleep. The piano was +shut; and the shut piano seemed to him symbolical. All the music and all +the beauty that had been there had gone out of the house. The house was +an empty shell. Like a dry chrysalis. Like a coffin. There, on the +hearthrug, where he had crawled as a child, he lay down and cried. + + + +CHAPTER X +THRENODY + + +I + + +FROM this emotional maelstrom the current of Edwin’s life flowed into a +strange peace. It seemed that the catastrophe of Mrs. Ingleby’s death +had taken the Halesby household by surprise and stunned it so thoroughly +that it would never recover its normal consciousness. Edwin’s father, +who had now returned to the ordinary round of business, was still dazed +and puzzled, and very grey. Their servant, a young woman with an +exaggerated sense of the proprieties, or perhaps a dread of living alone +in such a gloomy house, had given notice. Only Aunt Laura, to Edwin’s +shame, showed the least capacity for dealing with the situation. + +However few of the graces may have fallen to her lot, she was certainly +not lacking in the domestic virtues. When the maid departed with her tin +trunk and many tearful protestations of her devotion to the memory of the +dear mistress, Aunt Laura turned up her sleeves and took possession of +the kitchen, and Mr. Ingleby, who had gloomily anticipated a domestic +wilderness, found that in spite of the maid’s defection, ambrosial food +appeared before him like manna from heaven, the only difference being +that Uncle Albert, who could not be permitted for one moment to remain a +bachelor, took his meals with the family. + +The relation between Edwin and Aunt Laura was still difficult. She could +not forget—and he could not withdraw—the bitter things that had been said +on that most mournful day, though her native good humour, which was +profuse and blustery like the rest of her, made it difficult for her to +maintain an attitude of injured benignance. Even Edwin had to admit that +she was a good cook; but the excellence of her food was qualified by her +incessant chatter and her nervous laugh. Edwin simply couldn’t stick +them; but it amazed him to find that Uncle Albert evidently found them +cheerful and reassuring. Indeed, it was possibly one of the reasons why +he had fallen in love with her, being a man who resembled her in nothing +and whose enthusiasms could never get him beyond a couple of words and a +giggle. + +Mr. Ingleby too seemed to emerge without serious irritation from this +diurnal bath of small-talk, retiring, as Edwin supposed, to certain +gloomy depths of his own consciousness where the froth and bubble of Aunt +Laura’s conversation became imperceptible. Even when she spoke to him +directly—though most of her observations were addressed to the world in +general—he would not trouble to answer her: a slight which Aunt Laura +took quite good-humouredly. + +“Bless you,” she would have said, “the man’s so wrapped up in himself +that he’s miles away from anywhere. Of course you can understand it in a +man of his age, especially when you realise how devoted he was to poor +Beatrice”—Mrs. Ingleby’s name might never now escape the commiserating +prefix—“but when a boy like Edwin tries it on it’s another matter +altogether. It’s simply conceit. Personally, I think it was a great +mistake of his poor mother’s to send him to St. Luke’s. The grammar +school’s good enough for the Willises. A great mistake. . . . The boy +is getting ideas of himself that aren’t warranted by his position. I +don’t know what we are to do with him. We certainly can’t have him +running wild here.” And Uncle Albert would say: “Certainly, certainly, +my love. . . .” + +In spite of these pronounced opinions Aunt Laura was careful not to cross +swords with Edwin himself. Indeed, she went a good deal out of her way +to propitiate him with various material kindnesses, and particularly +certain delicacies in the way of food, which, to the ruin of her figure +in later life, represented to her the height of earthly enjoyment. Edwin +didn’t quite know how to take these attentions. He couldn’t help +disliking her, and the fact that she was really kind to him rather took +the wind out of his sails. He would have been much happier if they had +been allowed to remain in a state of armed neutrality. + +A fortnight passed . . . happily for Edwin in spite of all that he felt +he ought to feel. He missed his mother awfully. That was true enough. +And yet . . . and yet it was also true to say that he was only beginning +to live: to appreciate the joy of his growing strength: to realise the +enchanted domains that were open to his eager feet and to his eager mind. +Here he had freedom, leisure, health: so much of the world to see: so +much of human knowledge to explore. And though the thought of death, and +the particular disaster that had befallen him fell upon his spirit +sometimes with a shadow that plunged the whole world into desperate +darkness, he could not deny that the shadow was gradually lifting, and +the character of the agony that had desolated him was becoming less +spontaneous, till, in the end, it became almost a calculable emotion that +might be indulged or banished at will. He found it difficult to +understand this. He thought: “I’m a brute, a callous, insensitive brute. +What would she think of me . . .? And yet, I can’t help it. I’m made +like that. . . .” And then, after long and bitter deliberation: “I +believe she would understand. I expect she was made like that too. I’m +sure she was. And if there’s one thing in the world that she’d hate it +would be that I should force myself to pretend anything.” + +The high summer weather held. Never was there such a June. Edwin, in +the joy of perfect health, would get up very early in the morning when +the dew lay on the roses, and run in a sweater and flannel trousers down +the lane and over the field to the mill-pond where he and his mother had +walked so often in the evenings of spring. Here, where the water was +deepest and great striped perch stole slowly under the camp-shedding, he +would strip and bathe, lying on his back in the water so that low +sunbeams came dancing over the surface into his eyes that were on the +level of the flat water-lily leaves and their yellow balls now breaking +into cups. + +Afterwards when he would sit glowing on the bank, the sun would be rising +and growing warmer every minute, and this new warmth would seem to +accentuate the odour of the place that was compact of the yellow +water-lily’s harsh savour, the odour of soaked wood, and another, more +subtly blended: the composite smell of water that is neither fast nor +stagnant, the most provocative and the coolest smell on earth. + +On the way home he would sometimes get a whiff of the miller’s cowhouse, +when the door was thrown open, and from within there came a sound of +quiet breathing or of milk hissing in a pail. And sometimes, from the +garden, the scent of a weed bonfire would drift across his path. All +things smelt more poignantly at this early hour of the morning. All +things smell more wonderfully early in life. . . . + +With these wonders the day began; but stranger things lay in store for +him. He revisited all his old haunts: the tangled woods and gardens of +Shenstone on the hill-side: the ruins of the Cistercian abbey on whose +fall the poet had moralised, the little chapel that marked the grave of +the murdered Mercian prince. His bicycle took him farther. Westward . . . +always westward. + +In those days it always seemed to him as if the mountainous country that +his mother had shown him that evening on Uffdown, rolling away into +remote and cloudy splendours, must be the land of his heart’s desire: and +though he could never reach it in a day, he managed several times to +cross the Severn and even to scale the foothills upon the farther bank +from which he could see the Clee Hills rising in a magnificent bareness, +shaking the woods and pastures from their knees. And these distant hills +would tempt him to think of the future and other desires of his heart: in +the near distance Oxford, where Layton and other demigods in grey flannel +trousers abode, and beyond the fine untravelled world, rivers and seas +and forests, desolate wonderful names. China . . . Africa . . . “Some +day,” he said to himself, “I will go to Africa. . . .” + +In this way he began to think of his present adventures as a kind of +prelude to others remoter and more vast. One day he had ridden farther +away than usual, and having taken his lunch at the bridge town of +Bewdley, he pushed his bicycle up the immense hill that overshadows the +town along the road to Tenbury. For all its steepness this mountain road +was strangely exhilarating, the air that moved above it grew so clean and +clear. Below him, between the road and the river, lay the mighty +remnants of the Forest of Wyre. + +His way tumbled again to a green valley, where no mountains were to be +seen; and while Edwin was deciding to turn off down the first descending +lane and explore the forest, he heard a sound of spades and pickaxes and +came upon a group of navvies, several of them stripped to the waist in +the sun, working at a cutting of red earth that was already deep on +either side of the road. For the most part they worked in silence; but +one of them, a little one-eyed man, with a stiff soldierly back, +encouraged them with a string of jokes. They called him “Gunner,” and +the elaboration with which his chest had been tattooed with nautical +symbols led Edwin to suppose that he was a sailor. When he saw Edwin +leaning on his bicycle and watching the work, he called out to him, +asking if he wanted a job. Edwin shook his head. “I reckon,” said the +Gunner, “that a foreman’s job would be more in your line, Gaffer. It’s a +fine sight to see other people working. The harder the better.” + +The men laughed and stretched their backs, leaning, on their spades, and +Edwin could see how a fine dew of sweat had broken out under the hair on +their chests. It seemed to him a noble sight. “What are you working +at?” he asked. “Is it a railway?” + +“To hell with your railway,” said the Gunner. “Who would make a railway +heading for the river Severn? No . . . It’s a pipe-track. This here’s +the Welsh water scheme.” + +“Where is it going to?” + +“North Bromwich.” + +“And where does it come from?” + +“From Wales. . . . From the Dulas Valley, where they’re rebuilding the +reservoir under a hill they call Savaddan. And a black job it is, I can +tell you.” + +“Is it anywhere near a place called Felindre? I think it must be.” + +“Right, my son. The pipe-line goes through Felindre. Sixty or eighty +mile from here.” + +“My people come from Felindre . . .” + +“Well, God pity them. . . . That’s all I can say. I’ve been in that +place on a Christmas Day, and not a pint of beer stirring. . . . Ah, +that’s a black job. Well, mates, come on. . . .” + +Again the men who had been listening, lifted their picks and spades, and +the busy clinking sounds of digging began again. Edwin wished the Gunner +good-afternoon, and began to push his bicycle up the hill again. Sixty +or eighty miles. . . . That wasn’t so very far. Six or eight hours’ +ride. . . . Perhaps some day he could go there. He half persuaded +himself with a sentimental argument that it was only natural that he +should be happy in the country from which his mother’s people had come; +that even the borderland of it must be possessed by the same curiously +friendly atmosphere. “I’m always most happy west of Severn,” he thought. +And then he began to wonder about the sailor whom the men called Gunner. +Perhaps that man had actually been in Africa. . . . + +He managed to get a sixpenny tea at a little general shop on the very +crown of the hills, where a small hamlet named Far Forest stood. The +romantic name of the place appealed to him; and it was a curious +adventure to sit down alone to tea in a back room that smelt of candles +and paraffin and bacon. At the shop door a serious old man with a white +beard had received him; but the tea was brought to him by a little girl +in an extremely clean pinafore whom the old man addressed as Eva. + +She was a curious mixture of shyness and friendliness, and her serious +eyes examined Edwin minutely from under straight dark eyebrows. When she +came in with the tea she found Edwin examining some books that stood in a +cupboard with a glass door. Evidently she was very proud of them. + +“They are my brother James’s prizes,” she said, and went on to explain +how clever he was and what a scholar, until the old man called “Eva,” and +she returned to him in the shop. It was all amazingly peaceful, with the +westering sun flooding the doorway where the old man had been sitting out +in a chair when Edwin arrived: and opposite the door was a little patch +of green strewn with mossy boulders, a kind of platform in front of which +the huge panorama of Clee and all the Radnor hills expanded. + +“In a place like this,” Edwin thought, “people never change.” It was a +ripping, placid sort of existence, in which nothing ever happened, but +all things were just simple and serious and tender like the eyes of the +little girl named Eva who had brought him his tea. “Good-evening, sir,” +said the old man at the door. It was rather nice to be called “Sir.” +Coasting down the hill into Bewdley, Edwin had all the joy of the state +that he called “the after-tea feeling.” It was exhilarating and +splendid: and at the end of it came the misty river town with its stone +bridge and the great river of the Marches swirling proudly to the south. +When he neared home, divinely tired and hungry, the black-country +stretched before him in a galaxy of starry lights. As he crossed the +brow of the hill above Halesby, the Willis’ Mawne furnaces suddenly lit +the sky with a great flower of fire. + + +II + + +At home, Auntie Laura was in possession. Evidently she was primed with +serious business; for Edwin could see that his father sat spiritually, if +not physically, pinioned in the plush arm-chair. Aunt Laura wore an air +of overpowering satisfaction. Evidently she had already triumphed, and +she smiled so cheerfully at Edwin that he felt convinced that she had +scored him off in some way. On the side of the fire opposite to his +father Uncle Albert sat smoking, not as if he enjoyed it, but because it +gave him the excuse of an occupation into which he might relapse in +moments of tension. + +“Well, here he is at last,” said Aunt Laura. “We’ve been talking about +you, Edwin.” + +Edwin had guessed as much. + +“Well, what is it?” he said, and his tone implied that he was certain +that some dark scheme had been launched against his peace of mind. Uncle +Albert puffed uncomfortably at his pipe and nicotine or saliva made a +gurgling noise in it. Mr. Ingleby sighed. Aunt Laura, tumbling to the +hostility of the new atmosphere, hastened to propitiate. + +“I expect you’re hungry, Edwin,” she said. . . . + +“No. . . . I’m not hungry, thanks. What is it?” + +“You needn’t be cross, Edwin. . . . We’ve decided. . . .” So it was all +arranged. . . . “We’ve decided that your father must go away for a rest +. . . a little holiday. . . .” + +“Yes. . . . And that means, of course, that we shall have to shut up the +house until he returns, and of course that will be quite easy, because +it’s time you were getting back to St. Luke’s. We thought you had better +go on Monday.” + +“Monday?” It was now Saturday. + +“Yes. . . . Monday. It is fortunate that your uncle has to go into +North Bromwich on business that day. . .” + +“Yes. . . . Yes. . . Business,” put in Uncle Albert, as though he were +anxious to explain that his visit to that sink of iniquity was in no way +connected with pleasure. + +Edwin burned with sudden and quite unreasonable indignation. + +“And you agreed to this, father?” + +“Yes. . . . Of course I agreed. Your aunt is quite right. I am +overtired. It was a terrible strain. And the doctor suggested that my +native air. . . .” + +“Oh . . . I don’t mean that,” said Edwin. “I mean about St. Luke’s. . . +I can’t go back now . . . of course I can’t . . .” + +“Don’t be ridiculous and childish, Edwin,” said Aunt Laura severely. +“You don’t imagine just because”—with a hushed and melancholy +inflection—“this . . . has happened, you’re never going to school again?” + +“No. . . . I don’t mean that. Of course I don’t. Only . . . only the +term is nearly over. In another fortnight all the chaps will be going +away for the hols. It isn’t worth it. I should feel . . .” + +“We weren’t considering your feelings so much as your good,” said Aunt +Laura complacently. + +“Father . . . father . . . you can’t mean it. You see. . . . I don’t +know . . . it would all be so strange. So awfully difficult. I should +have lost touch with all the work the form was doing. I shouldn’t be +able to pick it up. It’s rotten . . . rotten . . .” + +“Edwin, you will distress your father . . .” + +“Oh, Aunt Laura, do let father speak for himself.” + +Immense volumes of yellow smoke signalled Uncle Albert’s distress. + +“Father . . .” + +“It’s difficult, Edwin . . .” + +“But it isn’t difficult, father, dear. Aunt Laura doesn’t realise. She +doesn’t realise what it would be like going back like that to St. Luke’s. +It would only be waste of time. Father, I’d read during the hols. . . . +I would, really. It isn’t that I want to get out of going back to work. +It isn’t that a bit. I’d work like blazes. Only . . . only everything +now seems to have gone funny and empty . . . sort of blank. I . . . I +feel awful without mother . . .” + +“Edwin . . .” warningly, from Aunt Laura. + +That Aunt Laura should presume to correct him in a matter of delicacy! +“Of course you don’t understand,” he said bitterly. “You don’t want me +to speak about mother. You’ve had your excitement out of it. You’ve had +your chance of bossing round, and now you want to arrange what I shall do +for the rest of my life, I suppose. You’ve no . . . no reverence.” + +He was really very angry. It was always difficult for him to be anything +else with Aunt Laura; for he felt that it was somehow horribly unjust for +her to be alive when his mother was dead, and he could never, never +forget what his darling had told him of her stupid jealousy. On this +occasion Aunt Laura seemed to be less disturbed than usual by his +violence. She spoke with a calculated coolness that compelled the +admiration of her husband, sitting very uncomfortably on the edge of the +storm, desperately anxious to show that without his taking sides his wife +could rely on his support. + +“It’s funny, Edwin,” said Aunt Laura, stroking her black skirt, “that you +should use the word Reverence. . . . It reminds me of something that I +wanted to speak to you about. You realise, don’t you, that we are all +supposed to be in mourning? And yet, day after day, I see you going down +the town in a pair of white canvas gym. shoes. White. . . ! Now, you +mustn’t talk to me about reverence, Edwin.” + +Edwin burst out laughing. It was no good arguing with the woman. He +gave a despairing glance at his father. Was it possible that the man +could listen seriously to superficial cant of this kind? Was it possible +that he could tolerate the woman’s presence in the house? He looked, and +he saw nothing but tiredness and desolation in the man’s face. He saw +that in reality his father was too tired for anything but compromise. +All life, all determination had been stamped out of him, and though Edwin +clutched at the sympathy which he knew must be concealed in the man’s +mind, he began to realise that, after all, circumstances had left the +whole household curiously dependent on Aunt Laura; that without her the +whole domestic machine would collapse, and that, therefore, the +infliction must be suffered patiently. Edwin determined to leave the +matter where it stood, but Aunt Laura, inflamed with approaching triumph, +would not let it rest. “I am sure that you agree with me, John,” she +threw out challengingly. + +“No doubt Edwin did not understand. You know more about the people in +the town than we do, Laura.” + +“Compromise . . .” thought Edwin, “but I suppose it can’t be helped.” At +any rate nothing that he might do should give the man a moment’s +discomfort. He possessed himself in silence. + +“But I think, perhaps,” Mr. Ingleby went on, “that Edwin is right. It +would be hardly worth while going back to St. Luke’s for a fortnight.” + +“Of course you know best, John,” Aunt Laura hurried to assure him, “but +it’s really quite impossible for us to put him up while the house is +closed and you are away. You know that we’ve arranged to have the +painters in.”. + +On a matter of fact, and one outside controversy, Uncle Albert felt that +he was safe in giving his support. + +“I quite understand that,” said Mr. Ingleby, “but it’s a simple matter. +Edwin can come with me.” + +“Oh, father, how wonderful!” + +“Well, of course,” said Aunt Laura, “if he won’t be a nuisance to you. . . .” +But Edwin was too pleased and excited to mind what she said. He +kissed his father, and Mr. Ingleby, with a curious tenderness, clasped +his arm. It seemed that catastrophe had strange uses. Already it had +thrown the ordinary course of life into more than one curious byway, and +now, behold, he was to embark upon another strange adventure, to become +familiar with another sort of life. He determined that his duty +(whatever that might be) should not suffer by it. When they returned +from their holiday, all through the summer months, he would work like +anything: he would make that Balliol scholarship that had seemed part of +an indefinite future, as near a certainty as made no matter. He would +show them—in other words Aunt Laura and Uncle Albert—what he could do. + +“If we are going on Monday I had better think of packing,” he said. +“Shall I need to take many things, father?” + +“Oh, don’t worry your father, Edwin,” said Aunt Laura. + + +III + + +Sunday came with its usual toll of dreariness. The customary penance of +the morning service was actually the least trying part of it to Edwin. +To begin with, the parish church of Halesby was a structure of great +beauty. Originally an offshoot of the abbey that now stood in ruins +above the long string of slowly silting fishponds on the Stour, the grace +and ingenuity of successive ages of priestly architects had embellished +its original design with many beautiful features, and the slender beauty +of its spire, crowning a steep bank above the degraded river, had imposed +an atmosphere of dignity and rest upon the rather squalid surroundings of +this last of the black-country towns. The music, even though it was not +in any way comparable with that of St. Luke’s, was good, and the recent +arrival of a young and distinguished rector from Cambridge, whose voice +and person would have qualified him for success as a bishop, or an actor +manager, had restored to the building some of its popularity as a place +of resort or of escape from the shuttered Sunday streets. + +At ten o’clock the fine peal of bells filled the air with an inspiriting +music. Edwin remembered, hearing them, the melancholy with which they +had often inspired him on dank evenings of autumn when the ringers were +at practice. Very different they sounded on this summer morning, for a +gentle wind was moving from the hills to westward, and chime eddied in a +soft air that was clearer than the usual, if only because it was Sunday +and the smoke of a thousand furnaces and chimney stacks no longer filled +it with suffocation. + +At ten-fifteen precisely Aunt Laura appeared in the dining-room, in a +black silk dress smelling faintly of lavender: a minute later, Uncle +Albert, in a frock coat, coaxing the last sweetness from his +after-breakfast pipe. Mr. Ingleby also had exchanged the alpaca jacket +in which he had been leisurely examining his roses, for the same uniform. +Uncle Albert, Edwin noticed, had not yet removed the deep band of crape +from his top-hat. As usual, Aunt Laura appeared a little flustered, the +strain of conscious magnificence in her millinery making it difficult for +her to collect her thoughts. + +“Are you sure you have all the prayer-books, Albert?” she asked +anxiously. + +Uncle Albert regretfully knocked out his pipe. “Yes, my dear,” he said. + +“Don’t scatter those ashes all over the fireplace, Albert. The least you +can do is to keep the room tidy on Sunday.” + +“Yes, my dear.” + +“Edwin, have you got your prayer-book? Why, boy, you’ve actually put on +a grey striped tie. Run and change it quickly. I don’t know what people +will think.” + +Edwin, smarting, obeyed. When he returned the atmosphere of impatience +had increased. Aunt Laura was saying: “John, dear, are you sure that the +clock is right? I’m afraid the bells have stopped. No . . . thank +goodness, there they are again. That’s better, Edwin. Now we really +must start. You have the money for the collection, Albert? Give it to +me, or you’ll be sure to leave me without any. I do hope we shan’t be +late. We should look so prominent. . . .” + +Why should they look so prominent? The question puzzled Edwin all the +way down through the quiet streets. But even though this mystery +exercised his mind he could not help appreciating the curious atmosphere +of the route through which they progressed. At the corner of the street +the first familiar thing smote him: it was the odour of stale spirits and +beer that issued from between the closed doors of the Bull’s Head +public-house, behind which it had been secreted ever since an uproarious +closing time the night before. Then came the steep High Street, and from +its gutters the indescribable smell of vegetable refuse left there +overnight from the greengrocer’s stalls. On an ordinary morning it would +not have been noticed, for the motion of wheeled traffic in the highway +and the sight of open shop windows would have distracted the attention. +On Sunday morning, however, it became the most important thing in the +road, and seemed to emphasise the deadness of the day in contrast to the +activities and dissipations of Saturday night. It called attention to +the indubitable sordidness of the whole street: the poverty of its grimy +brick: the faded lettering above the shop windows: the paint that cracked +and peeled from the closed shutters. On this morning Halesby was a +squalid and degraded town. Even Mr. Ingleby’s shop in the High Street +looked curiously small and mean. Edwin disliked the sight of his own +name printed over it. It reminded him of Griffin’s social prejudices. + +They entered a small door in the transept when the last bell was tolling; +and as they stepped into the full church Edwin realised at last the +reason of Aunt Laura’s particular anxieties. They were on show. This +was the first occasion, since the funeral, that the family had entered +the church, and, in accordance with an immemorial custom, the +congregation were now engaged in searching their faces and their clothing +for evidences of the grief that was proper to their condition. + +Kneeling in the conventional opening prayer, Edwin could see through his +folded fingers that the whole of the gathering was engaged in a ghoulish +scrutiny of their party. Now, for the first time, he realised the full +meaning of the horror with which his grey tie had inspired Aunt Laura. +He could even feel Aunt Laura, who remained kneeling longer than usual, +wallowing in the emotion that her presence evoked. It was a rotten +business. If he could have dared to do so without causing an immense +scandal, Edwin would have got up and left the church. He saw Aunt Laura +glance at his father with a kind of proprietary air, as if this +exhibition were really her own responsibility and the degree of interest +that Mr. Ingleby’s appearance aroused were to her credit. + +Edwin also looked at his father. He wondered if Mr. Ingleby were in the +least conscious of the spectacle to which he was contributing: decided +that he wasn’t. He was thankful for that. It became apparent to him +that, if the truth were known, his father was a creature of the most +astonishing simplicity: a simplicity that was almost pathetic. He could +see, he knew that the whole church must see, that the man had suffered. +The brutes. . . . He was awfully sorry for his father. And he loved him +for it. The whole affair was shameful and degrading. Never mind . . . +in another twenty-four hours they would be clear of all this sort of +thing. It was something to be thankful for. + +“_When the wicked man turneth away from his wickedness and doeth that +which is lawful and right_. . . .” The rector began to intone. He spoke +the words as though his whole soul were behind them: his voice vibrated +with a practiced earnestness: and all the time Edwin could see his dark +eyes scrutinising the congregation in detail, congratulating himself on +the presence of his supporters, speculating on the absence of certain +others. In the final cadence of the sentence, a masterly modulation that +would have made you swear that his whole life was in his mission, his +eyes swivelled into the corner where the Ingleby party were sitting, and +Edwin could have bet his life that they lighted up with a kind of +satisfaction at the addition of this undoubted attraction to his +morning’s entertainment. It even seemed to him that the rector’s glances +almost imperceptibly indicated to his wife, a little woman of a pathetic +earnestness qualified for the ultimate bishopric by a complete subjection +to her husband’s personality, the fact that the Inglebys were on view. + +The rector, who had views on the advantages of scamping the drier +portions of the church service and stressing any sentence that held +possibilities of fruity sentiment, soon got into his stride. He was in +excellent voice that morning, and on two occasions in the first lesson +availed himself of an opportunity of exploiting the emotional break—it +was very nearly a sob—that had done so much to establish his reputation +in his early days at Halesby. He was making hay while the sun shone: for +in the confirmation service such opportunities are more limited. + +Edwin enjoyed the psalms. There was even something familiar and pleasant +in the tunes of the Cathedral Psalter after the exotic harmonies of St. +Luke’s. He sang the tenor part (when last he remembered singing them it +had been alto) and lost his sense of his surroundings in the beauty of +the words. In the middle of them, however, he became conscious of his +father singing too. He had never sat next to his father in church +before. His mother had always separated them: and for this reason he had +never before heard his father sing. The result filled him with horror. +Mr. Ingleby had no idea of tune and was apparently unconscious of this +disability. Edwin reflected how great an interest music had been in his +mother’s life: realised that from this part of her his father must always +have been isolated by this natural barrier. It was strange. . . . He +began to wonder what they really had in common. He remembered Griffin. +No . . . not that. . . . + +This speculation he did his best to stifle while the rector galloped over +the desert wastes of the Litany: but the kneeling posture was rendered +uncomfortable by the presence in front of him of an old maiden lady who +smelt of caraway seeds, a spice that Edwin detested. A hymn followed. +Luckily, this time his father did not sing. Poor creature. . . . Edwin +was now so ashamed of his criticism that he almost wished he would. And +then they settled down to the sermon. + +From the first Edwin had decided that he would not listen. The simple +austerity of the service at St. Luke’s, where the liturgy was allowed to +unfold its sonorous splendours for itself, had bred in him a distaste for +the rector’s histrionics. So he did not hear them, contenting himself +with a detailed examination of such of the congregation as were within +his range. He saw them classified in their social gradations from the +pompous distinction of Sir Joseph Hingston, the ironmaster, who, in spite +of his baronetcy, wore a frock coat that did not differ greatly from that +of Mr. Ingleby, to their late maid, dressed in black, and now conscious +of the reflected glory that she had almost sacrificed by leaving. And +the thing that impressed him most about this very various gathering was +their shabbiness, and the fact that nearly all of those whom he knew +seemed so much older than they had been when he last saw them. + +Thinking of the light and elegance and cleanliness of St. Luke’s, it +appeared to him that Halesby was indeed a muddy and obscure backwater and +that his own people, sitting in the pew beside him, were in reality as +much fitted to inhabit it as all the rest of the shabby congregation. +Even the Willises, his mother’s new friends, whom a wave of commercial +prosperity had carried forward into one of the front pews of the nave +within calculable distance of the glory of Sir Joseph Hingston himself, +would have looked very ordinary folk in the chapel at St. Luke’s. + +He began to wonder if Griffin, and more latterly Aunt Laura, had been +right: whether, after all, his mother had made an ambitious mistake in +sending him to a public school when the ancient foundation of the Halesby +Grammar School had stood waiting for the reception of him and his kind. +There, in the fifth row on the left of the nave, sat Mr. Kelly, the +grammar school’s head-master: a swarthy Irishman with a sinister, rather +disappointed face. He wasn’t at all Edwin’s idea of a schoolmaster. +Even old fat Leeming looked more distinguished than that. And yet, if he +were good enough for the son of the opulent Walter Willis, he must surely +be good enough for the son of an ordinary Halesby tradesman. + +For the greater part of the sermon these problems of social precedence +engaged Edwin’s puzzled mind. It had come as something of a shock to him +to find that his mother came of a farming stock, even though the farmers +had lived in a Norman castle and had once been good enough to bear a +lance in company with the Lords Marchers. Examining the face of his +father, who appeared to be engrossed in the rector’s rhetoric, Edwin +decided that his features were really far too distinguished to belong +naturally to a country chemist. Here, perhaps, in spite of present +circumstance, lay the explanation of his own indubitable gentility. It +was funny, he reflected, that he had never heard anything from his mother +about the origins of the Inglebys: he had not even known from what part +of the country their stock had sprung, and this ignorance made the +expedition on which they were to start on the morrow more enthralling +than ever. It was quite possible that the discovery of some illustrious +ancestry might put him right with himself and justify his claim to a +birthright which at present seemed rather shadowy. + +Even if this failed, he decided, there remained Oxford. A fellow of +Balliol (his imagination travelled fast) would have a right to hold up +his head with any one in that congregation—Sir Joseph Hingston not +excepted—even though the name of the fellow’s father happened to be +printed on his toothbrush. It might even be for him to restore the +prestige of the Ingleby name. “But in that case,” he thought, “it will +be better for me to buy my toothbrushes somewhere else. . . .” Even the +fact that Keats was a chemist did not modify this determination. + +The sermon ended, and during the collection a hymn was sung. Half an +hour before this, a gowned verger had stolen on tiptoe to the Inglebys’ +pew and whispered in Mr. Ingleby’s ear, depositing a wooden plate lined +with velvet under the seat as furtively as if it were something of which +he was ashamed. When the collection began Edwin’s father left his pew +and began to carry the plate round the transept in which they were +seated. + +Edwin, out of the corner of his eye, saw a glow of satisfaction spread +over the features of Aunt Laura. Now, more than ever, the depth of the +family’s grief was to be demonstrated in the eyes of all men. Edwin +thought it was a rotten shame to make his father collect on this Sunday +of all Sundays. The hymn was a short one, and for several minutes after +it was finished the clink of silver and the duller sound of copper coins +was heard in every corner of the echoing church. Then the sides-men +formed themselves into a double file and moved singly up the aisle. +First came Sir Joseph Hingston, erect and podgy, with his smooth grey +waistcoat in front of him like the breast of a pouter pigeon. Mr. +Willis, of Mawne, with a humbler but not unambitious abdominal +development followed him. Edwin conceived a fanciful theory that when +Mr. Willis, in the course of time, should have grown as wealthy as the +baronet, there would be nothing to choose between their profiles. A +miserly but erect old gentleman named Farr, who had once given Edwin a +halfpenny, followed Mr. Willis. Last but one came Edwin’s father, with +the red-bearded undertaker an eager last. + +On the whole, Edwin was satisfied (as was obviously Aunt Laura) with Mr. +Ingleby’s appearance. He certainly looked more like the father of a +fellow of Balliol than Sir Joseph Hingston. The money descended with a +series of opulent splashes into the brass salver that the rector held in +front of the chancel steps: the organist (in private life he was a +carpenter) meanwhile extemporising vaguely in the key of C. The rector +carried the salver arm-high to the altar, as though he were exhibiting to +the Almighty the personal fruits of his oratory. Mr. Ingleby stole +quietly to his seat bathed in the admiring glances of Aunt Laura. A +short prayer . . . “_And now to God the father_. . . .” The organist +launched into his latest achievement: the Gavotte from Mignon. + +Outside the church the summer sunlight seemed more exhilarating than +ever. It was worth while, Edwin thought, to have suffered the dreariness +of the morning’s service to experience this curious feeling of lightness +and relief. He supposed that he was not alone in this sensation; for the +crowd that moved slowly from the churchyard gates with a kind of +gathering resilience was a happy crowd, and its voices that at first were +hushed soon became gay and irresponsible in spite of the slight +awkwardness that its Sunday clothes imposed on it. No doubt they were +anticipating their Sunday dinner, for, as Edwin had noticed, the liturgy +of the Church of England has some value as an _apéritif_. Even Aunt +Laura was full of a subdued playfulness. “What a shame, Albert,” she +said, “that the rector didn’t appoint you to collect to-day.” She patted +his arm. + +“Oh, I don’t know, my dear. . . . It wasn’t my turn, you know.” + +“Oh, I know that,” said Aunt Laura, “but on a day like this it would have +been rather a delicate compliment. I must speak to the rector about it.” + +“I don’t think I should do that,” said Uncle Albert, with some alarm. + +She laughed gently. “Don’t be an old juggins,” she said. + +All down the High Street, in the moving crowd, Edwin could smell the +savour of roast beef and baked potatoes and cabbage water wafted from +innumerable kitchen windows. . . . + + +IV + + +In the afternoon they left Aunt Laura and Uncle Albert asleep in two +arm-chairs on opposite sides of the drawing-room fireplace, and Edwin and +his father went for a walk by the old abbey fish-ponds. It was the first +time for many years that Edwin had been for a walk with his father, and +the experience promised a new and exciting intimacy to which he looked +forward with eagerness. + +Even at this hour of the day the Sabbath atmosphere imposed itself on the +countryside. The road that they followed was long and straight with an +open frontage above the reedy pools, and along the cinder path at the +side of it a great number of men were lounging: a strange and foreign +population of miners from the Mawne pits, who only emerged from their +cavernous occupation on this day of the week, and other industrial +workers from the great steel rolling mills that lay in the Stour Valley +to westward. + +None of them took any notice of Edwin and his father. It was even +doubtful if they knew who they were; for these men passed a curiously +separate existence, and Mr. Ingleby would only be familiar to their wives +who did the family shopping on Saturday nights while their masters were +waiting for the football results in their favourite pubs. On this day +the miner’s passion for sport of all kinds asserted itself in the +presence of a great number of slim, jacketed whippets, each warranted to +beat anything on four legs for speed, slinking tenderly at their masters’ +heels. + +It seemed strange to Edwin that his father should know none of these men. +It showed him again how remote and solitary the man’s life must have been +in this ultimate corner of the Black Country. “We don’t really belong +here,” he thought. “We’re foreigners. . . .” And the reflection pleased +him, though he remembered, with a tinge of regret, that by this denial he +dissociated himself from his old idol the poet of the Pastoral Ballad. + +Soon they left the cinder path behind, and plunged into a green lane +descending to a water-mill, turned by the tawny Stour, as yet unsullied +by the refuse of factories. At a sandstone bridge, whose parapet was +deeply carved with the initials of lovers long since dead or +disillusioned, they paused, and, for the first time, began to talk. + +“It’s a funny thing, father,” Edwin said, “but I don’t even know where we +are going to-morrow. . . .” + +Mr. Ingleby smiled. “Don’t you, Edwin? Well, the doctor said it would +be best for me to go to my native air; and it struck me as rather a good +plan. I never went there with your mother. It belonged to another life. +It is quite twenty years since I have been in Somerset.” + +“Somerset . . .? I didn’t even know it was Somerset.” + +“No. . . . Well, as I say, it was another world.” + +Somerset. . . . Edwin’s imagination began to play with the word. He +could remember very little: only a huge green county sprawling on a map +with rivers . . . yes, and hills. A county stretched beside the Severn +Sea. The Severn again! A western county. Cheddar cheese. Lorna Doone. +Cider. Coleridge. Sedgemoor. + +“But what part of Somerset?” + +“The eastern end.” + +That was a pity. The farther west the better. + +“I suppose it’s rather a flat county?” + +“A great part of it. Did you ever hear of Mendip? + + “‘The rugged miners poured to war + From Mendip’s sunless caves.’” + +“Yes, of course. . . .” + +“I came from a little village on the top of Mendip. Twenty years ago it +was decaying. Now I expect there’s next to nothing left of it. Twenty +years makes a lot of difference. It’s made a lot of difference to me.” + +“And what was the name of the village?” + +“I don’t suppose you will ever have heard it. It was called Highberrow.” + +“Highberrow . . . no. It’s a jolly name.” + +“I don’t think it ever struck me in that light.” + +“Highberrow . . . is it right in the hills?” + +“Yes . . . quite high up. I don’t know how many hundreds of feet. I +wasn’t interested in that sort of thing then. It lies right under +Axdown, the highest point of the range. On a clear day you can see right +over the Bristol Channel into Wales. All the mountains there. The +Brecon Beacons. The Sugarloaf. The Black Mountain.” + +“The Black Mountain. But how strange. Why, when you were a little boy +you must have been nearly able to see the place where mother lived. With +a big sea between. It must have been wonderful . . .” + +“Yes . . . I suppose it was. I scarcely remember. Look right down in +that deep pool. That’s a trout.” + +“A trout. . . . Where? Do show me . . .” + +The vision of Mendip faded instantly, and Edwin only saw the rufous sands +of the pool beneath the bridge, and in it a shadowy elongated figure with +its head to the slow stream and faintly quivering fins. In Devonshire, +Widdup had told him, the rivers swarmed with trout: you could catch them +all day long if you wanted to, and Edwin, loyal to his own county’s +excellences, had only been able to produce the silvery roach of the +millpool, shoaling round the water-lilies and the mythical legend of +carnivorous pike lurking in Mr. Willis’s ponds in the Holloway. He +wished he had known that there were veritable trout in the Stour. Now it +was too late to do anything; but when they returned from their holiday, +he determined that he would catch this shadowy creature, even if he had +to induce it to gorge a worm. Still, it was quite possible that by the +time he returned he would have captured many trout. For Somerset lay +next to Devon on the map. + +“Are there many trout in Mendip?” he asked. + +“No. . . . There is only one river of any size. The Ax, that runs +underground and comes out of Axcombe gorge, and there are practically no +trout in the Ax. It’s a dry country. Limestone. Very barren too.” + +That didn’t really matter. In a day or two Edwin would be able to see +for himself. On their way home they spoke very little. His father +seemed to find it difficult to talk to him; and in a little while Edwin +became conscious of his own unending string of questions that led +nowhere. + +But all that night he dreamed of Mendip. A vast, barren, +mountain-country, his dreams pictured it; waterless, and honeycombed with +the dark caves from which Macaulay’s miners had poured to war; a deserted +countryside full of broken villages and bounded by steep cliffs against +which the isolating waters of the Severn Sea broke in a soundless tumult. +And there Ax, the sacred river, ran through caverns measureless to man. +A fluent gentleman with a noble brow and burning grey eyes pointed out +the course of the river to him. He was the only other soul beside Edwin +and his father, in all that desert country, and Edwin introduced him to +Mr. Ingleby as Mr. Coleridge—rather diffidently, for he was not sure how +the poet would take it until he remembered and explained that Keats was a +chemist. There, on the high crown of Axdown, his mother joined them. +She, it seemed, was not afraid of Mr. Coleridge. She took his arm so +familiarly that Edwin trembled for her; but the poet only smiled, while +she pointed out to him a mass of huge fantastic mountains ranged beyond +the gleaming sea. “You’ve got to look over there,” she said. “You see +that level ridge dropping suddenly? Well, it’s the third farm from the +end. Can you see the little bedroom window on the extreme left? . . . +quite a little window?” Coleridge nodded, and Mr. Ingleby, too, shielded +his eyes with his hands and looked. “It was my last chance of showing it +to you,” she said. + +“But there are practically no trout in the Alph,” said Coleridge. + + + +CHAPTER XI +THE THRESHOLD + + +I + + +THE next evening, when Edwin and his father reached Bristol, a steady +drizzle had set in from the west. They pushed their bicycles out of the +station yard at Temple Meads and rode between slippery tramway lines +towards a small hotel, a stone’s-throw from Bristol Bridge, where Mr. +Ingleby had decided to put up for the night. “It’s no use trying to ride +on to Wringford this evening,” he said, “for the wind will be against us +and it’s collar work most of the way. I think we can be comfortable here +to-night. I used to know the landlord of this place. He was a Mendip +man.” + +The Mendip landlord, of course, had been dead for many years, having made +his descent by the route that is particularly easy for licensed +victuallers; but it happened that his daughter had married the new +tenant, and this woman, a comfortable creature who spoke with the slight +burr that appeared in Mr. Ingleby’s speech in times of anger or any other +violent emotion, welcomed them for her father’s sake, and gave them a +bare but cleanly room on the second story. + +The windows of this room looked down obliquely on to the tidal basin of +the Avon, thronged with small coasting tramps and sailing ships: and +Edwin was content to stay there watching them; for he had never seen the +traffic of a harbour before. It was still too wet to think of going out +onto the quays; but even from a distance the misty spectacle, enveloped +in veils of driving rain, was romantic. + +Edwin watched while a pair of busy tugboats pushed and pulled and worried +the hull of a wooden schooner in to mid-stream. The water was high, and +she was due to catch the falling tide to Avonmouth. Whither was she +bound? He did not know. Perhaps her way lay down channel to pick up a +cargo of bricks from Bridgewater. Perhaps she was setting out at that +moment to essay the icy passage of the Horn. Perhaps, in another four +months, she would have doubled the Cape and lie wallowing in the torpid +seas about Zanzibar. It inspired Edwin to think that he was standing at +one of the gateways of the world. From the site of the stone bridge +above their lodging, just four hundred years ago, the Venetian pilot, +Cabot, had cast loose in the selfsame way, and sailed westward with his +three sons, Lewes, Sebastyan, and Sancto, to the mainland of unknown +America. To-day, from the same wet quays, other adventurous prows were +stretching forth to the ends of the earth. To China . . . To Africa. +_Here begins the sea that ends not till the world’s end_. + +With his accustomed curiosity as to the origins of his own emotions Edwin +was not long in deciding that his growing eagerness to see the beauty and +strangeness of the world must have sprung from the fact that his +ancestors had lived upon the shores of this great waterway. From +Highberrow, his father had told him, you could see the whole expanse of +the Bristol Channel. From Highberrow, perhaps, some forbear of his own +had watched the caravels of Cabot setting down channel with the ebb tide. +He was bewildered with the splendour of his heritage. It was impossible +to imagine that Sir Joseph Hingston’s family had the least share in such +a romantic past. + +In the evening, after supper, the rain ceased, and Mr. Ingleby proposed +that they should go for a walk through the city. He had known it well in +his youth, and it seemed to fill him with an almost childish delight to +show Edwin the things that he remembered. They passed through many +narrow winding streets where the overhanging houses of the merchant +venturers stood, and ancient churches had been huddled into corners by +the growing city. “I remember every inch of it,” said Mr. Ingleby, with +a happy laugh. Again they crossed the river, and skirting a line of +shipping warehouses, now cavernous and deserted, they plunged into a +sordid quarter full of sailors’ drinking dens that smelled of rum, and +marine stores that smelled of tar. + +“Where are we going?” Edwin asked. + +“You’ll see in a minute,” said Mr. Ingleby. And, in a minute, Edwin saw. + +They had emerged from the huddled houses into a large open space, and in +the midst of it rose a miracle of beauty such as Edwin had never seen +before: a structure too delicate in its airy loveliness to have been +built of stone; so fragile in its strength that it seemed impossible that +the slender flying buttresses should support it. The shadowy spire could +be seen dimly piercing a sky that had been washed to clearness by the +rain; but inside the church, for some reason unknown, the lamps had been +lighted, and the whole building glowed as though it had been one immense +lantern. There could not be another miracle of this kind in the world, +Edwin thought. + +He remembered a white model of the Taj Mahal at Agra, that stood beneath +a dome of glass in Mrs. Barrow’s drawing-room, an intricate carving of +ivory with a huge dome and many fretted minarets. Edwin remembered that +the Taj Mahal was supposed to be one of the wonders of the world; but he +could not believe that it was as beautiful as this: it was too fanciful, +too complicated in its detail, while this church, for all its delicacy, +was so amazingly simple in its design. + +“St. Mary Redcliffe,” said Mr. Ingleby. “I always thought it was a fine +church, but I don’t think I ever saw it lit up like this before.” He +paused, and they gazed at the church for a little while in silence. +“It’s a funny thing,” he said at last, “that a great master can sign a +picture and the name of a poet be remembered by his writings, while the +greatest artists of the Middle Ages, people who planned and built +wonderful things like this . . . and I suppose it is more beautiful +to-day than when it was first finished . . . should be quite forgotten. +A funny thing. . . . I should think the man who made this church must +have devoted his life to it.” + +Edwin glowed. It came as a delightful surprise to him that his father +should think of a thing like this. He was ashamed to confess that he +hadn’t believed him capable of it. It was the sort of thing that he +would only have expected of his mother. “What a rotten little snob I +am,” he thought. And though he happened to know, quite by accident, from +the Rowley Poems of Chatterton, that the builder of Redcliffe was William +Cannynge, round whose shadowy reputation the work of the wondrous boy had +grown, he could not for the life of him reveal this piece of learning, +since it would have spoiled the originality of his father’s reflection. +He only said, “Yes,” but the train of thought was so strong in him that +he couldn’t resist asking Mr. Ingleby if he knew which was the muniment +room. + +“The muniment room. Why?” + +“Because it was in the muniment room that Chatterton pretended that he +found the Rowley manuscripts.” + +“Chatterton? Ah, yes. . . . Thomas Chatterton, the poet.” + +“Yes.” + +“I’m afraid I don’t know. I never read any of his poems, but I believe +he starved in London and committed suicide with Arsenious Oxide.” + +This gleam of professional interest tickled Edwin. Keats: Beatings. +Chatterton: Arsenious Oxide. + +“They found Arsenic on his lips. He made no mistake about it. The +lethal dose is a very small one. A grain or so would have done it. Why, +it’s beginning to rain again. We’d better go. I hope it will clear up +by to-morrow.” + +They walked back to their lodging in a fine drizzle. On the way Edwin’s +father took his arm. The action gave Edwin a curious sensation. It +suggested to him that his father was lonely; that the natural instinct of +love in the man was making him eager for some sort of sympathy. It was +pitiable; for, in reality, they were strangers . . . there was no getting +away from the fact that they were strangers. + +“I must make it easy for him,” Edwin thought. “However impossible it may +seem, I must make it easy. I must know him. I must love him. Whatever +it costs I must love him. It is ridiculous that I should have to choose +my words and even at times be a little dishonest when it ought to be the +most natural and easy thing in the world to be myself with him. Of +course it’s difficult at present; but later on, when we know each other +better, it will be all right.” + +When they returned to their lodging their clothes were wet, and they went +together into the kitchen of the defunct publican’s daughter. She gave +them two of her husband’s coats to wear while their own were drying, and +for a long time they sat over the fire talking to her. It was evident +that though Mr. Ingleby was himself unknown to her, she knew all about +his family; for she asked him many questions about various people in +Highberrow and Wringford, whom they knew in common. Mr. Ingleby could +tell her very little, but the landlady was able to supply him with a lot +of gossip from the Mendip villages. + +“We heard that you were married,” she said. + +“Yes,” replied Mr. Ingleby. “But I’ve just had a great blow. I’ve lost +my wife.” + +“Dear, dear . . . that’s very sad for ’ee.” + +“Yes. . . . I shall never get over it.” + +“And this is your eldest? My word, how time flies!” + +“Yes. . . . He’s the only one.” + +“To look at him at first you wouldn’t say there was much of an Ingleby in +him.” + +“No. He takes after his mother’s family.” + +“And yet, on second thoughts, he’s got a look of your brother William’s +boy, Joe, about his eyes. Now that’s a strange thing. Talking of your +brother William, I haven’t seen or heard of him for years.” + +“I haven’t seen him for twenty years myself. We’re cycling to Wringford +to-morrow. We shall put up with him.” + +“Well, remember me to him. He was always a great favourite of dad’s.” + +“Will’s a good fellow.” + +“I suppose he’s in the same place? Mr. Grisewood would be a fool to get +rid of a man like that. Good gardeners are scarce. . . .” + +Edwin could not understand this at all. It was obvious that the woman +must be making some mistake; for it was clearly impossible that his Uncle +William could be a gardener. Still, his father offered no protest. + +“They tell me,” she went on in her soft West-country voice, “that he’ve +apprenticed that boy Joe to Hares, the shoeing-smith.” + +“I didn’t know that,” said Mr. Ingleby. + +“Well, of course, it may be all right,” the landlady went on, “but +there’s always the future to think on. My husband always says that the +day of the horse is over. What with steam and electricity, and these new +things that I see in the paper they are running from London to Brighton! +There’s a gentleman near Bridgewater who has one of these new motor-cars +on the road. Of course, I suppose they are fairly reliable on the flat.” + +Edwin was thankful that the excitements of motor traction had diverted +her from the uncomfortable subject of his cousin’s profession. . . . if +that were the right word to apply to the calling of a shoeing-smith; but +the matter still troubled and bewildered him when they went upstairs to +bed. It was one that would not wait for explanation, and so he tackled +his father as soon as they were alone. + +“Father, what was that woman talking about? What did she mean when she +said that Uncle Will was a gardener?” + +“What did she mean?” Mr. Ingleby laughed. “Why she meant what she said. +He _is_ a gardener. He’s never been anything else.” + +“But, father . . . it’s impossible.” + +“It isn’t impossible, boy. It’s the truth. Didn’t you know? Didn’t +mother ever tell you?” + +“No. . . . I don’t think she ever spoke of him. I . . . I can’t +understand it.” + +“You sound as if it had come as a shock to you, Eddie.” + +“No . . . yes . . . I suppose it did.” + +“You didn’t imagine that you’d find your ancestry in Debrett, Eddie?” + +“No . . . but that’s different. It’s . . . it’s sort of bowled me over.” + +Mr. Ingleby laughed. It seemed that he was really amused at Edwin’s +consternation. + +“I suppose it’s natural for a schoolboy to be a bit snobbish,” he said. + +“No . . . it isn’t that. Honestly it isn’t, father. Only I’d kind of +taken us for granted. I wish you’d tell me all about it. You see, I +know absolutely nothing.” + +“It’s a long story, Eddie. But of course I’ll tell you. Then you won’t +have any more of these distressing surprises. Suppose you get into bed +first.” + +It was a strange sight to Edwin to see his father kneel down in his +Jaeger nightgown and pray. The boy had never done that since his second +term at St. Luke’s. + + +II + + +Lying in bed with his father’s arm about him, Edwin listened to a long +and strange narration that overwhelmed him with alternations of +humiliation that made him ashamed, and of romance that thrilled him. Mr. +Ingleby began at the beginning. Their family had lived, it appeared, for +years without number, in the village of Highberrow on Mendip in a combe +beneath the great camp of Silbury, and the calling of all these Inglebys +had been that of the other inhabitants of Highberrow: they were miners, +working for lead in the seams that the Romans, and perhaps the +Phoenicians before them, had discovered in the mountain limestone. Even +so early as in the youth of Edwin’s father the industry had been +decaying, for the traditional methods of the Mendip miner were +unscientific: he had been content to dig for himself a shallow working +from which he collected enough of the mineral that is called calamine to +keep him in pocket and in drink. + +“We Mendip folk,” said Mr. Ingleby, “are a strange people, very different +in our physique from the broad Saxons of the turf-moors beneath us. I +suppose there is a good deal of Cornish blood in us. Wherever there are +mines there are Cornishmen; but I think there’s another, older strain: +Iberian . . . Roman . . . Phoenician. I don’t know what it is; but I do +know that we’re somehow different from all the rest of the Somerset +people: a violent, savage sort of folk. Did you ever hear of Hannah +More?” + +“No.” Edwin had been born too late in the century. + +“Well, she was before my time too; but she made the Mendip miners +notorious by trying to convert them. I don’t suppose she succeeded. At +any rate neither she nor her influences would ever have converted your +grandfather. He was a wonderful man. Even though my memory is mostly of +the way in which I was afraid of him, I can see what a wonderful man he +was. And your Uncle Will would tell you the same.” + +“He was a miner . . . ?” + +“Yes. . . . A miner amongst other things. He was a dowser too.” + +“A dowser? What is that?” + +“Don’t you know? The divining-rod. A thing that all the scientists have +been unable to explain. In a dry country like Mendip the dowser is a +most important person; for neither man nor beast can live without water, +and he is the only person who can tell where a well should be sunk. Your +grandfather was a strange looking man with very clear grey eyes under a +black head of hair and heavy bristling brows. Even when he grew very old +his hair and his beard were black. + +“I was the youngest of the family. All the others, except your Uncle +Will, have died—and for some reason or other I was not brought up in my +father’s cottage but in that of my grandmother, a tiny, tumbledown affair +lying in the valley under Silbury. We were very humble people, Eddie. I +don’t suppose anywhere in the world I could have passed a quieter +childhood. It’s a long way off now. One only remembers curious, +unimportant things. + +“When I was four years old I was sent to the village school. I don’t +think it exists any longer. You see the population of Highberrow +disappeared naturally with the abandonment of the mining. Even in my +childhood, as I told you, the workings were running pretty thin. The +miners were beginning to find that they couldn’t pick up much of a living +on their own calamine claims; and so they drifted back gradually—your +grandfather along with them—to the oldest workings of all: the mines that +the Romans had made two thousand years ago. You may be certain that the +Romans, with their thoroughness, hadn’t left much behind. Why, in their +days, Mendip must have been a great place, with a harbour of its own on +the mouth of the Ax, and great roads radiating everywhere: to +Cirencester, Exeter, and Bath. Even in the Middle Ages there was a +population of fifty thousand souls on Mendip. Now I don’t suppose there +are a thousand in all the mining villages put together. + +“So my father went to work in the Roman mines at Cold Harbour; for a new +company had been started that was reclaiming the sublimated lead that had +been left in the Romans’ flues. And there, as a little boy, I used to +carry him his dinner, through the heather, over the side of Axdown. +You’ll see Axdown for yourself to-morrow: a great bow of a hill. There +used to be a pair of ravens that built there. I’ve seen them rising in +great wide circles. They seemed very big to me. I was almost frightened +of them; and when I found the skeleton of a sheep one day on the top of +Axdown under the barrows, I made sure that the ravens had killed it. + +“I suppose I was a pretty intelligent boy. I know that the men at the +workings by Cold Harbour, where I took father’s dinner, used to joke with +me a good deal. They used to like the way in which I hit back at them +with my tongue. Father didn’t take any notice of it. He was always the +same dark, silent man, with very few words, and no feelings, as you’d +imagine, except the violent passions into which he would burst out when +he’d been drinking. He didn’t often drink, though. He was a good man, +Eddie. A good man. . . . And so I myself came to work in the mines.” + +“I can’t believe it, you know, father. It’s so unlike you . . . and +mother.” + +“Of course it was long before I knew your mother. And it does seem +funny, looking back on it. I’m very glad now, mind you, that I had the +experience. It’s a fine thing for any man at some time of his life to +have had to face the necessity of earning his living by the use of his +hands. You’ll never know what that means, I suppose. It’s a pity. . . . + +“Well, while I was working at Cold Harbour, my mother died. I forgot to +tell you that Grannie had died some years before, and her cottage under +Silbury had been left empty—there was no one living in Highberrow to fill +it—and was already tumbling into ruins. I haven’t told you about your +grandmother—my mother. I don’t know that I can tell you much. I think +she was in some ways a little hard. I don’t know. . . . I thought the +world of her, and perhaps it was my father’s difficult nature that made +her seem harder than she was. Besides, being brought up with Grannie, I +was a sort of stranger to her. I don’t know how father came across her. +There’s no doubt about she was a superior woman. If you’re still feeling +a little sore about your social origin, Eddie, you can console yourself +with the fact that she had a cousin who was a solicitor—or was it a +solicitor’s clerk?—somewhere near London. At any rate, poor soul, she +died. She was ill for several months, and I, being the youngest, had to +stay at home and nurse her. It was in that way that I met Dr. Marshall. +. . . + +“I’ll tell you about him in a moment; but thinking of the days of my +mother’s death puts me in mind of a strange thing that happened at the +time that will show you what sort of man your grandfather was. Early on +in the family there had been a girl that died to whom my mother was +particularly devoted; and a little before the end—she knew that it +couldn’t be many weeks—mother told my father that she would like to be +buried in a particular corner of the churchyard near to this daughter of +theirs. + +“Father never spoke of it. He rarely spoke of anything. But I suppose +he took it in all the same. Anyway, when she was dead, the old sexton +came up to see father about the grave, and he told him where she had said +she wanted to lie. The next night the sexton came up again. I can see +him now—a funny, old-fashioned little man with red whiskers—and said it +couldn’t be done, because the soil was so shallow at that particular +point. I can see my father now. He hadn’t been drinking; but be flew +suddenly into such a black rage that the poor little gravedigger (Satell +was his name) ran out frightened for his life. I think I was pretty +frightened too, for father went out after him carrying one of the great +iron bars that the miners use for drilling. I thought for a moment that +the loss of mother had turned his head. It hadn’t. He just went there +and then, in the night, to the churchyard, and worked away with his +mining tools at the rock that poor old Satell said he couldn’t dig. He +bored his holes and he blasted the rock with the black powder they used +in those days, and he dug my mother’s grave in the place where she wanted +it. You see what a strange man he was! You may say what you like, +Eddie—I’ve often thought of it since—but that was a grandfather worth +having.” + +“Yes . . . he was worth having,” Edwin agreed. + +“But I was speaking of Dr. Marshall,” his father continued. “He was the +beginning of my new life. But for the accident of my mother’s illness I +don’t suppose I should ever have met him. During the last month he came +fairly often: not that he could do much good for her, poor thing, but +because she was—it’s a wretched phrase—a superior woman, and because no +doubt she liked to talk to him, and he knew it. Practice in Highberrow +can’t have been very profitable; though I’m sure that my father paid him +every penny that he owed him. He was that kind of man. + +“And when she died, Dr. Marshall took a fancy to me. I could tell you a +good deal about him if it were worth while. He was a physician of the +old school, learned in experience rather than in books. It is probable +that he made mistakes; but I’m equally certain that he learned by them. +The week after mother died he asked your grandfather if he could have me +to wash bottles and make myself generally useful in his surgery at +Axcombe. And my father didn’t refuse. It would have been unlike him if +he had done so; for I think his idea in life was to let every individual +work out his own salvation for himself. It was a good plan, for it made +the responsibility definite. . . . + +“So I went to Axcombe to Dr. Marshall’s house. There was plenty of hard +work in it. I think a country doctor earns a poor living more honestly +than most men. I had to share the doctor’s work—getting up early in the +morning (that was no hardship to a miner’s son)—to clean up the surgery +(and I can tell you it took some cleaning), to turn out of bed in the +middle of the night to harness the pony if the message that called him +took him over roads, or to saddle the cob if the hill tracks were too +rough for wheels. + +“Sometimes I had long night journeys on my own; for the doctor, in spite +of his practical head for dealing with disease, was curiously +unmethodical and would often leave behind the particular instrument that +he wanted most, and in the middle of the night a boy of my own age from +one of the hill villages would come battering at the door as though his +life depended on it. And they’d go on battering, you know, as if they +thought that the sound of it would make me get up more quickly. Perhaps +it did: at any rate I can remember scrambling downstairs in the dark and +reading the notes that the doctor sent by candlelight: and then I would +turn out, half asleep, and walk over the hills above Axcombe when the +gorge was swimming to the brim with fine milky mist and a single step, if +one were silly enough to go dreaming, would have sent one spinning down, +a sheer four hundred feet like the hunting king in the legend. I’m +forgetting that you don’t know the legend and have never seen the gorge. +. . . + +“Still, I shall never forget those strange night-journeys. I don’t think +I had begun to appreciate Mendip until I walked the hills at night. I +found that I could think so clearly, and I was just beginning, you see, +to have so much to think about. Books. . . . + +“At Highberrow, in my father’s cottage, there were only two books +altogether: the Bible, and a tract by Miss Hannah More called ‘The +Religion of the Fashionable World.’ But Dr. Marshall’s house at Axcombe +was crammed with books: rubbish, most of them, I expect; but printed +books; and whenever I was not working I was reading. It was the pure +excitement of attaining knowledge of any kind that made me read; and of +course I wasted a great deal of valuable time in ways that were +unprofitable. The doctor did not help me much; he was far too busy to +worry much about my education; but I know that he approved of my +eagerness, and liked to see me reading. I used to sleep in the loft +above the stable in those days, and I know that my candles made him +rather nervous of fire. But he did help me, in his own way. He put me +on to a little Latin, with the strictly practical idea of making it more +easy for me to dispense the prescriptions that he wrote in the old manner +without abbreviations; and he also introduced me to another book that I +don’t suppose you’ve ever heard of: called _Religio Medici_ by Sir Thomas +Browne.” + +“I know it,” said Edwin. + +“Do you? I supposed it was merely a medical curiosity. Latin, he +thought, would be useful to me in other ways. You see, like many of the +old medical practitioners that spent their lives in the lanes, he was +very interested in botany: not scientific botany—just the identification +and botanical names of the flowers that blossomed year by year in the +hedges. In the early summer he would drive home with the bottom of the +dogcart tangled with flowers that he had picked while he walked the pony +up some hill; and he would pitch them over to me and tell me to learn the +names of them. It wasn’t very difficult; for in the surgery shelves +there was a fine set of Ann Pratt with excellent illustrations. And +sometimes he would come home with a small insect of some kind in a +pillbox and arrange it under the microscope on the table under the +dispensary window; and he’d say, ‘Wonderful . . . wonderful!’ not because +he’d made any biological observations, but just because it revealed a lot +of unsuspected detail. + +“It was a favourite trick of his to show his patients a sample of their +own blood corpuscles under the microscope too. ‘There they are,’ he’d +say, ‘like a pile of golden guineas, and if you had a millionth part as +many guineas as you have of these in your body, you’d be the richest man +in England.’ This sort of thing used to impress his patient’s +tremendously. And he knew it. I suppose it gave them confidence in him; +though he didn’t need any superstitious aids of this kind. The whole +history of his life as a doctor should have been enough to make them +trust him. Still, I suppose it was the old tradition of the medicine man +who dealt in curious magic. His common sense and the craftsmanship that +he had won by experience were his real guarantees. + +“He was extraordinarily practical in everything except money matters. In +these, even I could have taught him a good deal. It was a pathetic sight +to see him making out his bills. He always put off the evil day, with +the result that they were only sent out about once in three years. I +don’t suppose doctors can afford to be like that in these days. . . . +But then, what was the use of money to him? All his tastes were simple +and inexpensive. He was unmarried. During all the years that I was with +him he never took a holiday, unless it were to go to Taunton and buy a +new horse. I do not think there are many of his kind left. + +“You can see, though, what a huge difference he made to my life. If I +hadn’t gone to live with him at Axcombe, I might still have been a +miner—if there _are_ any miners left on Mendip—or perhaps a gardener like +your Uncle Will. And where would you have been, Eddie? He was careful, +and I think very wisely careful, not to turn my head. ‘Ambition,’ he +would say to me, ‘is all very well in moderation. But don’t be too +ambitious, John. Happiness is more important in this life than success, +and very few men have a full share of both. Still, you’re a sharp lad, +and there’s no reason why you shouldn’t get on in the world and be happy +too if you don’t expect too much.’ As time went on we began to talk a +little about my future. ‘Don’t be in too much of a hurry,’ he used to +say. ‘You’re young, and there’s plenty of time ahead of you.’ + +“Of course it would be ridiculous to suppose that I hadn’t ambitions. +Naturally enough, I had determined to be a doctor like my master. The +small things that I did for him convinced me that it would be an easy +matter. When he was out in the country people who had walked in from +remote villages would ask me to prescribe for them, and sometimes, with +an immense sense of importance, I would do so. It wasn’t difficult. He +ran his practice, to all intents and purposes, on three stock mixtures +and half a dozen pills. But I shall never forget one evening when one of +my father’s fellow workmen from Highberrow came in with a raging +toothache, and I, being anxious to show off, volunteered to take the +tooth out for him. I remember I showed him a microscopic sample of his +own blood as a preliminary. But when I came to take out the tooth I made +a mess of it. He was a tremendous big fellow with jaws like steel, and +though I pulled hard enough to move him in the chair, I only succeeded in +breaking the tooth and making the pain worse. I got my head well smacked +for my trouble, and decided that whatever else I were to be, I wouldn’t +risk dentistry as a career. + +“‘There’s no reason,’ the doctor would say, ‘why you shouldn’t make a +good chemist in time.’ Of course that seemed a very small thing to me; +and yet . . . think what I might have been! I was sixteen, just your own +age, Eddie, when he died. Of course he killed himself, as many doctors +do, with work. People make a great fuss when a missionary in some +outlandish country lays down his life, as they call it, for his flock. +But country doctors are doing that every month in the year all over +England—I don’t mean the social successes in Harley Street—and from what +I’ve seen of it their widows can’t count on much gratitude. + +“It was a hard winter . . . the year eighteen sixty-seven . . . and there +happened to be a great deal of illness in the hills. We were worked +pretty hard, both of us, but the doctor had no chance of taking a rest: +he was the only medical man living within ten miles: and in the end he, +too, caught a heavy cold, and had to go on working through it. In the +end he had to give up. It was pneumonia; and the last thing he did was +to write a letter asking a consultant in Bristol to come down and see +him. He was a kindly man, but I suppose Dr. Marshall was to him only a +case. The old fellow refused to have any one but me to nurse him. ‘John +and I understand each other,’ he said. + +“It was a terrible battle: to see a great strong man like that fighting +for breath. They didn’t give oxygen in those days. It went on for four +days and on the fifth, or rather in the middle of the night—he called to +me faintly, and I found him lying on his back breathing more softly, very +pale and drenched with sweat. ‘This is the crisis . . . fifth day . . .’ +he said. He told me to cover him with all the blankets I could find, to +give him some brandy, and to take his temperature. It was a funny job +for a boy. I had never seen a great man suddenly go weak like that. His +temperature had fallen below normal. ‘Ah . . .’ he said. ‘I thought so. +. . . Brandy. . .’ + +“But he couldn’t take it himself. ‘You’ve got to be the doctor now, +John,’ he said. There wasn’t any more fight left in him. All that day +he hardly spoke at all, but at night he called me to his side and told me +to make a bonfire of all the books and the bills we’d been making out the +week before. ‘I shan’t want any more money,’ he said. ‘But you will . . . +a little. . . . I’ve seen to that. You’re a good lad. Don’t aim too +high. And don’t think too much about money. Money is the root of all +evil. . .’ + +“I scarcely took any notice of what he said. I only knew that I was +going to lose the only friend I had. He died early next morning, and I +was just like a dog: I couldn’t bring myself to leave him. + +“I stayed in the house . . . you see, it seemed as if I couldn’t go +anywhere else, until after the funeral. Then the lawyers told me that he +had left me a hundred and fifty pounds in his will. It seemed to me a +tremendous lot of money. I didn’t realise what a little way it would go; +but it seemed to make my dreams possible. I would be a doctor, like him +. . . as near like him as it was possible to be. That was my first idea; +but then I remembered what he had told me, and decided that it would be +better to become a chemist first. In that way I could make sure of my +living. + +“I left Axcombe. It was necessary that I should go to some big city to +study and more or less by accident I chose North Bromwich. It was a +tremendous change for me who had lived all my life in the country: I was +very lonely and awkward at first. But that wasn’t the worse of it. I +began to discover my own ignorance: to see that, as a matter of fact, I +knew nothing but the homely routine of the doctor’s surgery, the names of +a few drugs and their doses, a smattering of Latin, and the botany of the +local wild flowers. I knew nothing of life. I couldn’t even pull out a +tooth without breaking it. + +“It came as an awful shock to me. I began to see the reasons of the +doctor’s cautious advice. He realised that I had a great deal of the +dreamer in me. I rather think that you have it too, Eddie. No doubt it +comes to both of us from those strange, dark, mining-people. I saw that +I should have to pull myself together and drive myself hard if my +ambitions were not to end in disaster. I had to pinch and scrape. I had +to set out and learn the most elementary things from the beginning. I +had thought that my fortune was made. Perhaps it was a wise thing that +the doctor had left me no more money. It taught me that nobody could +make my fortune but myself. + +“It was a hard fight, I can tell you: for while I was building my schemes +for the future I had to provide for the present. You see I had soon +realised that it wouldn’t do to spend any of my little capital. I won’t +tell you now how I lived. It would be too long a story. But I can +assure you that I had a hard time in North Bromwich, getting all my +dreams knocked out of me one by one, thirsting—literally thirsting for +clean air and country ways. + +“It sounds rather like a tract, but it’s quite true to say that town life +has a lot of temptations too for a country boy. I could see everywhere +the power of money and the luxuries that money could purchase without +realising the work that money represents, and all this was very +disconcerting to a boy of my temperament with more than a hundred pounds +in the bank. Still, as it happened, nothing went wrong. In the day-time +I worked with my hands. At night I tried to educate myself, very slowly, +very hardly—for in those days poor people had not the opportunities of +education that are open to them in these. I sometimes wonder if people +to-day realise the difference. + +“I worked on quietly for years, never wasting a penny or an hour. Don’t +take it for virtue in me. It wasn’t that. It was just that the old +doctor’s influence on me had been sound and I couldn’t afford to do +otherwise. As a matter of fact I suppose there must have been hundreds, +perhaps thousands, of young men in that city in exactly the same +situation. Only I didn’t know one of them. I was lonely . . . +absolutely solitary. I never heard an accent of my own country’s speech. +I never saw a patch of real green or a sky that hadn’t smoke in it. I +made my friends in books: not the kind of books that you’ve been brought +up on—I hadn’t time for poetry or frills of that kind: books of solid +facts: knowledge for the sake of knowledge. You see all the things that +you would take for granted, having known them as a birthright, so to +speak, were new and unknown to me. One book was a sort of gospel to me. +It was called _Self Help_, written by a man named Smiles. + +“So when you hear of a self-made man it may mot mean much; but a +self-educated man, I can tell you, means a good deal. In the end, of +course, I gradually came within sight of my ambition. From a van-driver +to a firm of wholesale chemists I became an assistant, an apprentice in +their retail house. I took my examinations. I qualified as a dispensing +chemist. Later, by a curious piece of chance, I met your mother. We +became friends. She was the first person in whom I had confided since I +left Mendip. She seemed to understand. It was a strange thing for me, +after all those years, to be able to talk about myself. I can’t tell you +what a wonderful relief it was. And then we found that we loved one +another and married. We went out into the country near North Bromwich to +find a village to make a home in, and we came across Halesby. The place +was very different from what it is now twenty years ago. We were very +happy. No. . . . I won’t talk about it. But you can see now, that +behind your life there were quite a lot of complicated things that don’t +appear on the surface. It’s really better that you should know them.” + +“It makes me love you, father,” said Edwin. “Because, of course, it is +all so wonderful. I expect if I had been you I should still have been in +Axcombe. I don’t think I could have done what you did.” + +“You might have done a great deal more. There’s no knowing what’s in us +until we are tried. That sounds like Samuel Smiles; but it’s quite true. +At any rate it’s time we were asleep, boy. I think the rain has +stopped.” + +They said good-night, and Edwin kissed his father; but for several hours +later he heard the clocks of Bristol chiming. In a little time he knew +by the quiet breathing of his father that he was asleep, and hearing this +sound and thinking of the grey man who lay beside him, he was overwhelmed +with an emotion in which pity and passionate devotion were curiously +mingled. He felt strangely protective, as though it were the man who had +fought such a hard battle who was weak, and he, who had never endured +anything, were the stronger. + +He conceived it a kind of sacred duty to see that for all the rest of his +life his father should never suffer any pain or even discomfort from +which he could protect him. It was a more vivid version of the feeling +that had bowled him over once before, when they had knelt together after +his mother’s death. It was a wholly illogical sentiment—and yet, when he +came to think it over, he came to the conclusion that something of the +same kind must have underlain his mother’s tenderness towards his father. +He was eager to persuade himself that there was no compassion in it: only +love and admiration. + +“He is the most wonderful man in the world,” he thought, “and I never +knew it.” Remorse overcame him when he remembered that once, at St. +Luke’s, he had been ashamed of Mr. Ingleby’s calling. There couldn’t be +another chap in the school who had a father that was a patch on him. He +remembered a more recent cause for shame: the shiver of discomfort that +the landlady’s revelation of his Uncle Will’s occupation had given him. +He had thought that a gardener uncle would be an uncomfortable skeleton +in the cupboard of a Fellow of Balliol. Instead of that he now knew that +he should have been proud of it: he should have been proud of anything in +the world that did honour to his father. Everything that he was, every +shred of culture that he possessed had its origin in the devotion and the +sufferings of this wonderful man, and, whatever happened, he determined +that he would be worthy of them. + +The cathedral clock slowly chimed two. Edwin turned over and fell asleep +in a mood of strange, exalted happiness. + + + +CHAPTER XII +THE HILLS + + +I + + +UNDER a sky of rain-washed blue they had left Bristol, and after an hour +of hard riding came to an easy upland plateau where the road lay white +and clear before them, so clean between its wide margins of rough turf, +that it seemed to have some affinity with the sky. On their way they had +met few people, but the carters with whom they had exchanged a morning +greeting were all smiling and friendly, very different from the surly +colliers that slouched about the cinder-paths at Halesby. + +“Good-maarnin’,” they said, and the very dialect was friendly. + +“We’re over the worst of the road,” said Mr. Ingleby. “In a minute or +two we shall see the hills.” + +And, from a final crest, the road suddenly fell steeply through the +scattered buildings of a hamlet. An inn, with a wide space for carts to +turn in, stood on a sort of platform at the right-hand side of the +highway, and in front of the travellers lay the mass of Mendip: the black +bow of Axdown with its shaggy flanks, the level cliffs of Callow, and a +bold seaward spur, so lost in watery vapours that it might well have +claimed its ancient continuity with the islands that swam beyond in the +grey sea. In the light of his new enthusiasm Edwin found it more +impressive than any scene that he remembered: more inspiring, though less +vast in its perspective, than the dreamy plain of the Severn’s upper +waters that he had seen so many times from Uffdown. For these hills were +very mountains, and mightier in that they rose sheer from a plain that +had been bathed in water within the memory of man. And, more than all +this . . . far more . . . they were the home of his fathers. + +“Now that we are in Somerset we should drink the wine of the country.” + +They pushed their bicycles on to the platform before the inn door, and +Mr. Ingleby called for cider, a pale, dry liquid with a faint acridity +very different from the sugary stuff that comes to the cities in bottles +from Devonshire. + +“Yes, it’s good cider,” said Mr. Ingleby, tasting. “Where does it come +from?” he asked the landlord, who brought it. + +“It do be a tidy drop o’ zidur,” said the man. “It do come from Mr. +Atwell’s varm into Burrowdown.” + +“In” with the accusative, thought Edwin. + +“Is old Aaron Atwell still living?” asked his father. + +The landlord laughed. The gentleman must have been away a long time from +these parts. Mr. Atwell had been dead these fifteen years. + +“The cider’s the same,” said Mr. Ingleby. + +“’Tis a marvellous archard, sure ’nuff,” said the landlord. “And last +year was a wunnerful year for apples. ’Tis all accardin’ . . .” + +They left him, and coasted gently down the hill. Descending, it seemed +to Edwin that the dome of Axdown lost some of its mountainous quality; +and by the time that they had reached the level of the plain in which +Wringford lay, he was hardly conscious of its imminence more than as a +reminder that this soft, green country was not wholly devoted to quietude +and sleep, but that a cool and lively air must always be rolling from the +hidden slopes. They came to a green, bordered by elms in heavy leaf, on +which a solitary donkey and a flock of geese were grazing. Now the road +was dead level and the hedges rich with fragile dog-rose petals and +thickets of hemp-agrimony that were not yet in flower. Superficially, +the road might have been part of Warwickshire; but there was nothing of +the Midlands in the air that moved above it. + +“Take the next turn to the right,” shouted Mr. Ingleby to Edwin, riding +ahead. + +In the middle of a village drenched with the perfume of roses, Edwin +turned to the right down a narrow lane. By this time his father had +reached his level. “Here we are,” he said. They dismounted. + +It was a small cottage with a green-painted porch and carefully tended +garden in front of it. The place was built of the stone of the country +and washed with the pinkish lime of the hills. In the garden roses and +bright annuals were blooming, and a huge acacia, hung with ivory blossom, +shadowed the garden gate. On the gate itself Edwin read a crudely +painted name: Geranium Cottage. Mr. Ingleby smiled. “Your Uncle Will is +very fond of geraniums.” They opened the gate and pushed in their +bicycles. Everything in the garden was so meticulously orderly that to +wheel them over the mown grass seemed sacrilegious. The porch, at which +they waited, was full of choice geraniums. Their hot scent filled the +air. Mr. Ingleby knocked gently with a polished brass knocker. Slow +steps were heard within moving over a flagged floor. The door was +opened, disclosing a stone passage that smelt of coolness and +cleanliness. It was like the smell of a sweet dairy. An elderly woman, +with a plump and placid face and grey hair, received them. All her +figure except her black sateen bodice was covered with a coarse but snowy +apron. + +“Why, John,” she said. “It do be a treat to see you.” + +She took Mr. Ingleby in her arms and kissed him. “Poor fellow, too,” she +said. The embrace implied more than any of the condolences that Edwin +had heard in Halesby. + +“And this is Edwin,” she said. “Well, what a great big man, to be sure!” +She proceeded to embrace Edwin, and he became conscious of the +extraordinary softness and coolness of her face. + +“Come in and make yourselves comfortable,” said Aunt Sarah Jane. “We’re +used to bicycles in this house. Our Joe has one. He goes to work on it +every day, and sometimes on a Sunday rides over to Clevedern on it. Come +in, John.” Edwin followed his father into the living-room. It was +clean, strikingly clean, and curiously homely. On the walls hung a +picture of Queen Victoria, looking like a pouter pigeon in her jubilee +robes, and another of the sardonic Disraeli. There were several padded +photograph albums with gilt clasps, and other photographs decorated the +mantelpiece and a side table. These were all accommodated in fretwork +frames. + +“Joe do keep us supplied with up-to-date photograph frames,” said Aunt +Sarah Jane, following Edwin’s glances with a touch of motherly pride. +“He’s like his father. Clever with his fingers.” + +Edwin found that the photographs were familiar. His father was there: an +ardent, younger father, with black whiskers and a determined mouth. A +father confident in the virtue of self-help. His mother, too, in a +tight-fitting costume of the eighties, with a row of buttons down the +front from the throat to the hem. And, wonder of wonders, there was +Edwin himself in a sailor suit. The discovery of his own portrait did +something to destroy the illusion of unreality that occupied the place. +Obviously he really belonged to it. For years, without his knowing it, +his image had been part of this unfamiliar room. Even though he had not +known of their existence he had evidently been a familiar accepted person +to these people. Even their friends must have known him by sight. It +was strange. It was pathetic. “I can see a touch of our Joe in him, +John,” said his aunt, who had been examining him closely. “An’ there do +be a look of your father as well.” + +“Do you think so?” said Mr. Ingleby. + +“Joe’s a great boy, too,” said Aunt Sarah Jane lovingly. + +It was clear enough who was the idol of this household. + +“There now, your dinner will be spoiling. Take the boy upstairs, John.” + +She left them, and Edwin followed his father up a crooked stair to a low +room above the garden. A cool wind was blowing down from Axdown, and the +filigree shadow of the lace window-curtains danced on the white coverlet +of the bed. The room smelt faintly of lavender. It seemed to Edwin a +wonderful room, “full of sweet”—he couldn’t remember the line—“peace and +health and quiet breathing.” There was nothing quite so placid as this +in the life that he had known. + +They washed their dusty faces and came downstairs again, and Edwin, +seated by the sunny window of the front room, relapsed into a state of +perfect drowsiness, content merely to exist and drink in the sweet and +simple atmosphere of humble content. This, he supposed, was what his +father by his struggles and sacrifices had lost. Was it worth while? +The complications of this question were far too great for Edwin to +decide. + +The men folk of Geranium Cottage did not return to dinner, and after that +meal, in which suet dumplings played an important part, Edwin retired to +a trellised structure at the back of the garden, bowery with honeysuckle, +that Aunt Sarah Jane described as the harbour. Here, drugged with more +cider and fresh air, he dozed away the early afternoon. He was asleep +when his father came to call him for tea. After all, it was not +surprising that he was sleepy, for they had talked into the small hours +the night before. Certainly Aunt Sarah Jane’s tea was worth waking up +for. Quince marmalade and clotted cream, and wheaten scones that she had +baked that morning. Edwin, ready now for any further revelations, would +not now have been shocked to hear that in her young days she had been a +cook. In this beatific state of refreshment he was anxious to explore. + +“When are we going to Highberrow, father?” + +“And this was to be a restful holiday,” Mr. Ingleby laughed. “Why, now, +if you like.” + +Edwin would have run to the linhay behind the house for the bicycles, but +his father called him back. The hill was so steep, he told him, that it +would be easier for them to walk. + +“Well, John, Will’ll be tarrable disappointed if you aren’t here when he +comes home from work,” said Aunt Sarah Jane. “This young man of yours do +go too fast for me.” + +“Oh, we won’t be long,” said Mr. Ingleby. + +And so they set off together for Highberrow, making, first of all, a +straight line for the base of the hills and then following a green lane +that skirted the foot of them but was so overshadowed with hazel that the +slopes could not be seen. In a mile or so they cut into the main road +again, by an iron milestone that said “Bridgwater 18: Bristol 14.” The +road climbed along a quarried terrace in the hill-side, and to the left +of it lay a deep valley, on the farther slope of which lay half a dozen +pink-washed cottages with gardens falling to the bed of an attenuated +stream; and behind the cottages a steep hill-side rose abruptly to a bare +height crowned with ancient earthworks. + +“That,” said Mr. Ingleby, “is Silbury camp. There’s an old rhyme about +it. It is supposed to be full of buried gold. When I was a boy I often +used to lie up there in the sun, gazing out over the channel. In spring +all the meadows between the camp and Highberrow Batch are full of +daffodils. I often used to wish there were daffodils in Halesby. . . .” + +In a little while they came to the church of Highberrow, placed like a +watch-tower on the edge of the Batch, surveying the immense relics of +paganism on the opposite side of the valley. It was a humble and not +very beautiful building; but Edwin entered the churchyard with awe, for +it seemed to him that so much of the past that had made him lay buried +there. And the inscriptions on the tombstones reinforced this idea; for +the churchyard was veritably crowded with the remains of dead Inglebys. +It made the past, a piece of knowledge so recent to him that it still +held an atmosphere of unreality and phantasy, so ponderable, that in +comparison with it his present condition seemed almost unreal. His +father led him through the long grass, starry with yellow ragwort, to the +corner in which his grandmother was buried. + +“This is the place that I told you about,” he said. + +“The place where my grandfather went out at night and blasted the rock?” + +“Yes.” + +It was incredible. Until that moment the story had been only a legend. +Edwin wondered how ever his father could have broken away from the +tradition of centuries and left the hills. The roots of their family had +pierced so deeply into the soil, yes, even beneath the soil and into the +veins of the solid rock. The conditions of his own life seemed to him +the tokens of an unnatural and artificial thing. + +They left the churchyard by a narrow lane that always climbed. They +passed the village inn: a long, windswept building, so bare and so +exposed to weather that even the tenure of the lichen on the tiles seemed +precarious. Over the lintel a weathered board showed them the name of +Ingleby in faded letters. Edwin pointed to it. + +“Yes,” said his father. “I suppose he is some remote cousin of yours. +Everybody that is left in this village must be related to us in some +degree; though I don’t suppose any of them would remember me. You see, I +went to Axcombe when I was a good deal younger than you.” He smiled. “I +am like a ghost returning to its old home. Like a ghost. . . .” + +And yet, to Edwin, the whole place seemed familiar. He was not in the +least surprised when, opposite a windy farm-house, in front of which the +dry blades of a dishevelled dracæna shivered as though protesting against +its wintry exile, his father turned off to the left along a road that had +once been gay with cottage gardens and trim buildings of stone, but was +now suggestive of nothing but ruin and desolation. By one of these +pathetic ruins his father paused. + +“This was your grandfather’s house, Eddie. It was here that I was born.” + +Now there remained only the ground-plan of a house, and the only sign of +habitation in all the ruin was to be seen in the smoke-blackened stones +of the chimney. The garden, indeed, lay beautiful in decay, for there, +as everywhere in this deserted countryside, the golden ragwort had taken +possession; but within the walls of the house only nettles shivered. + +“You’ll always find nettles in deserted human habitations. I don’t know +why,” said Mr. Ingleby. “There is a rather unusual botanical curiosity +to be found among the workings at Cold Harbour,” he went on, “the Roman +Nettle. Urtica . . . Urtica. . . . My memory isn’t what it used to be. +It has a bigger leaf than the ordinary nettle and a much more poisonous +sting. It’s only found in places where the Romans have been.” + +Why, in the face of this harrowing desolation, should he be thinking of +things like that? A ghost . . . with as little passion or feeling as a +ghost: emotions so different from the passionate resentment that now +filled Edwin’s heart. + +“Ah . . . here is the school. I suppose they couldn’t pull that down. I +remember when it was newly built. It was there that I learnt my +alphabet. . . .” + +In the whole of the lane the school was the only whole building. + +“If you come to the edge of the Batch you will see the valley bottom +where I spent my childhood with your great-grandmother.” + +They passed on, and saw, a hundred feet beneath them, the valley of the +little stream. More ruins, many of them; but one or two cottages still +inhabited. The lower cottages lay close to the water, and in four or +five places the stream was spanned by a clapper bridge. In one of the +gardens ghostly children were playing, and in another ghostly washing +flapped in a breeze that had risen with the coolness of evening. Mr. +Ingleby pointed out to Edwin his great-grandmother’s home. It was the +cottage in the garden of which the children were playing. + +From the chimney a trail of smoke dwindled up against the grey hill-side. + +“I should like to see inside it,” said Edwin. + +“Would you? No . . . I don’t think it would be worth going down into the +hollow to see it. You’d only be disappointed. I don’t expect there’d be +anything much to see. Besides, we haven’t time. I want to take you to a +little farm—it isn’t really big enough to be called a farm—at the top of +the lane under Axdown. They call it the Holloway. Why I can’t imagine, +for it is the highest point of the whole village. Your aunt tells me +that your grandfather’s sister, your own great-aunt Lydia, is still +living there, and I think I had better go and see her.” + +He turned again, and Edwin followed him. It seemed strange to him that +his father should not be anxious to look inside the house where his +childhood had been spent. A ghost . . . a ghost. . . . + +They passed the windy farm once more. A man, in muddy gaiters, was +driving cows into the yard. He was the first creature—apart from the +ghostly children in the valley—that they had seen. A tall man, with a +gaunt, grey face, who did not even turn to look at them or give them +good-evening, although they must surely have been the only living people +that he had seen that day. It was impossible to believe from the sight +of its exterior that the farm was now inhabited. + +“Who do you think he is?” Edwin asked. + +“I don’t know. I haven’t the least idea. The people at that farm used +to be named Ingleby; and he certainly has the figure of your grandfather. +. . .” + +“Won’t you stop and speak to him?” + +“Why should we?” + +“But he would be awfully pleased to see you and know who you are. . . .” + +“I don’t expect he would.” + +A moment later Mr. Ingleby said, + +“Now, the ruins of this cottage ought to interest you, Edwin.” + +“Why? Is it one of ours?” + +“No, but the old woman who lived in it in my day was always supposed to +be a witch. Mendip people were always great believers in witchcraft. I +shouldn’t wonder if your aunt believes in ‘ill-wishing’ to this day. I +suppose she was really a harmless old body. The story was that a +daughter of hers, with whom she had quarrelled, married a small dairy +farmer down by Axcombe, and no sooner had she gone to live with him than +the poor man’s cows went dry. His business failed. He had to sell his +stock. He was ruined, and took to drink; and in all the public-houses +for miles round he used to rail against his mother-in-law, and say that +she was responsible for the whole business. She was a lonely old +creature, very poor and dirty, and when we were children and going up to +the Holloway we used to cover our eyes and run for fear we should catch +sight of her. No one even knew when she died. They found her, I heard, +when she had been dead for a week or ten days.” + +Edwin shivered. These hill-people, it seemed, were hard and cruel. No +doubt he must have some of their stony cruelty in his own being +somewhere. + +At last they reached the farm at the top of the Holloway. It was a poor +building, only a little more hospitable than the ruins in the valley. +Mr. Ingleby knocked at the door, and a sturdy, middle-aged man with an +iron hook in place of his right hand lifted the latch and stared at them. + +“You don’t know me, Isaac?” said Mr. Ingleby. + +“Noa. . . . I can’t say I do know ’ee.” + +“I’m John Ingleby.” + +“John Ingleby! . . . Well, and I’m proud to see ’ee, John. Do ’ee step +inside and see mother. I can’t shake hands with ’ee the way I was used +to. I lost en in a mowin’-machine five years back. Come in then.” + +He led the way into a dark cabin. Everything in it was dark, partly, +perhaps, because the windows were full of flower-pots; partly because all +the furniture was darkened with age or smoke or grime. The only bright +colours in its brownness were a number of shining copper utensils and a +fine show of geraniums in the window. Isaac followed Mr. Ingleby’s eyes +towards these flowers. + +“Purty, ban’t they?” he said with pride. “Your brother Will sent mother +they.” + +In the gloom of the fireplace, where a pile of turves smouldered, mother +began to dissociate herself from the surrounding brownness. She was a +very old woman. Edwin had never seen any one so old—sitting bolt upright +in a straight-backed oaken chair. Her face seemed to Edwin very +beautiful, for extreme age had taken from it all the extraneous charm +that smoothness and colour give, leaving only the sheer chiselled beauty +of feature. It was a noble face, finely modelled, with a straight nose, +a tender mouth, and level brows beneath which burned the darkest and +clearest eyes that Edwin had ever seen. Her hair was white and scanty, +but little of it was seen beneath the white bonnet that she wore. Edwin +felt her eyes go through him in the gloom. + +“Here’s cousin John come to see ’ee, mother,” said Isaac, bending over +her. + +“John? What John?” said the old lady. + +It struck Edwin at once that her speech was purer and more delicate than +that of her son. + +“John Ingleby, Aunt Lydia,” said Edwin’s father. + +“You need not raise your voice, my dear,” she said. “My sight and my +hearing are wonderful, thank God.” + +“Then you remember me, Aunt Lydia?” + +“Of course I remember you, John. Though it’s many and many years since +my eyes saw you. And how are you, my dear? They tell me that you have +done great things in the world. You’re a doctor, like poor Dr. +Marshall.” + +“No . . . I’m not a doctor. I’m in business. I’m a chemist.” + +“I knew it was something of the kind. You needn’t speak so loud. And +they told me you had married. I suppose this is your boy. A fine boy, +surely. He has a look of your grandfather.” . . . + +“Yes, this is Edwin.” + +“I don’t remember that name in our family. It sounds like a fanciful +name. Come here, my dear, and let me look at you.” + +Edwin went to her, and she kissed him. Her face was so cold and smooth +that she might almost have been dead. + +“And how is your dear wife, John?” + +“I’ve had a terrible blow, Aunt Lydia. I’ve lost her.” + +“Ah . . . that was bad for you, and bad for the boy, too.” + +“I shall never get over it.” Mr. Ingleby’s voice trembled. + +“Yes, of course, you say that. It’s natural that you should. You’re +young. But when you live to be as old as I am you’ll know better. You +will get over it. When a few years have gone by you’ll marry again.” + +“Never, Aunt Lydia . . . never. . .” + +“Yes. . . . That’s what you feel now. But I know the family. The +Inglebys are always very tender in marriage. I’ve seen many of them that +have lost their wives, and they always marry again. I don’t suppose that +I shall live to hear of it; but when the time comes you’ll remember what +I said.” + +“No, Aunt Lydia . . . never.” + +“Time is a wonderful thing, John. I’m glad to have seen you and your +boy. I hope he’ll take after you—you were always the best of them.” + +She gave a little sigh. Evidently she was tired. The flame that burned +behind her black eyes was so very feeble for all its brightness. Isaac, +who had been watching her with the devotion of a practised nurse, saw +that she could not stand any more talking. + +“Now, mother, that’s enough, my dear,” he said. + +“Kiss me, John,” she said. And Mr. Ingleby kissed her. + +“Well, now that you be here after all these years,” said Isaac cheerily, +as he rearranged the red shawl round his mother’s shoulders, “you won’t +leave us without taking something. There do be a lovely bit of bacon I +have cut. Do ’ee try a bit now, and a mug of cider.” + +Edwin, who was already hungry with his walk, and was rapidly acquiring a +taste for the wine of the country, now became aware of the fact that the +dark ceiling was decked with sides of bacon and hams that hung there +slowly pickling in the turf smoke that saturated the atmosphere of the +room. He was disappointed when his father declined to take any of this +delicacy. + +“Well, a mug of cider, then,” Isaac persisted. He went into an inner +chamber down three stone steps, with three china mugs hanging on his +hook. “You see, I do be pretty handy with en,” he laughed. + +They drank their cider solemnly. It was even drier than that which they +had drunk for lunch at Wringford, and so free from acidity that all that +Edwin could taste was that faint astringent bitterness. It had also a +bouquet that was less like the odour of apples than that of a flour-mill. +A wonderful drink. . . . They said good-bye, and Isaac, who seemed to +Edwin the most kindly and patient creature he had ever met, showed them +to the door. + +By this time the sun was setting, and the cool wind from the west had +freshened. Edwin saw, for the first time, the huge panorama on which +they had turned their backs as they climbed the hill to the Holloway. +Perhaps it was the strangeness of all his recent experience; perhaps, +partly, the exhilaration that proceeded from Isaac’s cider, but the sight +struck Edwin as one of greater magnificence than any he had ever seen +before. From their feet the whole country sloped in a series of hilly +waves to the shores of the channel, and that muddy sea now shone from +coast to coast in a blaze of tawny light: now truly, for the first time, +one of the gateways of the world. And beyond the channel stood the +heaped mountains of Wales, very wild and black in their vastness. The +sight was so impressive that on their way down the lane they did not +speak. + +At last Edwin said,— + +“I think Aunt Lydia has a very beautiful face. She looks like some old +grand lady.” + +“She is very like your grandfather,” said his father. “She must be over +ninety. It is a great age.” + +And on the way home Edwin began to imagine what his strange grandfather +the dowser must have been, with the figure of the lonely farmer, his +black beard and hair, and his great-aunt Lydia’s noble features and +piercing eyes. + + +II + + +They stayed for a week at Geranium Cottage, sinking without any effort +into its placid life. Edwin was content merely to live there, soaking up +the atmosphere of Wringford village, and only thinking of Highberrow as a +strange and ghostly adventure, possible, but too disturbing to be +indulged in. The tiredness of Mr. Ingleby, who never showed the least +inclination to revisit the place, made this abstention easier. In the +whole of his week at Wringford Edwin only made one attempt to see +Highberrow again. The impulse came to him very early one morning, just +at the hour of dawn when the birds had fallen to silence, and Joe, who +happened to be working for his master at a village some miles away, was +splashing about under the pump in the yard at the back of the linhay. +Mr. Ingleby was still asleep, and Edwin, dressing quietly, stole +downstairs and set off towards the hills, this time on his bicycle. + +He followed the high road, and left the machine in a quarry opposite the +point where the first pink-washed cottages appeared. By this time he was +almost sorry that he had come there: for he was quite certain that the +village he was now going to visit would be a very different place from +the dead or hallucinated Highberrow that he and his father had penetrated +some days before. He felt this so strongly that he wouldn’t take the +risk of spoiling that marvellous impression, and instead of following the +road that they had taken before, he changed his mind, crossed the valley +of the pink cottages, and climbed the shaley slope of Silbury. In the +fosse that surrounded the encampment a hundred white tails bobbed at +once, and, laughing, he scrambled up the sides of what had once been +Silbury Camp, and now was Silbury Warren. + +Here, lying full length upon the top of the vallum, as perhaps a Belgic +ancestor, or an ancestor who held the crest before the Belgæ came, had +lain before him, he could look over the combe towards the church of +Highberrow on the Batch. And the church tower was all he saw of +Highberrow again: a feature most unrepresentative of the spirit of that +pagan place. Even the church tower at this hour of the morning could +scarcely be seen for mist, and all the time cold mist was pouring down in +a dense, impalpable stream from the milky coverlet that spread upon +Axdown and Callow and all the hills beyond. In the plain nothing could +be seen at first; and from the sleeping villages no mist-muffled sound +was heard; but by degrees the pattern of the plain’s surface, with its +dappled orchards, its green pasturage and paler turf-moors, cut by the +straight bands of the rhines, the sluggish channels through which the +surface water drained into the sea, became more clear, and with this the +sounds of the country grew more distinct: indefinite noises, such as the +creaking of cart-wheels in a hidden lane, the squeak of a pump-handle at +the back of the pink cottages, the clink of a pick in the quarry. The +whole world awoke, and Edwin, too, found that he was awake and awfully +hungry. He scrambled down the slope. Smoke was now rising from the +chimneys of the cottages in the combe. He was back at Wringford in time +for breakfast. + +By this time he had begun to feel quite at home in Geranium Cottage. He +had made the discovery of his cousin and his Uncle Will. The latter he +found wholly lovable: a creature of slow, quiet speech, as leisurely and +peaceful as his vocation, and full of small kindnesses that surprised by +reason of their unexpectedness. + +The thing that most impressed Edwin in his uncle’s nature was the +extraordinary tenderness he showed towards the green things that were his +care. Perhaps the west-country custom of dispensing with the neuter +pronoun and speaking of all inanimate creatures as if they were persons, +made his solicitude for their welfare more noticeable. But he was not +only kind to them in his speech: his short and clumsy-looking fingers, +that seemed to be built for nothing but the roughest of labour, became +amazingly sensitive and delicate as soon as he began to handle the plants +in his garden, so that every touch had in it the nature of a caress. + +In this life, of the devoted husbandman, he was evidently wholly +contented; and he made it seem to Edwin the most natural and human on +earth. The fascination of watching his uncle’s hands grew upon him, and +in the end he would watch the man, who had been busy at the same work in +his master’s garden all day, tending his own favourites at home until the +light began to fail, and Aunt Sarah Jane would call the two of them in to +supper. The spectacle had a sort of hypnotic effect upon the boy, it was +so slow and measured, as slow almost, Edwin thought, as the processes of +germination and growth which it was his uncle’s vocation to assist. His +fingers even handled the purple soil as if he loved it. + +His cousin was a different matter altogether: a tall, dark-haired boy, a +couple of years older than Edwin. He had, much more distinctly than +Uncle Will, the Ingleby face, the features that were to be seen at their +best in the old lady at the Holloway farm. And he possessed in a high +degree the quality that had carried Edwin’s father out into the world: a +seriousness that made him anxious to “get on,” promptings of which were +now being satisfied in an accumulation of the periodical publications +that have taken the place of Mr. Samuel Smiles in these days: weeklies +devoted to all kinds of useful hobbies—electricity, wood-carving, +plumbing—the series that eventually culminated in the gigantic illusion +of the Self-Educator. + +To these short cuts to power the young man devoted all his evenings, and +though he was quite natural in his anxiousness to be friendly with Edwin, +with whose subtler and more contemplative nature he had at present so +little in common, the attempts were not very successful. Between these +two there lay a far more obvious gulf than that which separated Edwin +from the older people. In a way, he could not help admiring his cousin’s +earnestness, probably because he knew that he could never imitate it, and +yet he sometimes found himself examining it in a mood of absolute +detachment that made his sympathy feel artificial. + +Just before he left St. Luke’s he had been reading Darwin’s _Origin of +Species_, and in the light of this work the efforts of his father, +followed by those of his cousin Joe, seemed to him an excellent instance +of the tendency of ancient stocks to vary or sport in definite +directions. In the earnest Joe Edwin found the phenomenon a little +troublesome, for the sight of the immense energies that the youth was +putting into channels that were futile distressed him, and the more so +because to correct the waste it would have been necessary to begin again +from a point so distant that Joe would be faced with the spectacle of +more than half of his present energies wasted. So Edwin thought as +little as the consciousness of his own selfishness would allow him, of +all the labours that were typified by the fretwork mahogany frames that +surrounded the photographs of the Halesby Inglebys, listening instead to +the endless tales of his Aunt Sarah Jane, in the hour when she became +talkative, after supper. + +By this time Edwin was so interested in his own romantic origins that any +story of the old Highberrow would do for him; and his aunt, with her soft +Somerset voice, her picturesque phrasing, and her unfailing memory for +social details, rebuilt, night after night, the life of the decayed +village as it had been in the old dowser’s time, evolving by degrees a +human comedy which resembled that of its great exemplar by the way in +which the protagonists of one episode became mere incidentals to another. +Edwin knew them all by name, and recognised them as if he had met them in +the flesh whenever he heard of them. + +In this way, sitting in the smell of the window geraniums over a +leisurely supper of bread and cheese, in his uncle’s case literally +washed down with cider, he heard a story that he always remembered with +pride and pity and a degree of passionate resentment: the story of how +the village of his fathers had sunk into decay. + +Highberrow, it appeared, had been built on what was then a common +moorland, by the men who lived in it, laboriously, stone by stone. Their +right to these fruits of their labour had never been called into +question, and the whole spirit of the village had been happy and +prosperous, as well it might, seeing that it owed nothing to the care of +any outsider and could pay its way. And during those prosperous times +its liberties seemed secure from danger. But when the decay of the +grouvier’s industry led to unemployment and poverty, and the younger men +of the Highberrow families began to look for their living overseas, the +little community became so weak that the owner of the manor-house saw his +opportunity. As Lord of the Manor he disputed the “squatters’ right” of +the Highberrow villagers, and through his agents demanded a rent that +would have made living impossible for most of them, for the cottages that +they or their forefathers had built. If they refused to pay the rent, he +said, they would be evicted, not in order that other people might be +introduced who would pay, but merely to satisfy the landlord’s +convictions of the rightness of his principle. That was the way in which +he put it. Merely out of spite would be a more accurate description of +his motives. + +Highberrow was in a bad way. The villagers were either very old or very +young, and in either case their feebleness made the whole organism unfit +to resist the inroads of the parasite. What is more, they were very +poor, and the very nature of the Mendip mining industry had made them so +far individualist that the idea of combined resistance did not occur to +them. The landlord wisely started his operations with an old woman whose +cottage lay nearest to the woods in which his pheasants were bred. +Almost incredibly poor, she had lived on the products of her garden and +her poultry. To pay rent was out of the question. Sheer age and inertia +made it impossible for her to move, and in the course of time she was +evicted with her miserable belongings, and went to die at the home of a +married daughter. + +Emerging from this easy contest, the landlord, or perhaps his agent, +moved on to the next. It was unfortunate for him, and fortunate for the +villagers, that he now pitched on the cottage of Thomas Ingleby, the +dowser, Edwin’s grandfather. The old man had this in his favour: that he +was a man of two trades, that even when the mining had failed him he +could make a living with the divining rod, and the consciousness of this +power no doubt stiffened his resistance. Another eviction was decreed, +but this time things did not go so easily. When the landlord’s men +arrived from the manor to empty the house, another party appeared from +the Cold Harbour mines, and as soon as the furniture was dragged out at +the front door it was seized and taken in again at the back. + +“It were a proper field-day,” said Uncle Will quietly, “I do remember it +well. I can see your father now, John, standing over beyond the road +with his back to the wall, not speakin’ a word, just smokin’ of his +pipe.” + +The landlord’s men saw that this sort of thing might go on for ever and +none the better for it, so they just gave it up, but old Ingleby (Edwin +had already canonised him as a “village Hampden”) had shown the rest of +the Highberrow people what could be done, and gradually stirred them into +combined action. + +It was a little, pitiful attempt. He himself put into it all his +savings, a matter of a few pounds, and to this were added as many +shillings as could be scraped together in the village. He took the money +to a lawyer in Axcombe—Bayliss was his name—an honest man with a sense of +justice and, one suspects, some admiration for the sturdiness of his +client. Bayliss worked the matter up and made a case of it, and no +further attempts at eviction were made in Highberrow in the meantime. +The village even regained a little of its former confidence, and for some +time the landlord did not show his face in it. But once more luck was +against Highberrow. Bayliss, the good lawyer, died. He had been careful +to keep the matter in his own hands, and when it came to be considered by +his successor, a partner with social ambitions, the new man would not +touch it: partly because there appeared to be no more money in it (as was +probably the case), and partly because he was in the habit of meeting the +Lord of the Manor in the hunting-field, and was on card-playing terms +with the agent. + +There followed an exodus of despair. The people of Highberrow, who had +no more money to fight with, packed up their pitiable belongings and left +their houses rather than face the trouble of eviction. Not so Thomas +Ingleby. The agent returned to the attack. There were threats: a stormy +interview, in which the dowser faced the landlord himself. A final +week’s notice was given, and Ingleby made sure once more of the support +of his friends from the neighbouring villages. But no further attempt at +eviction was made. At the last moment the landlord climbed down. He +arranged another interview, and at this the terms for the whole village +were settled. For the lives of the present occupants, or for a period of +sixty years, the cottages should remain rent-free. It was not +everything, but ’twas a famous victory. “That is why Aunt Lydia do be +still living up to the Holloway to this day,” said Aunt Sarah Jane. + +“And I suppose grandfather lived there till he died,” said Edwin. + +“No, the poor dear. When he did grow very aged your uncle and I went up +to Highberrow and persuaded en that he weren’t fit to look after himself. +You should ’a seed the dirt in that house! And he comed down to live +along of we. But he were never happy, were he, Will?” + +“Noa . . . he were never happy.” + +“He were a quare old man. Us seed very little of en. Arften people +would come for en from a distance that wanted water found, and he did +spend the day roving the country cutting blackthorns for his dowsing. +Right up to the day when he took to his bed, poor soul.” + +“I should like to have seen him dowsing,” said Edwin. “I haven’t even +seen the twigs that they use.” + +“Why, that would have been easy enough. Only the other day I throwed out +a lot that belonged to your grandfather.” + +Edwin blushed at this sacrilege. “And could Uncle Will find water with a +twig?” he asked. + +“Not I,” laughed his uncle. “But they do say it runs in families. Have +you ever tried, John?” + +“I tried when I was a boy,” said Mr. Ingleby, “but nothing happened.” + +“I expect our Joe could,” said Aunt Sarah Jane, with infinite faith in +her offspring. + +“No, mother, I’ve tried it,” said Joe, from the lamplit corner where he +was wrestling with the science of sanitary inspection. + +“I wonder if I could . . .” said Edwin. + +“Well, you shall have a try,” laughed his uncle. + +“At this time o’ night?” said Aunt Sarah Jane, scandalised. + +“Let the boy have a try,” said Uncle Will, rising. “’Tis a beautivul +moonlight night, and I’ll take him over the field where the new +water-pipe runs.” + +“You’m mad, the two of you,” said his aunt with a sigh. + +Edwin and his uncle went out into the garden, and there the boy watched +the gardener’s clumsy, skilful hands cut a forked twig from a blackthorn +bush. + +“Hazel do work as well,” he said, “but father always used the thorn.” + +Then they went out together over a dewy meadow, and his uncle showed him +how to hold the rod: with his two hands turned palm upwards, the arms of +the twig between the third and fourth fingers, the thumb, and the palm of +each hand, and the fork downwards between them. Over the meadow grass +they walked slowly, then suddenly the tip of the rod began to turn +upwards by no agency of which Edwin was aware. It was very thrilling, +for his hands were quite still. + +“There you are,” said his uncle, “you’ve a found our water-pipe.” + +“Hold the rod down, uncle,” Edwin said. + +He did so, and now the mysterious force was so strong that the arms of +the twig snapped. + +“Now, you’ve gone and broke it,” said Uncle Will. “Come in or you’ll +catch cold.” + +They went in together. + +“Well . . .?” said Mr. Ingleby. + +“Oh, he’s a proper dowser, sure enough,” said Uncle Will. + +Edwin was still curiously thrilled with the whole business. He felt that +a little more excitement in his attainment was due to him; but no one, +not even his father, seemed in the least impressed. It comforted him to +think that his cousin Joe, his eyes fixed on his book in the corner, had +really less in common than himself with the strange dark people from whom +they were both descended. It was better, he thought, to be a born dowser +than a Fellow of Balliol. More wonderful still to be both. + +All the rest of that evening he felt a queer elation in his mysterious +birthright, and when his father yawned and they both went up to bed he +lay awake for a long time listening to the drowsy music of the corncrake +and the wail of hunting owls, trying to put himself more closely in touch +with the romantic past that had bred him: with that magnificent figure +his grandfather, and the innumerable strange and passionate ancestry that +slept under the shadow of Highberrow church on the Batch. “Yea, I have a +goodly heritage,” he thought. And so he came to think of his father, +through whom these things came to him: of his hard achievements, of his +loneliness, of his difficulty of expressing—if it were not a +disinclination to express—all the powerful and stormy things that must +lie hidden in his heart. And a feeling of passionate kinship carried +Edwin away: an anxiety to show his love for his father in unmistakable +ways; to make clear to him once and for all the depth of his son’s +devotion. He began to think of his father as a mother might think of her +child. It must have been in that way, he imagined, that his own mother +had thought of her husband. The night was so still that he imagined he +could hear the rusty ivory of the acacia-blossom falling at the gate. + + +III + + +They were in the train on their way home from Bristol, passing smoothly +under the escarpment of the lower Cotswolds. The fortnight had passed +with an astounding swiftness. After leaving Wringford they had cycled +over the back of Mendip, past the mines at Cold Harbour, where they had +paused for half an hour to look at the workings, now deserted and +overgrown with ragwort and scabious, and the Roman amphitheatre, to the +great limestone gorge above Axcombe; and from there they had ridden to +Wells, where, beyond streets that flowed eternally with limpid water, +they had gazed on the wonder of the cathedral and seen the white swans +floating in the palace moat under a sky that was full of peace. Only for +a moment had they seen the masts of Bristol and Redcliffe’s dreamy spire; +and now in a few hours they would be back in Halesby: in another world. + +As they travelled northwards Edwin was thinking all the time of the work +that he would do in his little room above the bed of stocks. It should +be a fragrant room, he thought, and a good one for reading, for when his +attention wandered he would be able to lift his eyes to a line of gentler +hills crowned by the dark folds of Shenstone’s hanging woods. And there +he would be able to dream of the coloured past and of his own exciting +future, and the enchanted life that he would soon be leading among the +noblest works of men in letters and in stone. Oxford, his Mecca . . . +the eternal city of his dreams. He allowed his fancy to travel westward +over the rolling Cotswold and droop by the slow descent of river valleys +to that sacred place. His father’s voice dispelled his dream. They were +alone in the carriage and their privacy made speaking easy. + +“Edwin . . . I’ve been thinking a good deal about your future.” + +“Yes, father?” + +“I’ve been thinking it over in my own mind. I talked it over a week or +two ago with your Uncle Albert. He’s a sound man of business, you know. +Then I felt that I couldn’t trust my judgment; the whole world was upside +down; but now I feel that I can think clearly, and of course I am anxious +to do my best for you. I’ve been thinking about this Oxford plan. . . .” + +“Yes.” + +“You know quite well, Edwin, that I’m not a rich man. I’m a very poor +man. You can understand that, better than you could before, after this +holiday. And when people have very limited means and are getting on in +life—this business has made me an old man, you know—they have to be very +careful in their decisions. Looking at it from every point of view, I +don’t think it would be fair of me to let you go to Oxford.” + +“Father . . . what do you mean?” + +“To begin with, there’s the expense.” + +“But I shall get a scholarship. I’ll work like anything. I’ll make sure +of it.” + +“I’m sure you would. You’re a good boy. But that isn’t everything by a +long way. When you’ve got your scholarship, supposing you do get it, the +expense would begin. I shouldn’t like you to feel at a hopeless +disadvantage with men of your own year. You would have to live quite a +different life from them. You wouldn’t be able to afford any of their +pleasures.” + +“I shouldn’t want their pleasures.” + +“That is a rash thing to say. But I’m looking even farther ahead. What +can you expect to do when you’ve taken a degree in Arts?” + +“A fellowship. . . .” + +“Ah, but that is a matter of considerable uncertainty. I’ve seen so many +men who have managed to scrape through a university degree and then been +thrown on the world in a state of miserable poverty. Look at Mr. Kelly +at the grammar-school. You wouldn’t like to live his life; but I believe +he has quite a brilliant university career behind him. No . . . I don’t +think it would be fair to you.” + +“But mother and I always said . . .” + +“Yes, I know . . . you were a pair of dreamers, both of you. If you felt +any very strong desire to become a parson there might be something in it, +though that, too, is a miserable life often enough. But you don’t, do +you?” + +“No . . . of course not.” + +“So I think that while I am living you should have the chance of learning +a useful profession. What about doctoring?” + +“But that would be expensive too.” + +“I know that . . . but I think we could do it. We should have a little +in common. I might even be able to help you. And in a way . . . in a +way I should feel that in you I was realising some of my own old +ambitions. It is a noble profession, Eddie: the most humane in the +world. No one need ever be ashamed of being a doctor. I think that a +parson who professes religion for the sake of a living is rather to be +despised.” + +“Father, I’m sure it would cost too much. Six years, you know. . . .” + +“Five . . . only five, if you pass all your examinations. And it need +not be so expensive as you think. During the last year they have turned +the old College in North Bromwich into a University. They give a degree +in medicine. And while you were studying there you could still live with +me at Halesby. I should be glad of your company.” + +This appeal to Edwin’s pity was difficult to resist. It recalled to him +all the resolutions that he had made in the night at Wringford: the +devotion with which he had determined to devote himself to his father’s +welfare: the determination that he should never do anything that could +cause the man a moment’s pain. It was difficult . . . difficult. + +“You could still get your scholarship,” his father went on. “There are +several endowments of that kind at the North Bromwich medical school. I +have a pamphlet at home that gives all the particulars. I had even shown +it to your mother.” + +“And what did she say, father?” + +“She didn’t say much. She knew it would be a great disappointment to +you. But I think she realised that it would be a good thing for you; and +I know she looked forward to having you at home.” + +“Yes . . . she must have known what a disappointment it would be. +Father, I wish you would think it over again.” + +“I want you to think it over, too. At present it naturally comes as a +shock to you; but I think you’ll see in time. . . .” + +He couldn’t see. He knew that he could never see it in that light. It +was going to take all the beauty that he had conceived out of his life. +It was going to ruin all his happiness. In place of light and +cleanliness and learning it was going to give him . . . what? The +darkness of a smoky city; its grime; the mean ideals of the people who +lived beneath its ugliness. Even the memory of the enthusiasm with which +he had thought of the life of old Dr. Marshall, his father’s patron, +couldn’t mitigate the dreariness of the prospect. The idea of living for +ever in company with dirt and misery and harrowing disease repelled him. +It was no good telling him that contact with these misfortunes developed +the nobler faculties of man. It was not the life that he had wanted. +His soul sent forth a cry of exceeding bitterness. And while he sat +there, full of misery and resentment, the train was carrying them onward +into the gloom that always overshadowed the City of Iron. + + + + +BOOK II + + + . . . _so that with much ado I was corrupted_, _and made to learn the + dirty devices of the world_. + + THOMAS TRAHERNE. + + + +CHAPTER I +THE CITY OF IRON + + +I + + +THE city of iron stands upon three hills and its valleys were once +watered by two rivers; but since the day when its name was humbly written +in Doomsday these pastoral features have disappeared, so that the hills +are only known as tramway gradients that testify to the excellence of the +Corporation’s power station, and the rivers, running in brick culverts, +have been deprived not only of their liberty but even of their natural +function of receiving a portion of the city’s gigantic sewage. The +original market of North Bromwich has been not so much debauched from +without, in the manner of other growing towns, as organised from within +by the development of its own inherent powers for evil. It is not a +place from which men have wilfully cast out beauty so much as one from +which beauty has vanished in spite of man’s pitiful aspirations to +preserve it. Indeed, its citizens are objects rather for pity than for +reproach, and would be astonished to receive either, for many of them are +wealthy, and from their childhood, knowing no better, have believed that +wealth is a justification and an apology for every mortal evil from +ugliness to original sin. + +In the heart of the city the sense of power, impressive if malignant, is +so overwhelming that one cannot see the monstrosity as a whole and can +almost understand the blindness of its inhabitants. Go, rather, to the +hills beyond Halesby, to Uffdown and Pen Beacon, where, with a choice of +prospects, one may turn from the dreamy plain of Severn and the cloudy +splendours of Silurian hills, to its pillars of cloud by day and its +pillars of fire by night; and perhaps in that remoter air you may realise +the city’s true significance as a phenomenon of unconquered if not +inevitable disease. If you are a physician, you will realise that this +evil has its counterpart in human tissues, where a single cell, that +differs not at all from other cells and is a natural unit in the +organism, may suddenly and, as it seems, unreasonably acquire a faculty +of monstrous and malignant growth, cleaving and multiplying to the +destruction of its fellows—a cell gone mad, to which the ancients gave +the name of cancer. + +The inhabitants of North Bromwich, who are a tolerant people, and proud +of the fact, would smile at this reflection. They are not in the habit +of surveying the midden in which they are bred from remote hilltops, +except on Bank Holidays, at which time they have discovered a truth from +which they might learn more: that with the aid of hill air and exercise, +whether it be that of cocoanut shies or swing-boats, or the more +hazardous pursuit of donkey-riding, it is possible to absorb a greater +quantity of alcohol in a given time without unduly suffering than in the +atmosphere of their own streets. But they have not time to learn, and +since they have never known any other conditions of living, they exhibit +the admirable human characteristic of making the best of their +surroundings and persuading themselves that their hallucinated existence +is typical of human life. They are even eager, pathetically eager, to +find and to proclaim its virtues, and that they may do this more easily +they have invented specious names for the disease and its results: +Industry for the first, and, for the second, Progress. + +In the vindication of a Municipal Conscience (making the best of a bad +job) they periodically extend the area over which their coat of arms, a +reminder of days when chivalry existed, is displayed. The coat of arms +itself is an unfortunate symbol, for it is supported by the figure of a +brawny slave who carries the hammer with which his chains have been +forged; but the motto at least is encouraging. It is the word “Forward,” +expressing the aspirations of the citizens towards the day when all +England may be as the Black Country. The watcher on Uffdown may give it +a more far-sighted significance: “forward, to the day when there shall be +no more coal, and the evil, of its own inanition, perish.” + +For the present, at any rate, the city showed no signs of perishing. +During the last year or two, its tentacles had spread farther than ever +before, swarming into the wet and lonely valley of the Dulas Fechan, a +deep cleft in the mountains beyond Felindre where a noisy river ran +through undergrowth older than man’s memory. From this valley, the +council had decreed, the rain of the Savaddan watershed, which geology +had destined for the Wye and later for the Atlantic, must now traverse +eighty miles or more of conquered territory, and after being defouled by +the domestic usages of North Bromwich, must find its way into the Trent, +and so to the German Ocean, as the Romans thoughtlessly labelled the +North Sea. “Water,” said the Mayor, who was also known as Sir Joseph +Astill, the brewer, “water is one of the necessities of life. It is our +duty to the public to see that they have it, and that they have it pure +and unadulterated.” + +So the Welsh water came, and the altruistic baronet took the credit for +it. Indeed the progressive spirit of North Bromwich found its +incarnation in this fleshy gentleman. It was he who presented the +municipal art gallery with their unrivalled collection of Madox-Jones +cartoons, to say nothing of three portraits of himself exemplifying (he +had an elegant vocabulary) the styles of the three greatest portrait +painters of modern times. It was he who saved the art of music from +degradation by fighting, with all the weight of his personal influence, +against the performance of secular music, music, that is, divorced from +“sacred” words, upon the Sabbath. It was he, again, who aroused public +feeling on the question of the university: “the first Modern university,” +he called it. + +He accomplished its endowment, equipped it with a principal whose name +was a household word in the homes of the great middle classes; and +finally set the seal of modernity on his creation, less than twenty years +before the total prohibition of alcohol became law in retrograde America, +by instituting a learned faculty and providing a degree in the science of +. . . brewing. Just as an example of the city’s liberality, there was +also a faculty of Arts. The faculty of Science, of course, was +important, if only as an appendage to the brewing school; those of +Engineering and Mining flattered the industries of the district; that of +Commerce taught its graduates to write business letters in every spoken +tongue and give the Yankees what for; and lastly, that of Medicine, +supplied a necessary antidote to the activities of most of the others. + +Sir Joseph Astill was proud, as well he might be, of the Medical School. +“In this city,” he boasted, “there are actually more hospital beds _per +centum_ of inhabitants than in any other in the whole country. The North +Bromwich medical student has a greater opportunity of studying disease, +in all its aspects, than the alumnus of any other school in the world. +Thousands of beds lie waiting for his scrutiny; and I am glad to say that +very few of them are ever empty.” + +Edwin’s first serious acquaintance with North Bromwich had begun at the +end of the summer holidays, through which he had worked with a good deal +less than the fiery enthusiasm that he would have put into his reading +for the Balliol scholarship. The syllabus of the examination for the +Astill Exhibition had amazed him by its simplicity: the prescribed books +were works that he had absorbed some years before at St. Luke’s, and +though the mathematical side of the business worried him, as it had +always done, it was clear that in North Bromwich the classics were +regarded really as a polite accomplishment rather than as an integral +part of a gentleman’s equipment in life: so that these drowsy summer +months were really a period of comparative idleness in which he had time +to brood on his regrets and become gradually reconciled to his new fate. +In this spirit he approached the examination. Even the capitoline +eminence on which the university buildings were placed, with the +tremendous renaissance buildings of the Council House and the Corinthian +Town Hall, did not greatly impress him. He saw rather the squalid slums +from which these pretentious buildings rose. It was so different, he +thought, from Oxford, and he passed the flagged courtyard with its cool +fountain and the benevolent statue of Sir Joseph Astill in a frock coat +and carrying a rolled umbrella on which the sculptor had lavished all the +feeling of his art, without the least shadow of spiritual obeisance. + +With two other long-legged candidates he had worked through his papers in +a small room whose windows overlooked the quiet square and a phantom +stream of noiseless traffic beyond. The first paper had been +mathematical, and its intricacies kept his mind so busy that he had +little time for reflection. From time to time he would see one of the +long-legged competitors reducing the end of his penholder to wood-pulp in +the earnestness of ruminant thought; and occasionally the deep boom of +the clock in the tower of the Art Gallery would remind him that time was +veritably passing; but time passed swiftly, and he was almost surprised +to find himself once more in an air that for all its vitiation was less +sleepy than that of the sealed examination room. By the end of the first +evening all that he feared in the examination papers was over. To-morrow +he would be on his own ground and the modern university could do its +damnedest. + +Next day the classical papers were distributed and Edwin, who found them +easy, could see that his pen-chewing friend was in a bad way. All the +passages set for translation were familiar: the grammatical questions +consisted of old catches that had been drilled into him by Mr. Leeming in +the Upper Fourth. As far as he was concerned, it was a walk over. He +had time to take in more of his surroundings and to watch the silent +coloured stream of traffic filtering through the narrows where the bulk +of the Town Hall constricted the street. At the end of each day he found +his father anxiously awaiting him. He was eager to see and handle the +examination papers for himself. He seemed impressed by their difficulty, +and Edwin found it hard to reassure him without appearing objectionably +superior. He seemed rather surprised that Edwin, on the eve of such a +formidable ordeal, should choose to take out his bicycle and ride towards +the hills, so surprised that it became a matter for serious debate with +Edwin whether he should do as he wanted to do and appear priggish, or +affect an anxiety that didn’t exist merely to please his father. In the +end he decided to be honest at all costs. + +The part of the examination that he enjoyed most was the _viva-voce_ in +Classics. For this trial he was led up many flights of stone steps to a +room full of books in which the Dean of the Faculty of Arts awaited him: +a kindly, nervous old man with a grey beard, with whom Edwin immediately +felt at home. His nervousness seemed to Edwin appropriate: it implied +the indubitable fact that in North Bromwich Arts was a sideshow that +counted for nothing, and that the professor’s dignity, as Dean of a +learned Faculty, was a precarious and unsubstantial thing. “Your papers +were excellent, . . . excellent,” he said to begin with. “Now, I should +like you to read me something.” He pointed to a bookshelf. “Let us +start with some Greek.” + +“What would you like, sir?” + +“Oh, it’s not what I should like. What would you like to read? +Something that really appeals to you.” + +Edwin felt that the dean was watching him, like a cat stalking a bird, as +his fingers approached the bookshelf. It was a curious responsibility, +for it would be an awful shame if he chose something that the old man +didn’t approve of. Sophocles. . . . Why not Sophocles? + +He picked out the Antigone, and chose the great chorus:— + + Ἔρως ἀνίκατε μάχαν, + Ἔρως, ὁς ἐν κτήμασι πίπτεις, . . . + +“Let’s have it in Greek first.” + +Edwin read it in the level voice which the Head of St. Luke’s had always +used for the recitation of Greek poetry. When he had finished the first +strophe he looked up and saw that the Dean’s weak eyes, beneath their +tortoiseshell spectacles, were brimming with tears. + +“That will do,” he said, “unless you’d prefer to go on . . .” + +Edwin read the antistrophe. + +“Yes . . . I don’t think you need translate it,” said the Dean. He +paused for a moment, then, replacing the volume, went on. “In this +university I am known as the Professor of Dead Languages. Dead +languages. What?” + +They passed a pleasant half-hour together. In Latin Edwin chose +Lucretius and a passage from the Georgics, at the end of which the Dean +confided to him that he kept bees. “Thank you, that will do,” he said. +“I gather that you are entering the Medical School. . . . Well, it is a +noble profession. I don’t know what we should do without doctors, I’m +sure.” + +Four days later Mr. Ingleby received him at the breakfast table with +unconcealed emotion. “You’ve got your scholarship, Edwin. I’m . . . I’m +as pleased as if I’d won it myself. I never had the opportunity of +winning a scholarship in my life.” The hand in which he held the letter +trembled. He kissed Edwin fervently. “This is a great day for me,” he +said: and Edwin, glowing, felt that anything was worth while that could +give such pleasure to the man that he had determined to love. + + +II + + +On a bright morning at the beginning of September Edwin found himself one +of a crowd of ten or fifteen youths, waiting with a varying degree of +assurance, outside the office of the Dean of the Medical Faculty in James +Street, a sordid thoroughfare in which the pretentious buildings of the +old College of Science hid its hinder quarters. The door was small, and +only distinguished from its neighbours, a steam laundry and brassworker’s +office, by a plate that bore the inscription, “University of North +Bromwich. Medical School.” Inside the door stood a wooden box for a +porter, usually empty, but in its moments of occupation surveying a long, +dark cloakroom with a hundred or more numbered lockers and corresponding +clothes-hooks, on a few of which undergraduates’ gowns and battered +mortar-boards were hanging. This morning the Dean was holding audience +of all the first year men, and each of the crowd in which Edwin now found +himself a negligible unit, was waiting until his name should be called +from the office, and, in the meantime, surveying his companions with +suspicion and being surveyed with a more confident and collective +suspicion by seniors who happened to drift through the corridors on +business or idleness, and showed evidence of their initiation by +familiarity with the porter. + +Only one face in the company was in the least familiar to Edwin: that of +a ponderous young man with immaculate black hair carefully parted in the +middle, who had sat stolidly through the Astill Exhibition examination a +few desks away from him. As he did not appear to be anxious to recognise +this fact, Edwin abandoned his own intention of doing so, and, like the +rest of the company, possessed his soul in silence. In the meantime he +watched the others with a good deal of interest and speculation. + +They were a strangely mixed company: a few of them, of whom Edwin himself +was one, mere boys, to whom the air of the schoolroom still clung: some +obvious men of the world, scrupulously, even doggily dressed, in an age +when the fancy waistcoat had reached the zenith of its daring; others, +and one other in particular, a seedy looking person with a dejected fair +moustache, were clearly old enough to be the fathers of the youngest. It +was to the second of these classes, the bloods, that Edwin found his +attention attracted, and particularly to a paragon of elegance, whose +waistcoat was the orange colour of a blackbird’s bill with light blue +enamelled buttons, whose hair was mathematically bisected and shone with +expensive unguents, and whose chin differed from that of Edwin in being +shaved from sheer necessity instead of from motives of encouragement. + +This person exuded an atmosphere of prosperity and style that took +Edwin’s fancy immensely, and he wore grey flannel trousers as correctly +turned up as any that Edwin had seen upon the enchanted platform of the +station at Oxford. It was evident that the process of waiting bored him; +for he took out of the pocket of the amazing waistcoat a gold hunter +watch with a front enamelled in the same shade of light blue. The lid +flicked open noiselessly when he touched a spring, and Edwin began to be +exercised in his mind as to what happened when he put on a waistcoat of a +different pattern, as obviously a person of this degree of magnificence +must frequently do. Did he change the buttons, or did he change the +watch? Edwin, surveying him, looked unconsciously at his own Waterbury; +and, as he did so, the magnificent creature glanced at him with a pair of +savage brown eyes, and, as Edwin decided, summed him up for good and all. + +“Mr. Harrop, please,” said the porter. And Mr. Harrop pocketed his +hunter and disdainfully entered the office. + +Edwin, relieved from his scrutiny, turned his attention to the most +impressive figure of all: a young man fully six feet four in height, but +so broadly and heavily built that his tallness was scarcely noticeable. +His face was good-humoured, and very plain, with the look of battered +obstinacy that may sometimes be seen in that of a boxer. Perhaps this +idea was reinforced by the fact that his short nose was broken, and that +he carried his whole face a little forward, staring out at the world from +under bushy black eyebrows. He seemed made for rough usage, and his +undoubted strength was qualified by a degree of awkwardness that showed +itself in his clumsy hands. These, at the present time, were clasped +behind his back, beneath the folds of a brand-new undergraduate’s gown +that, because of his great height, looked ridiculously small. His whole +aspect was one of terrific earnestness. Evidently he was taking this +business, as he would surely have taken any other, seriously. That, no +doubt, was the reason why on this occasion he alone appeared in +academical dress. His clasped hands, his lowered head, his bulldog neck +all spoke of a determination to go through with this adventure at all +costs. + +“Mr. Brown,” said the porter, and nearly blundering into the returning +elegance of Mr. Harrop, he slouched into the Dean’s office as though he +were entering the ring for the heavy-weight championship of the world. + +In the end Edwin found himself left alone with a youth of his own age, a +tall, loose-limbed creature, with an indefinite humorous face, a close +crop of curly fair hair and blue eyes. Edwin rather liked the look of +him. He was young, and seemed approachable, and though his striped +flannel suit was more elegant than Edwin’s and he wore a school tie of +knitted silk, Edwin took the risk of addressing him. + +“We seem to be the last.” + +“Yes. I expect the Dean will keep me last of all, bad cess to him! +That’s because I happen to be a sort of cousin of the old devil’s.” He +spoke with a soft brogue that had come from the south of Ireland. + +“Mr. Ingleby, please.” + +Edwin pulled himself together and entered the Dean’s office. + +A pleasant room: at one big desk a suave, clean-shaven gentleman with +thin sandy hair and gold-rimmed spectacles. At another a little dark man +with a bald head and a typewriter in front of him. + +“Mr. Ingleby?” said the first. His voice was refined, if a little too +precise. + +“Yes, sir.” + +“Well, Mr. Ingleby, what are you going to do? Ah, yes . . . you are the +Astill scholar. Very good. Very good. Are you proposing to take a +London degree?” + +“No, sir. North Bromwich.” + +“Well . . . it is possible you may change your mind later. Have you +taken the London Matriculation?” + +“No, sir. I was on the classical side at St. Luke’s. I was reading for +a scholarship at Oxford.” + +“And changed your mind . . . or” (shrewdly) “had it changed for you?” + +“Yes, sir.” + +“Is your father a doctor?” + +“No.” It really doesn’t matter what my father is, thought Edwin, and the +Dean, as though answering his reflection, said:— + +“No. . . That doesn’t matter.” And, after a pause: “Well, Mr. . . . er +. . . Ingleby, you have made a good beginning. I hope it will continue +satisfactorily. That is all, thank you. Good-morning.” He held out his +hand to Edwin, who was astonished into putting out a moist hand himself. +“Yes,” continued the Dean in a suave, reflective voice, “you will pay +your fees to my secretary, Mr. Hadley. This is . . . er . . . Mr. +Hadley. Yes.” + +Mr. Hadley acknowledged the introduction with a lift of the right eyebrow +and Edwin left the room. + +“Mr. Martin,” said the secretary, as he left, and “Mr. Martin, please,” +the porter repeated. + +“I say, wait a moment for me,” said the loose-limbed Irishman to Edwin in +passing. + +It was so friendly as to be cheering. + +“He seems a decent old bird,” said Martin, emerging a few minutes later. + +“I thought you said he was your cousin?” + +“So he is. You see I’m Irish, and so is he; and in Ireland pretty nearly +everybody who is anybody is related to everybody else.” He plunged into +a lengthy demonstration of the relationships of the Southern aristocracy, +with warnings as to the gulfs that separated the Martins from the +Martyns, and the Plunketts from the Plunkets, rambling away through a +world of high-breeding and penury in which all the inhabitants called +each other by their Christian names, and spent their lives in hunting, +point-to-point racing, and elaborate practical jokes. A new world to +Edwin. + +They strolled down Sackville Row together, and cutting through the +Arcades came out into the wide thoroughfare of Queen Street that had been +driven through an area of slums in honour of Victoria’s first jubilee. + +“By the way, what’s your school?” said Denis Martin. + +“St. Luke’s.” + +“Never heard of it.” + +“I don’t suppose you would, in Ireland.” + +“Oh, I didn’t go to school in Ireland. Nobody does. I was at +Marlborough. Is St. Luke’s one of those soccer schools?” + +“Good Lord, no. . . . We play rugger. We’re pretty good.” + +“Who do you play?” + +“Merchant Taylors and St. Paul’s, and one or two others.” + +“H’m. . . . They’re day schools, aren’t they? Is St. Luke’s that sort?” + +Edwin, with enthusiasm, expounded the St. Luke’s legend, that nobody +outside of St. Luke’s has ever been known to believe. Martin, meanwhile, +looked a little supercilious and bored. He spoke as from a distant world +in a tone that implied that the people of North Bromwich could never call +each other by their Christian names or hunt or race or play practical +jokes with an air of being born to it. + +“I expect we’re a pretty mixed lot here,” he said. + +And Edwin, with the guilty consciousness of being more than a little +mixed himself, replied: “Yes.” + +“An extraordinary collection. That great dark fellow looks an absolute +tyke. Then there’s the chap with the waistcoat—” + +“Yes. . . . Harrop was the name.” + +“I don’t know the name,” said Martin dubiously. “Never heard of the +family. He was wearing an Oriel tie.” + +“Oriel. . . . Do you mean Oxford?” + +“Yes, one of my cousins was there. That’s how I know it. I should think +they turfed him out on account of that waistcoat. Still, Oxford isn’t +what it used to be.” “In the eyes of a Southern Unionist,” he might have +added. But the news was grateful to Edwin. “I shouldn’t wonder,” Martin +went on, “if lots of decent people didn’t end by coming to schools like +this. I expect it is the Dean’s idea, you know. I say, what about +lunch? Do you know of any decent place?” + +In ancient days, when he had come into North Bromwich shopping with his +mother, Edwin had always been taken to Battie’s, the great confectioner’s +in Queen Street, but now, passing the doors in this exalted company, he +felt that the company of a crowd of shabby shopping women would hardly be +suitable: besides, he might even run the risk of meeting his Aunt Laura, +who also frequented the shop, so he left Battie’s prudently alone. + +“I know one place,” said Martin. “I should think it’s all right. The +food’s decent anyway.” + +He led the way up a side street to an elegant resort frequented by the +professional classes of North Bromwich, where them was a long counter set +out with sandwiches like a buffet at a dance, and all the customers +seemed at home. In the ordinary way Edwin would not have dared to enter +it, but Martin, with the elegant confidence of Southern Unionism, showed +him the way, and seated at a marble-topped table they trifled with Plover +on toast. Martin, of course, did the choosing, and in his dealings with +the tiny carcass showed a familiarity with the correct method of +consuming small birds that Edwin was pleased to learn. “Ever shoot +plover?” he said. No . . . Edwin had never shot anything: he didn’t +particularly want to shoot anything; but he realised that it was a great +accomplishment to be able to talk about it as though he had never done +anything else. + +“I’ll pay,” said Martin. “We can square up afterwards.” + +They did so and, thawed by the process of feeding, began to talk more +easily. “Are you digging in this place?” Martin asked. Edwin told him +that he lived in the country. + +“In the country? I didn’t know there was any here. Have you any decent +shooting?” + +“Unfortunately, no.” He remembered, however, the solitary trout under +the bridge below the abbey. “There’s fishing of sorts,” he said. + +“What sorts?” + +“Oh, trout—” + +“Brown trout? There’s not much fun in that. White trout . . . sea trout +you call them in England . . . are good sport. Still, we’ll have a day +together next spring. I’ll get my rods over.” + +The subject was dangerous, and so Edwin asked him where he was living: +“With your cousin, I suppose.” + +“Oh, no. . . . I don’t know the old divil, you know. I’ve rooms with an +old lady up in Alvaston. She’s rather a decent sort. House full of +animals.” He didn’t specify what the animals were. “I’d better go and +unpack some of my things. I suppose I shall see you at the Chemistry +Lecture to-morrow. So long. . . . Oh, I forgot. . . . What’s your +name?” + +“Ingleby.” + +“Ingleby. . . Right-o.” He boarded a passing bus with the air of +stepping on to a coach and four. + +Edwin took the next train home. On the opposite platform of the station +he caught a glimpse of the great bulk of the man named Brown walking up +and down with earnestness in his eyes and under his arm a huge parcel of +books. He gave Edwin the impression of wanting to throw himself into the +adventure of the medical curriculum as he might have thrown himself into +a Rugby scrum, expecting a repetition of the tremendous battering that he +seemed already to have undergone. + +Thinking of him, and of the aristocratic Martin, and of Harrop, a product +which Oriel had finished to the last waistcoat button, and, more dimly, +of the elderly gentleman with the dejected moustaches, it seemed to Edwin +that he himself was appallingly young and callow and inexperienced. How +was he going to stand up to these people with their knowledge of the +world and its ways: men who had already, by virtue of their birth or +experience, learned how to dress and live and move without effort in the +crowded world? Yet with them, he knew, he must now take his place. It +would be difficult . . . awfully difficult. He had everything, even the +most elementary rules of conduct, to learn. He was a child who had never +known another human being except his mother and a few school friends of +his own age. He had not even the _savoir-vivre_ of Griffin. And, in +this new life, it seemed to him that the dreams on which he had depended +must be useless—or even more, a positive handicap to his success. + +The moments of sudden spiritual enlightenment that one reads of in the +lives of saints, or of converts to Salvationism, are not a common +experience in those of ordinary men; and though, in the turn of every +tide, there is a critical period, measurable by the fraction of a second, +in which the waters that have swayed forwards retire upon themselves, to +the eyes of an observer the change of motion is so gradual as to be only +slowly perceived. In Edwin’s life the death of his mother had been the +real point of crisis; but this he had only dimly realised when his hopes +of Oxford had been dashed for ever in a third-class compartment hurtling +under Bredon Hill. Between it and the present moment there had hung a +period of dead water (so to speak) in which the current of his life had +seemed suspended; but now he knew that there was no doubt but that a +change had overtaken him, and that he would never again be the same. + +All his life, up to this point, had been curiously inorganic: a haphazard +succession of novel and bewildering sensations: a kaleidoscope of sensual +impressions changing almost too rapidly to be appreciated—so rapidly that +it had been impossible for him to think of one in relation to another. +Some of them had been painful; some enthralling in their beauty; some +merely engrossing because they were full of awe: yet all had been +ecstatic, and tinged in some degree with a visionary light. Now, as +always, it was clear that he must be a dreamer; but, from this day +onwards, it also became clear that his visions must be something more to +him than a series of coloured impressions, succeeding one another without +reason and accepted without explanation. In the future they must be +correlated with experience and the demands of life. In that lost age of +innocence the people with whom he came into contact had interested him +only as figures passing through the scenes that were spread for his +delectation. They had been external to him. He had lived within himself +and his loneliness had been so self-sufficient that it would have made no +great difference to him if they had not been there. Now he was to take +his part in the drama at which, in times before, he had merely sat as a +bemused spectator. It was a stirring and a terrifying prospect. + +The train from North Bromwich stopped at every station, and the whole of +the journey lay through the black desert that fringes the iron city, a +vast basin of imprisoned smoke, bounded by hills that had once been +crowned with woods, but were now dominated by the high smoke-stacks of +collieries, many of them ruined and deserted. At a dirty junction, so +undermined with workings that the bridge and the brick offices were +distorted in a manner which suggested that the whole affair might some +day go down quick into the pit, he changed into the local train. The +railway company evidently did not consider the passenger traffic of +Halesby worth consideration, for the carriages were old and grimy. Edwin +chose a smoker because the cushions were covered with American leather +and therefore more obviously clean. He found himself, in the middle of +his reflections, sitting opposite a coloured photograph of the great +gorge at Axcombe, a town that was served by the same line. The picture +carried him suddenly to another aspect of his too complicated life. +Really, the whole business was hopelessly involved. He thought, grimly, +how he could have taken the wind out of Martin’s genealogical sails by +blurting out the astounding intelligence that his uncle was a gardener. +And what would the gentleman with the waistcoat have said? He laughed at +the idea. + +Through a short but sulphurous tunnel the train emerged into the valley +of the Stour: the vista of the hills unfolded, and later the spire of +Halesby church appeared at the valley’s head. Well, a beginning of the +new life had to be made some day, and now as well as ever. + +Walking home along the cinder pathway beside the silting fish-ponds it +seemed to him that in the light of his new experience, Halesby was a +primitive and almost pitiable place, and the same mood held him when he +made his way home by the short cut through Mrs. Barrow’s cloistered +garden and entered his father’s house. Under the south wall the bed of +double stocks was still in flower, though faded and bedraggled. Their +scent reminded him of what a world of experience he had traversed in less +than three months. He went straight up to his own bedroom. On the bed +lay two parcels addressed to him. The larger contained his +undergraduate’s cap and gown. He put them on in front of the glass and +rather fancied himself. The act struck him as in a way symbolical: it +was the token of an initiation. From that day forward he was a medical +student. For five or six years, probably for the rest of his life, he +would spend his time in the presence of the most bitter human experience; +but there was something elevating in the thought that he need not be a +helpless spectator: he would be able to effect positive good in a way +that no scholar and no preacher of religion or abstract morality could +possibly attain. “This is my life,” he thought. Well, it was good to +know anything as definite as that. + +The second parcel contained a number of technical books dealing with the +subjects of his first year’s curriculum: Chemistry, Physics, Biology, +Physiology, and Anatomy. The last appeared to be the most exciting. +“Fearfully and wonderfully made . . .” he thought. He set to work at +once preparing the little room for work, making it as comfortable as he +could with a writing table in the window that looked out over Shenstone’s +woods and dethroning the superannuated Henty and Fenn from the bookshelf. +He could not find it in his heart to treat his poets so cavalierly, and +so there they stayed. Greek and Latin and English. “I shall never drop +my classics,” he thought. A resolution that has been forgotten nearly as +often as it has been made. In the Blenheim orange-tree at the bottom of +the garden a thrush was singing. Bullfinches were fighting shrilly in +the raspberry canes. He threw open the window, and there ascended to him +the heavy, faded perfume of the bed of stocks. On the mantelpiece stood +a photograph of his mother. Looking at it, it seemed to him that she +smiled. + + + +CHAPTER II +MORTALITY BEHOLD . . . + + +I + + +HE was happy: even Halesby became a grateful place of retirement after +his long days in North Bromwich. The mornings of early autumn were very +beautiful, and it was with a good deal of zest that he would scramble +through his breakfast and leave the house early to catch the eight +o’clock train. He usually made use of the short cut through Mrs. +Barrow’s garden and the cinder path beside the fish-ponds, and in this +brisk walk, with the blood of youth running happily in his veins, he +would catch a little of the exhilarating atmosphere of early morning in +the country. When the frosts began, as they do early on that high +plateau, the morning air seemed stronger and more bracing than ever. + +Circumstance, in a little more than three months, had exalted him to the +state of those metropolitan season-ticket holders whose majesty he had +disturbed on the day when he left St. Luke’s for good. He was now in a +position to appreciate their exclusiveness, and to look upon all chance +people who intruded on the privacies of the eight o’clock train with the +same mingled curiosity and contempt. In every way a season ticket, in +its cover of dark blue morocco, was a thing superior to the transitory +and ignoble pasteboard. He could hardly resist a sigh of bored +superiority on the first occasion when he produced it. He travelled +second-class, thus rising to the highest level of luxury in travelling +permitted to any inhabitants of Halesby, unless it were the local baronet +or Mr. Willis of Mawne, whom even Sir Joseph Hingston could not outdo. + +Most of the other season-ticket holders travelled second; and in this +way, by making a habit of taking his place in the same carriage, for +sentimental reasons one that contained a series of west-country pictures, +Edwin began to be on speaking terms with many members of this select +company. They included a youth articled to a solicitor in North +Bromwich, the son of a Halesby postmaster, who was inclined to establish +terms of familiarity; a gentleman with a bloated complexion and a +fawn-coloured bowler hat, reputed to be a commercial traveller, who +carried a bag in which samples may well have been hidden; a superior +person with a gruff voice who was a clerk in a bank in the city, and on +Saturdays carried a brown canvas bag and a hockey stick; and a withered +man of fifty who travelled into North Bromwich daily on some business +connected with brass, and, on damp mornings, exhibited evidences of an +asthmatic complaint that aroused Edwin’s budding professional interest. + +It was he who first admitted Edwin to the conversation of the +compartment, by confessing to him that he had been the despair of doctors +since childhood: that three specialists had assured his mother that she +would never rear that boy: that in spite of this he had always paid four +times as much in doctor’s bills as in income-tax, that in his belief they +only kept him alive for what they could get out of him, and that his life +had been an unending misery, as harrowing, upon his word, as that of any +of the sufferers who were illustrated in the papers holding their backs +with kidney complaint, until his missus had said: “Don’t throw any more +money away on these doctors, John, I’ll have a talk with Mr. Ingleby,” . . . +and with the aid of Ingleby’s Asthma Cure he had become relatively +whole. Evidently he knew who Edwin was. “What do you think of that +now?” he wheezed, and covered the embarrassment into which Edwin was +immediately thrown by not waiting for his reply and continuing: “I +suppose, now, you’ll be learning to be a chemist like your father?” + +“No . . . I’m a medical student. I’m going to be a doctor.” + +“Well . . . I’ll be damned,” said the asthmatical person. He did not say +why; but the looks of the superior bank clerk, who immediately lowered +his paper and stared at Edwin as though it were his duty to decide +whether Edwin were a fit person to enter a learned profession or not, and +then contemptuously went on with his reading, supplied the kind of +commentary that might have been intended. When the asthmatical subject +said that he was damned, the gentleman with the bloated complexion and +the fawn-coloured bowler, who always opened his morning paper with +fingers that trembled, either with excitement or as a result of the night +before, at the column headed Turf Topics, gave a snigger and spat on the +floor to conceal it. And the articled clerk, at this display of ill +breeding, turned up his nose. + +It was a strange little company that assembled in the second-class smoker +every morning; and the strangest part of it, to Edwin, was the fact that +each of them, entrenched, as it were, behind his morning paper, affected +a frigid disinterest, yet eagerly listened to the conversation and +eagerly scrutinised the appearance of the others. All of them had their +little fixed habits. In one place they put their gloves: in another +their umbrellas. Every morning they began to read their papers at the +same column and folded them at the same point in the journey. They +seemed just as regular in their habits as the wheels of the carriage in +which they travelled, revolving and stopping and shunting and being +braked at an identical time and place for six days out of the seven. + +When he had tumbled to this, Edwin found that the whole of the main line +train that he caught every morning at the junction was occupied by +perhaps a hundred grouped units of the same kind. It amused him to +sample them; and when one appealed to him he would become a member of it +for a time and see what he could make of it. Naturally there were more +interesting people on the main line than on the Halesby branch; and in +the end he himself became such a familiar figure on the eight-twenty from +the junction that he could say “Good-morning” to nearly every group of +seasons on the train. He was even taken to the heart of the superior +gruff-voiced bank clerk in the Halesby carriage. Indeed, he knew every +one of them, finding them human people who, in the manner of the +Englishman and the hedgehog, had put out their protective spikes upon a +first acquaintance. + +The only Halesby traveller of whom he could make nothing was the bloated +person in the fawn-coloured bowler, who began the morning with turf +topics and then proceeded to suck a copying pencil till his lips were the +colour of his cheeks, and, thus inspired, to underline the names of a +number of horses in the day’s programme. Apart from his habit of +spitting on the floor, a custom which probably saved the poor man from +death by poisoning with copying ink, he was inoffensive. Edwin was even +sorry for him sometimes when he saw him hung up over his forecasts. Then +he would tilt the fawn-coloured bowler on to the back of his head, and +scratch his head under the sandy fringe of hair. Edwin was sorry +because, with a head like that, it must have been so difficult to +forecast anything. + +He did not see many women on the morning train. In those days female +enterprise was a good deal checked by conventions that died more slowly +in the Midland plain than elsewhere. From Halesby itself there were only +four season-ticket holders of the opposite sex. Two of them were +employed in the same large drapery establishment in Queen Street, and +were excessively ladylike and careful in all their behaviour. Edwin had +never spoke to either of them; but he discovered in both an identical +physical state: that peculiar greenish, waxen pallor that appears to be +the inevitable result of serving in a draper’s shop. The black dresses +on which their employers insisted, heightened this effect of fragility, +and on mornings when tiredness had made them start too late for the +train, so that they had to hurry over the last hundred yards, Edwin would +notice how they panted for breath within their elegant corsets and how +faint was the flush that came into their cheeks. + +He felt a little sorry for them; but they were not in the least sorry for +themselves. In Halesby their employment at a monstrous third-rate +drapery store gave them a position of unusual distinction as arbiters of +feminine fashions, and they would not have exchanged their distinguished +anæmia for any other calling under the sun. In their profession this +toxic pallor, as of sea-kale blanched in a cellar, was regarded as an +asset. It was considered French. And did not their shortness of breath, +upon the least exertion or emotion, cause their bosoms to rise and fall +like those of the heroines of the serial fiction that they read, when +they were not too tired, in the train? + +Edwin was not attracted by them any more than by the other couple: a pair +of pupil teachers from an elementary school in one of the northern +suburbs, who also dressed for the part that they were fulfilling in life, +and wore spectacles as tokens of their studiousness. The instinct of sex +had as yet scarcely asserted itself in him. He was a little curious +about it, and that was all. Subconsciously, perhaps, it found expression +in his anxieties about his personal appearance. He was beginning to take +a considerable interest in what should or should not be worn, treating it +more as a matter of abstract science than as one of practical politics; +for he had few clothes beyond those in which he had left St. Luke’s, and +was not likely to have any opportunity of extending his wardrobe until +these were worn out. In those days the weekly called _To-Day_ had +reached its most vigorous phase, and a column headed Masculine Modes was +a matter of earnest consideration to Edwin every Thursday, when the paper +appeared. In the spring, he decided, he would buy an overcoat with +Raglan sleeves. The weekly authority, who styled himself “The Major,” +was dead nuts on Raglan sleeves. Beneath this fashionable covering +Edwin’s interior defects would be well hidden, and, given a natty red tie +(_de rigueur_, said the Major, with the indispensable blue serge reefer +suit) and a bowler hat with a curly, but not too curly, brim, he should +be able to compete with the burly bank clerk as cynosure for the eyes of +the pale young ladies in the “drapery” and a spectacle of awe for the +studious pupil-teachers. + + +II + + +Edwin soon became absorbed in the routine of the first year student’s +life, and had very little time to think about anything else. He had to +work hard to keep pace with it, and the realisation of this was a +striking lesson to him. At St. Luke’s he had found that his advance in +knowledge made the work progressively more easy. Here he was breaking +new ground from the beginning, acquiring knowledge of a kind that owed +nothing to general culture and came to him none the easier for his +possession of it. The only things in his new work that seemed easy and +logical to him were those scientific names that were derived from Latin +and Greek. Otherwise the very rudiments and nature of the subjects were +new to him. + +The most astonishing part of the whole business was the way in which the +formidable assembly that had glared at him, as he imagined, outside the +Dean’s office, simplified itself. He had been prepared to find them +creatures of a different tissue from himself, and particularly such +apparitions as Harrop and the immense Brown. He soon saw that as far as +the career of Medicine was concerned they were identically in the same +box as himself: that neither knowledge of the world nor elegance of +attire could help either of them to acquire the absolute knowledge that +was the one thing essential to success. It made no matter that these two +approached the same problem from essentially different angles: Brown with +his earnest brows knitted and a look of indomitable but baffled +determination; Harrop as though the issue didn’t really matter as long as +the crease in his trousers was in the right place; but in either case +Edwin saw that they had to work as hard or harder than he did. + +His first acquaintance, Martin, who was now becoming his friend, since +the work that they shared in common bridged the social gulf of which +Edwin alone was aware, seemed to possess the faculty of doing things and +learning facts almost in spite of himself. He was not in any way +brilliant, but he had a way with him and a certain shrewdness that not +infrequently underlies the superficial indolence of the Celt. Above all +things Edwin found him good company, for the picturesqueness of his +brogue and a sense of humour, not of the verbal kind in which Edwin +himself dealt, but the broader humour that arises from situations, and +personal characteristics, made his society a peculiar joy. At the first +lecture on Chemistry, a dull dissertation on first principles, Edwin had +gravitated to the seat next to him, and for the rest of the term they +kept the same places and afterwards compared notes. Edwin couldn’t help +liking him, even though he was conscious of the radical social +misunderstanding that underlay their friendship. + +The technical sciences of Chemistry and Physics made no strong appeal to +Edwin. They seemed to him matters of empirical knowledge that must be +acquired according to schedule but would have very little connection with +the work of his profession, and he found them too near to the desperate +subject of mathematics to be congenial. He could find nothing romantic +or human in them; and this fact, in itself, is a sufficient indictment of +the way in which they were taught. + +Anatomy was another matter altogether. He had anticipated the beginning +of this study with a feeling in which awe and an instinctive distaste +were mingled. From the first day he had known that somewhere up at the +top of the building lay the dissecting room, a place that his fancy +painted as a kind of Chamber of Horrors. On his way to the theatre, in +which the Dean lectured on Anatomy with a scholarly refinement of phrase +that transcended the natural elegance of Martin and a fascinating +collection of coloured chalks, he had passed the gloomy door and seen a +blackboard on which the names of the Prosectors were recorded in white +lettering. But he preferred not to look inside. Martin, to whom all +adventures came more easily, settled the point for him. + +“I say,” he said immediately after the lecture, “have you put yourself +down for a part?” + +“A part? What do you mean?” + +“Anatomy. Dissecting, They’re shared between two, you know. In the +first term we’re supposed to do an Upper or a Lower. Suppose we go +shares in one—” + +“All right,” said Edwin. “Which shall it be?” + +“Well, I think an Upper will be better. There’s less fat and mess about +it. We’d better go and choose one now.” + +“All right.” + +“Come along, then.” Martin opened the door of the dissecting room and +held it while Edwin entered. It was a long, irregular chamber, with a +low glass roof and an asphalt floor. Edwin’s first impression was one of +light and space: the second, of a penetrating odour unlike anything that +he had smelt before. He could not give a name to it, and indeed it was +complex, being compact of a pungent, unknown antiseptic and another +fainter smell that was, in fact, that of ancient mortality. The effect +of the whole was strange but not nauseating as he would have expected. +All down the room at short intervals long zinc tables, with a tin bucket +at the head of each, were ranged. Most of the tables were empty; but on +four or five of them “subjects” were either displayed or lay draped in +coarse, unbleached calico. One or two of them sprawled on their faces, +but most of them, being as yet unappropriated, were supported under their +backs by small metal platforms from which the heads rolled back and the +limbs were stretched out in a posture of extreme but petrified agony. To +Edwin’s eyes it was a lamentable and terrible sight. He wondered by what +chain of degradations the body of a man who had lived and known the youth +and pride of body that he himself possessed, who had experienced +aspirations and dreams and hope and love, should descend to this final +indignity. He stood still. He did not dare, for the moment, to come +nearer. + +“How do they get here?” he asked Martin. + +“Oh, they’re paupers, you know. Old men and women, most of them, who die +in the workhouses and are not claimed by their relatives. Instead of +burying them they send them along here. The anatomy porters collect +them. Then they’re pickled for so long in a kind of vat in the cellars +of this place, and they inject them with arsenic to preserve them, and +pump red paint into their arteries so that they’re easier to dissect. I +shouldn’t like the job myself; but I suppose the porters are used to it. +You get used to anything, you know. Besides, they aren’t a bit like they +are when they’re first dead. I think that’s the chap for us. I had a +look at him the other day. It’s always better to choose an old one. The +muscles are cleaner. Less work.” + +They approached the second table. The subject was an old and withered +man: his grey hair was shaven, and his mouth hung open, showing that he +had lost his teeth. Martin had been quite right. He didn’t look in the +least like a dead man. He did not look like a man at all: only a +pathetic, tanned skeleton with tight-drawn sinews and toughened skin: a +dried mummy, from which all the contours of humanity had shrunk away. It +wasn’t so bad after all. The picture that Edwin’s imagination had +anticipated, that of a crude and horrible human shambles, was not here. +No . . . the idea of humanity was too remote to be in the least +insistent. For a moment, in spite of this consolation, Edwin went pale. +Martin noticed it. + +“I say, this isn’t going to turn you up, is it?” + +“No. . . . I’m all right. I was only . . . thinking.” + +“Thinking?” said Martin, with a laugh. “I shouldn’t do too much of that +if I were you. We’d better make a start to-morrow on the right Upper. +I’ll put our names down.” + +He turned towards the glass case in which hung notices of lectures and +the printed cards on which the names of dissectors were recorded, and +while he did so Edwin still stood thinking. He thought: Was this really +a man who had lived and breathed and aged and suffered? Where had he +been born? How long ago? Had he ever loved? Had he ever married? Had +he ever wondered what the future would bring to him? surely his fancies +had never envisaged this. Perhaps he had been born in some remote hamlet +of the marches, some sweet smelling village like Far Forest, from which +the iron tentacles of the city had drawn him inwards and sapped his life, +leaving, in the end, this dry shell, like the sucked carcass of a fly +blowing in a spider’s web. If this were the end of poverty and +desolation, what a terrible thing poverty must be. Did the poor and the +outcast ever dream that they might come to this? And yet, after all, +what did it matter? . . . + +He awoke from his dream. It was evident that he was the only dreamer in +that long room. At many of the other tables second year men were sitting +quietly dissecting or gossiping or thumbing manuals of practical anatomy +yellow with human grease. It amazed him that men should be able to joke +and smoke their pipes and appear to be contented in such an atmosphere; +but the wisdom of Martin’s phrase returned to him: “You get used to +anything, you know.” + +Among the dissectors already at work in their white overalls, he saw the +ponderous frame of the man called Brown. He, at any rate, was not +letting the grass grow under his feet. Already he was engaged in +reflecting the skin from the “Lower” on which he was working. His clumsy +hands found the work difficult, as was shown by the anxiety of his +partner, an immaculate smooth young man, whom Edwin already knew by the +name of Maskew, dressed in the Major’s indispensable navy serge reefer, +with the correct red tie and a big orchid in his buttonhole. He took an +elaborate meerschaum pipe out of his mouth to protest:— + +“Good Lord, Brown, there’s another cutaneous nerve gone phut. Do be +careful!” + +And Brown, with an exaggerated earnestness:— + +“I say, old man, I am sorry. I simply can’t use the damned things. Do +you mean to say that’s a nerve?” He held up in his forceps a tiny white +filament of tissue. + +“Yes,” said Maskew, returning to his pipe. “Branch of the great gluteal. +Listen to what Cunningham says: ‘The buttock is liberally supplied with +cutaneous nerves: a fact much appreciated by schoolboys.’” + +Brown scratched his head with the handle of his scalpel. “Well, I’m in +an absolute fog. You’d better take this job on to-morrow, and I’ll do +the reading. What does ‘cutaneous’ mean, anyway?” + +“Cutis,” thought Edwin, “Skin.” After all, it seemed, the dead languages +had their uses. By this time he had recovered from the first shock of +his distaste; he was getting used to the odour of the room, and so, a +moment later, he and Martin strolled over to a table at which one of the +prosectors was engaged in preparing a specimen for the Dean’s lectures. +It was almost pleasant to watch the deftness with which he defined the +line of a pink, injected artery, wielding his scalpel as delicately and +as surely as a painter at work on a canvas. They watched him working in +silence. “Nice part, isn’t it?” he said with condescension. + +“Yes,” said Martin, “this sort of thing must be rattling good practice +for surgery.” + +“Oh, surgery’s quite different,” said the prosector. “This is a lazy +job. There’s no hurry about it. This fellow won’t bleed to death.” + +So Edwin and Denis Martin began to work on their Upper, and the +dissecting room that had been an abode of horror and an incentive to +philosophy became no more than the scene of their daily labours. Edwin +accepted his new callousness without regret for the sensitive perceptions +that he had lost, for he saw that his heart and his imagination were not +really less tender for the change; they had merely come to a working +agreement with the demands of his new life, and had attained this +satisfactory state not so much by a suppression of sensibility as by an +insistence on the objective aspects of his work. + +This fact explained to him, at the very beginning of his career, the +fallacy of medical callousness in relation to pain or physical distress. +He saw, on reflection, that if a doctor exaggerated the importance of +subjective sensations in his patient he might well lose sight of his own +object, which was nothing more nor less than removing their cause: that, +for example, the fear of death, the anxiety of relatives and the +patient’s own perception of intolerable pain, were of infinitely less +importance to the physician than the presence of a focus of danger in the +patient’s appendix. A sustained objectivity was the only attitude of +mind in which a doctor could live at the same time happily and +efficiently. + +The only feature of the dissecting room that now seemed objectionable was +the smell of the powerful antiseptic that was used for preserving the +subjects. For a week or two Edwin was conscious of its pervading every +moment of his life, his train-journeys, his meal-times, even his sleep. +But in a little time his olfactory nerves became so used to it that they +discounted its presence, and the fact that his neighbours in railway +carriages did not seem to shrink from him, convinced him that after all +he did not go about the world saturated in odours of the charnel house. + +The winter term went on, and to the sense of hurry and frustration that +had embarrassed him at first and found its perfect expression in the +knitted brows of the monstrous Brown, succeeded an atmosphere of leisure +and method and ease. Edwin had time for other things than work. He +began to know the men of his year, and to discover that even the most +formidable of them weren’t half as formidable as they had seemed. +Harrop, indeed, was still a little remote. After the spaciousness of +Oriel, where he had devoted a couple of years to a liberal education in +which the acquisition of knowledge was of less importance than the +acquisition of style, North Bromwich, with its concentration on the +virtues rather than the graces of life and the very questionable +sartorial shapes that inhabited it, naturally seemed a little cheap; but +in a little time even Harrop became modified and humble if a little +contemptuous, and the most resplendent of his waistcoats retained no more +significance than the oriflamme of a lost cause. + +Brown was the more approachable of the two, and for Brown, Edwin soon +conceived something that was very nearly an affection. With his +impressive physique and his experience of a rough world in which Edwin +had never moved, was mingled a childlike enthusiasm for his new work, a +rich, blundering good humour, and great generosity. He was not clever, +and showed an intense admiration for better heads than his own; but for +all that he was much more intelligent than he looked, and to Edwin his +enthusiasm and earnestness were worth a good deal more than his +intellectual attainments. + +Once or twice, wandering into the Anatomical Museum, he had come upon +Brown standing rapt in front of a specimen dissection or quietly sweating +up bones with a Gray’s _Anatomy_ open before him, and he had sung out to +Edwin as if he were an old friend of his own age and they had put in an +hour of work together. “You know, you’re a lot quicker than I am,” said +Brown. “I suppose it comes of being decently educated. I expect that +when you were learning Latin and Greek I was knocking about the world +making a damn fool of myself.” Then they would light their pipes (the +dissecting room had made smoking necessary to Edwin) and Brown would yarn +on for half an hour about his romantic adventures, his bitter quarrels +with his people, the adventures that had befallen him in Paris when he +went there to play football for the Midlands, in all of which the +passionate, headstrong, obstinate and withal lovable nature of the big +fellow would appear. + +“I expect it all sounds to you like a rotten waste of time, mucking about +with my life like this,” he said. “But you know I’m not at all sorry +I’ve had it. . . . I didn’t take up this doctoring business in a hurry, +without thinking about it. I thrashed the matter out; and I came to the +conclusion that doctoring’s a good human sort of game: it’s a sort of +chance of pulling people out of the rotten messes of one kind or another +that they get themselves into—through no fault of their own, poor devils, +just because they’re made like you and me and the rest of us. If you go +on the bust, or knock about the country with a football team on tour, or +go on the tramp and sleep in a hedge or a barn or a Rowton House, as I +did when I had the last flare-up with the old man, you rub against a lot +of people. They’re all just the same as yourself, you know. You can see +yourself in the best of them as well as the worst; and, taking them all +round, they’re all damned good at the bottom. They’ve all got to fight +out their own way in life with their heads or their fists or their feet. +And the only chap that can really help them in it is a doctor. That’s +the conclusion I’ve come to. God! . . . you’ll scarcely believe it, but +once I was converted. I know it’s damn funny; but it’s a fact that when +I was a youngster and had been on the periodical bust a revivalist chap +got hold of me and persuaded me that I was saved. It’s a funny sort of +feeling, I can tell you. I thought I was going off my nut until I went +to see a doctor and he put my liver right. It’s a fine humane game, +Ingleby. You can take it from me. . . . But I can tell you, with one +thing and another, I’ve got my work cut out.” + +He shook his head seriously, and the puzzled, dogged expression of +frustrate determination that Edwin knew so well came into his eyes. +“We’re wasting time, my son,” he said. “Let’s get on with the blasted +humerus. Now, what is the origin of the Supinator Longus? Come on . . .” + +On one of these pleasant occasions he confided to Edwin the reason why he +had his work cut out. His father, a stern Calvinistic Methodist, had +finally washed his hands of him. “I’ve been a bit of a rolling stone, +you see,” said Brown, “and you can’t blame the poor old fellow. So he +just planked down six hundred and fifty pounds one day and told me that I +could do what I liked with it, but that was the last I should get from +him. It suited me down to the ground. I didn’t much care what became of +me then. It was a couple of years ago. So I had a royal bust . . . a +sort of glorious windup to the season . . . and then sat down to think. +I had just five hundred left, and so I had to think what the devil I was +going to do with it, and my prospects seemed so putridly rotten that the +only thing I could do was to go on the bust again. I didn’t enjoy it +much that time. Jaded palate, you know. . . . But I had a bit of luck. +I met a trainer fellow in the Leicester lounge with a couple of women, +and he put me on to a double for the Lincoln and National. I’ve no use +for horse-racing. If it was the owners that were racing there’d be a +vestige of sport in it; but it always seems to me a shame that decent, +clean creatures like horses should make a living for a lot of dirty +stiffs out of the ruin of working men and small shopkeepers. Still, I +dreamed about this double, and as I’m a weak superstitious sort of chap, +I put a tenner on it. That’s the first and the last bet I’ve ever had on +a horse. But the thing happened to come off; and last spring I found +myself with twelve hundred pounds instead of six-fifty. So I began to +think it out. I remembered that doctor fellow who cured me of being +converted, and I thought, ‘By Gad, I’ll be a doctor.’ A five year’s +course. Well, I’m not particularly brilliant at the top end, and so I +allowed six. Six into twelve goes twice. Two hundred a year for fees +and living and clothes—outsize—and recreation. You see, it’s pretty +tight. Come along and have some lunch at Joey’s.” + + +III + + +They went downstairs to the cloak-room where the porter was now a +familiar of Edwin’s. It had been decided that it would not be becoming +for a really modern university, like that of North Bromwich, to impose +the sight of such an anachronism as academic dress on the streets, a rule +that had been something of a disappointment to Edwin, and so they left +their gowns behind. Joey’s was an institution of some antiquity, +opposite to the Corinthian town-hall, with which Brown had been +acquainted in his unregenerate days. It was a long and noisy bar at +which, for the sum of fourpence, one consumed a quarter of the top of a +cottage loaf, a tangle of watercress, a hunk of Cheddar cheese, and a +tankard of beer. This combination of excellences was known as a “crust +and bitter,” and it was eaten standing at the counter. + +Edwin was gradually becoming a regular customer at this place; for +Martin’s delicate fancy for plovers on toast and other such refinements +had proved too expensive for him, and apart from their joint labours in +the dissecting-room, they were beginning to see less of each other—not +from any ill-will on the part of either, but simply because Martin’s +position in the house of the old lady in Alvaston, whose house was full +of animals, had introduced him to the social life of that elegant suburb +in which so perfect a carpet knight was bound to shine; and Martin’s +social engagements with encouraging matrons and innumerable eligible +daughters were becoming so pressing that his acquaintance with the black +heart of the city was gradually becoming more and more casual. For this +reason, apart from his natural inclination, Edwin was thrown into daily +contact with Brown and his partner Maskew. + +Maskew was a more typical product of the Midlands. His home, and all his +upbringing, had lain in one of the great black towns that cluster, like +swollen knots, upon the North Bromwich system of railways. He had never +lived in the country; he did not even know what country was, and his +distinctive if provincial urbanity showed itself in a hundred ways—in his +dress, that was a little too smart, in his speech, that was not quite +smart enough, in a certain lack of fresh air in his mental atmosphere. +His people were wealthy, and his tastes, without emulating the style of +Harrop, were expensive. He was handsome, and if his hair had been +shorter and not so mathematically correct he would have been handsomer. +Still, he was intensely interested in women, and a great retailer of +Rabelaisian stories. He wore buttoned boots and was very nearly a +first-class billiard player. + +A more unusual combination than his partnership with the abrupt and +unsubtle Brown it would have been difficult to imagine; but even in his +undoubted cleverness, his nature was complimentary, and Edwin found +himself happy in the society of both. In their company he became a +habitué of the Dousita Café; a subterranean privacy in which excellent +coffee was served in the most comfortable surroundings by young ladies +whose charms had already made something of a sensation in that decorous +city. Maskew, naturally, knew them all by their Christian names, and +treated them with a familiar badinage that impressed Edwin, mildly +ambitious but quite incapable of imitation, by the ease with which it was +performed. The cushioned seats and the mild stimulus of the coffee and +cigarettes would even rouse the massive Brown to a ponderous levity by +which the lady of their choice, a certain Miss Wheeler, whose uncle, +Maskew seriously confided to Edwin, was a bishop, was obviously +flattered. Edwin could understand any woman being attracted by Brown, or +rather, “W.G.” as the need of a distinction had by this time made his +familiar name. It also pleased him to see the way in which W.G. went red +in his bull neck on a certain occasion when Maskew had delicately +overstepped the limits of good taste in his conversation with Miss +Wheeler. But the niece of the bishop did not blush. . . . + +In the intervals between lectures they would congregate in their gowns in +a dismal chamber, at the very bottom of the cramped building that was +called the Common Room, drinking tea and eating squashed-fly biscuits. +This place was frequented not only by members of the Medical School but +by students of other faculties whom Edwin regarded with some contempt. +One afternoon on entering this room Edwin found W.G. holding forth with +some indignation before a notice that had been pinned on the board asking +for a list of freshmen who were anxious to play Rugby football during the +present season. So far, only five or six names had appeared: W.G.’s, +naturally enough, came first, for his prowess in the game was well known +in the North Bromwich district. + +“Isn’t it a damnable thing,” he said indignantly, “in a school of this +size to see a measly list like that?” + +“You can stick mine down,” said Edwin. + +“Well . . . as a matter of form, my son . . . though I don’t see what +good you’re likely to be to the club except to give it tone.” + +“I play soccer,” said Maskew. + +“You would,” said W.G. “Nice gentlemanly game.” + +“Rugger isn’t all beef,” put in Edwin. + +“No,” said W.G., “but the team wants weight. And this place is simply +thick with great, hefty, science men and brewers who’ve never known the +meaning of a healthy sweat in their lives. Upon my word, it sickens me. +Look at that chap.” + +He pointed to a corner in which a big fellow lay huddled up in a deep +basket chair. He had shoulders that would have appeared massive by the +side of any others but W.G.’s: a fair wide face marked with freckles, a +sandy moustache and crisp, curly red hair. “That’s the kind of swine +that ought to be working in the scrum.” + +Edwin looked, and as he did so, instinctively went pale. A curious +survival of the instinct of physical fear had shaken him. It was +ridiculous. “I know that chap,” he said in an off-hand way. “He’s no +good. I was at school with him. He’s got a weak heart. His name’s +Griffin.” + + + +CHAPTER III +CARNIVAL + + +I + + +CHRISTMAS came: an old-fashioned Christmas with hoar frost on the fields +and hard roads gleaming with splintered light reflected from a frosty +sky. In this raiment of frozen moisture even the black desert of Edwin’s +morning pilgrimage appeared fantastically beautiful. The vacation did +not suspend his work; for though no lectures were given, the dissecting +room was still open; and here, on icy mornings, when the asphalt floor +was as cold as the glass roof, he would freeze for an hour at a time +watching Brown and Maskew at work, Martin having been whisked off to +spend a baronial Christmas of scratch dances in Ireland. + +A few months in North Bromwich had made a great change in Edwin. He had +lost much of his old timidity, shaved twice a week, smoked the plug +tobacco to which Brown had introduced him, and was no longer shy with any +creature on earth of his own sex. With women it was different. . . . +Ease and familiarity with this baffling sex would come, no doubt, in +time; but for the present one or two desperate essays at conversation +with the elegant Miss Wheeler in the absence of his friends had been +failures. And Miss Wheeler was not the least approachable of her sex. +There were several women medical students in his year; but in their case +he had not felt the incentive to gallantry that the softer charms of Miss +Wheeler suggested. Even if they had not insulated themselves with +shapeless djibbehs of russet brown, and bunched back their hair in a +manner ruthlessly unfeminine, the common study of a subject so grossly +material as anatomy would have rubbed the bloom from any budding romance. + +In the Biological laboratory, however, he found a figure that exercised a +peculiar attraction on him. She was an American girl, a science student, +who with the severity of the medical women’s dress contrived to combine +an atmosphere of yielding femininity. She had a soft voice, for the +tones of which Edwin would listen, big grey-blue eyes, soft dark hair, +and very beautiful arms that her dark overalls displayed to perfection. +Edwin would have found it difficult to define the way in which she +attracted him: certainly he didn’t cherish any definite romantic ideas +about her; but he did find her in some subtle way disturbing, so that he +would be conscious of her presence when she came into the lab.; surprise +himself listening for her voice when she spoke to the professor, and find +that, without any definite volition, his eyes were watching her profile. +And one day when she passed him and her overall brushed his sleeve, he +found that he was blushing. Maskew, with his usual easy familiarity, was +already on joking terms with her, and would sometimes sit on the table +where she kept her microscope while they talked and laughed together; but +though Edwin had every chance of sharing in this intimacy, he couldn’t +bring himself to do so; and when, in the end, he was introduced to her +formally, he wished that he were dead, and could not speak a word for +awkwardness. + +With men, on the other hand, he was now quite at his ease, even, +strangely enough, with the once formidable Griffin. Since the day when +he had discovered his old enemy in the Common Room they had often spoken +to one another: they had even sat side by side in the deep basket chairs, +one of which was now Griffin’s habitual abode, and talked of the old days +at St. Luke’s, and sometimes, in the afternoon, they would share a pot of +tea. There was no awkwardness in their conversation, as Edwin had feared +there might be, for Griffin apparently took his expulsion as a matter of +course, and, on the whole, as rather a good joke. Of course Griffin had +changed. It was clear to Edwin from the first that in some way he had +shrunk—not indeed physically, for he was fatter than ever; but the air of +conscious and threatening physical superiority that Edwin had found so +oppressive in his school days had vanished. Moreover, he was now +prepared to accept Edwin as an equal, and make him the confidant of the +amorous adventures that now absorbed his time, adventures to which the +affair with the chambermaid at St. Luke’s had been the mildest possible +prelude. Compared with Griffin’s positive achievements, the daring of +Maskew’s relation with the young ladies of the Dousita seemed a trifle +thin. Griffin’s father, with a shrewd appreciation of his son’s peculiar +gifts, had entered him as a student at the school of brewing; and if once +he could overcome his natural indolence, there was no reason why, in the +future, he should not become a partner in the firm of his uncle, Sir +Joseph Astill, and control the destinies of a number of barmaids beyond +the dreams of concupiscence. On these prospects, Griffin, lounging in +his basket chair, brooded with a heavy satisfaction. + +“It’s a funny thing, isn’t it?” Edwin said one day, “that we should be +the only St. Luke’s men in this place.” + +“Oh, some are bound to turn up sooner or later,” said Griffin. “The +other day, when I was up in town, I ran against Widdup—you remember +Widdup—and he told me that his people thought of sending him here to take +up engineering.” + +“That would be rather good fun,” said Edwin. “And he’s cut out for it +too. He’s got that sort of head. I should rather like to see old +Widdup.” + +“Oh, he’ll roll up one of these days. Are you doing anything in +particular this afternoon? I have to stroll down to see the +stage-manager at the Gaiety . . . an awful good sport. Suppose we go +down the town and get a drink on the way . . .” + +In spite of the temptations of this adventure, Edwin declined. In the +dissecting room, half an hour later, Brown hailed him:— + +“What the devil were you doing with that pig of a brewer, Ingleby?” + +“He’s an old school friend of mine.” + +“Well, I should keep that dark, if I were you. He’s a bad hat, that +chap. We don’t want Ingleby’s virginal innocence corrupted, do we, +Maskew?” + +“Oh, he’s not a bad sort,” Edwin protested. + +“He’s a nasty fellow, and he’ll come to a rotten, sticky end,” said +Brown. “Now, what do you think of this small sciatic, you old roué, for +a tricky bit of dissection?” + +After all, Edwin reflected, old Brown knew something of the world. He +had to admit to himself that there was something obscene about Griffin. +It was difficult to explain, for Maskew, by his own account, was almost +equally worldly, and yet Maskew was undeniably a decent fellow while +Griffin undeniably wasn’t. He joined his friends at their work, and +could think about nothing else; for Maskew’s brains were as good as his +own, though of a different texture, and he had to be attentive to keep +pace with them. All through the vac. he worked at anatomy with these +two, sometimes in the icy dissecting room, sometimes over coffee at the +Dousita, sometimes in the cozy, diminutive diggings that Brown inhabited +in Easy Row, a street of Georgian houses at the back of the university +buildings and near the Prince’s Hospital. + +They were pleasant days. Edwin, in spite of his lightness, had now found +a place in the scrum of the second fifteen, and on Saturday evenings, +when both of them were drugged with their weekly debauch of exercise, he +and W.G. would meet at the diggings in Easy Row, and after a steaming hot +bath, in the process of which Edwin never failed to be impressed by the +immensity of his friend’s physique, they would set off down the town +together and make a tremendous meal at the Coliseum grill: Porterhouse +steak with chipped potatoes and huge silver tankards of bitter ale. Then +they would go on together to a theatre or a music hall, too pleasantly +dulled, too mildly elated to question the humour of the most second-rate +comedian. After the show W.G. would walk down to the station with Edwin, +and see him off into the last train for Halesby, and Edwin, leaning out +of the carriage window, would see the big man turn and go clumsily along +the platform with the gait that he had noticed on the very first day of +his life as a medical student. Brown was a wonderful fellow. In half an +hour, Edwin reflected, when his train was still puffing away through the +dark, W.G. would be back in his diggings with a clay pipe stuck in his +mouth and a huge text-book of Anatomy open on his knees, driving facts +into that puzzled brain with the violent thoroughness of an engine that +drives piles. + +When the last train arrived at Halesby, the town would be in darkness, +for, in the black country in those days the only places of amusement were +the public houses and these had been shut for an hour or more. Only from +the upper windows of innumerable mean dwellings lights would be seen, and +sometimes the voice of a drunken husband heard grumbling. But the path +beside the fish-ponds was beautiful, even on a winter night, and Edwin +would feel glad as he plodded along it that he didn’t live in North +Bromwich, where the night noises of the country were never heard. So he +would pass quietly up the empty lane, his footsteps echoing on the hard +pavement, and come at last to the little house set in the midst of +shrubberies that smelt of winter. Very humble and quiet, and even +pitiable it seemed after the glaring streets of the city that he had left +behind. + +It was an understood thing that on Saturdays, when he had been playing +football, Edwin should return by the last train; and so his father did +not sit up for him on these occasions. The matter had been settled at +the cost of some awkwardness. On the first two or three Saturdays of the +football season Edwin had come home late, to find Mr. Ingleby growing +cold over the embers of a fire in the dining-room, sleepy but intensely +serious, and his tired eyes had examined Edwin so closely that he felt +embarrassed, being certain that his face must bear signs of a number of +enormities that he had never dreamed of committing. It was the same, +unreasonable feeling of guilt that he had experienced at St. Luke’s in +the middle of Mr. Leeming’s pitched battle for purity, and the sensation +was so strong that he felt it useless to try and hide it. + +“Why do you look at me like that, father?” he said. The quietude and +humility of the little room seem to him as full of accusation as his +father’s face. + +“What do you mean, boy?” + +“I think you know what I mean. . . . There’s really no need for you to +wait up for me like this.” + +“I like to lock the house up,” his father replied, with a quietness that +made Edwin’s voice sound rowdy and violent. “I have always done so. +After all, it’s usual.” + +“You are anxious about me. Why should you be more anxious about me when +I come in at twelve than when I come in at six?” + +“I know you’re passing a critical period, Eddie. . . I’m not +unsympathetic. I’ve been through it myself. And naturally I’m anxious +for you. I know that a town is full of temptations for a boy of your +age. I don’t know what your friends are like. I don’t know what sort of +influences you’re coming in contact with—” + +“But I don’t see why that should make you want to sit up for me. Really, +I don’t. What good does it do?” + +“I like to see you when you come in.” Edwin was uncomfortably aware of +this. + +“But suppose I was drunk when I came in, father—” he said. + +“I don’t suppose anything of the sort—” + +“No, but supposing I was. What advantage would there be in your seeing +me? What good would it do?” + +“At any rate I should know that there was a danger.” + +“Well, if that’s all the trouble, we can soon get over it. I promise +you, that I’ll tell you the very first time that I am in the least drunk. +Then you needn’t worry about waiting for it. I suppose it’s bound to +happen some day.” + +“I sincerely hope it isn’t, Eddie. It isn’t pleasant to me to hear you +talk like that.” + +“No. . . . I suppose it would be pleasanter if we pretended that nothing +of the kind ever happened. But it wouldn’t be honest, would it? I +should think it’s the duty of every one to be drunk some time or other, +if it’s only to see what it feels like. Surely, father, _you_—” + +“Edwin, Edwin. . . . Really we mustn’t be personal. You forget that I’m +your father.” + +“But I don’t, father. I thought we were going to be such tremendous +pals, and honestly there isn’t much to be pals on if you aren’t ever +personal. We ought to talk about everything. We oughtn’t to hide +anything. I don’t see much fun in it if I have to do all the telling and +you don’t give anything in return. It isn’t fair.” + +“But, my dear boy,” said Mr. Ingleby, with a nervous laugh, “you seem to +neglect the fundamental fact that I’m your father.” + +“I don’t see why that should prevent us being honest. I don’t see why it +should prevent you from trusting me—” + +“I do trust you, Eddie.” + +“Then that’s all right; so you needn’t wait up for me again.” + +Thus the matter was settled, at any rate on the surface, though Edwin was +always conscious on the morning after his late arrivals of an anxious +scrutiny on his father’s part. + +“He doesn’t really trust me,” he thought, and this conviction made him +more anxious than ever to be really intimate with his father, to make him +share, as much as possible, the life that he was living in North +Bromwich. It made him talk deliberately of the men who were his friends, +and the work that he was doing, explaining with the greatest freedom the +domestic difficulties of W.G., and the worldly accomplishments of Maskew: +and this frankness gave him confidence until he discovered that such +revelations only ended by arousing his father’s suspicions. In Mr. +Ingleby’s mind it was evident that the sterling qualities of W.G., as +recited by Edwin, were of less importance than his potentialities as an +agent in Edwin’s corruption. “If I’d only given him one side of W.G.,” +thought Edwin, “he’d have been quite happy. If we’re going to be happy, +it would be much better for me to tell him nothing that his imagination +can work on.” + +He found himself travelling round the old vicious circle that appeared to +be the inevitable result of being honest with himself. There must, after +all, be something in the fundamental fact that Mr. Ingleby was his +father. Ridiculous though it might seem, the ideal relation between +father and son was evidently impossible. “Well,” he said with a sigh, +“it isn’t my fault. I’ve done my best.” + +The whole artificiality of their relation only dawned on him when he +mentioned to his father one evening that he had met Griffin and told him +that his old enemy turned out to be a nephew of Sir Joseph Astill. “I’m +glad to hear of it,” said Mr. Ingleby. “I hope you’ll continue to be +friends. Sir Joseph Astill is a very distinguished man.” Edwin didn’t +see what that had to do with it; but he resisted the temptation of +telling his father that Griffin was a distinctly bad egg, and that in +comparison with him W.G., with his herculean passions, was indeed a +paragon of knightly virtues. If it pleased his father to invest Griffin +with his uncle’s reflected glory, why shouldn’t he do so? And Edwin held +his tongue. + +In the end the atmosphere of veiled anxiety that awaited him at home +became definitely irksome, and since the most absolute candour on his +part would not mend matters, he found himself gradually avoiding his +father’s company. It was the last thing in the world that he wanted to +do; but it seemed inevitable; and as the months passed, he gave up all +hopes of the sort of intimacy that he had desired, and relapsed into the +solitude of his own room, or even, as a last resort, the company of Aunt +Laura, who was at least unsuspicious. + +Another thing attracted him to her house. All the days of his childhood +at home had been full of music, for his mother had been a capable +pianist, and he had spent long hours stretched out on the hearthrug in +the drawing-room listening to her while she played Bach and Beethoven and +occasionally Mendelssohn on the piano. At St. Luke’s, too, without any +definite musical education, he had felt a little of the inspiration that +Dr. Downton infused into the chapel services. Since he had returned to +Halesby all these pleasures had left him; for Mr. Ingleby was not in the +least musical, and the piano that had been closed a few days before his +mother’s death, had never been reopened. At this period he had not +realised the musical possibilities of North Bromwich, and in Aunt Laura’s +house he recaptured a little of this stifled interest. + +She was really an accomplished musician, and though the kind of music +that she affected was becoming limited by the very character of her life +as the wife of an undistinguished manufacturer of small hardware in a +small black-country town, the taste, which had originally been formed in +Germany, existed and was easily encouraged by Edwin’s admiration of her +attainments. Here, usually on Sundays, when in addition to the +attraction of music her admirable cooking was to be appreciated, Edwin +passed many happy hours. She sang well, and could accompany herself with +something of a natural genius, and though the songs that she sang were +often enough the sugary ballads of the period that had witnessed her +musical extinction, Edwin found them satisfying to his starved sense of +music, and would even persuade her, on occasion, to play the pieces of +Chopin, Beethoven, and Bach with which his mother had made him familiar. + +Nothing aroused in him an acute remembrance of those ancient happy days +more easily than music. He wished, above all things, that he might some +day be able to taste these joys for himself; and so he persuaded his aunt +to teach him the notes on the piano, and having an inherited aptitude, he +soon found that he could pick his way through simple compositions, +preferably in the open key, that he found among his mother’s music at +home. Mr. Ingleby, who had no ear, appeared to be unmoved by these +painful experiments; and to Edwin, the long winter evenings were made +magical by their indulgence. He would sit at the piano in the +drawing-room for hours at a time, and here, in a strange way, he found +himself curiously in touch with the vanishing memory of his mother. At +times this feeling was so acute that he could almost have imagined that +she was there in the room beside him, and sometimes he would sit still at +the piano in long intervals of silence, just drinking in this peculiar +and soothing atmosphere. Eventually these diversions made Mr. Ingleby +uneasy. + +“You spend a good deal of time at the piano, Edwin,” he said. “I do hope +you are not letting it interfere with your work.” + +Edwin said nothing; but from that time onward it seemed to him that even +this, the most harmless of his amusements, had become a matter for +grudging and suspicion. At first he only felt indignation and anger; but +later he realised that this, along with his father’s other anxieties, +probably had its origin in financial considerations. The cost of his +education in North Bromwich was a big thing for a country chemist to +face. If once he failed, the whole of his early effort might be wasted. +But then, he was not going to fail. + + +II + + +The terminal examinations at Christmas had made him sure of this. They +showed him that in his own year he and Maskew were in a class by +themselves; and though Maskew beat him easily in all the subjects of the +examination, it satisfied him a little to think that Maskew had probably +put in a good deal more work than he had, particularly in anatomy, where +he had the advantage of working in partnership with W.G., for whom the +subject of medical education was of the most deadly seriousness. + +Early in the Lent term Edwin found himself introduced to a new stratum of +North Bromwich society, through the accident of his acquaintance with +Griffin. The new university had inherited from the old college of +science and the still older medical school, the tradition of a pantomime +night, a visit _en masse_ to one of the North Bromwich theatres, where +this elevating art-form flourished for three months out of the twelve. +The evening was one of fancy dress, rowdiness, and general licence, in +which the stage suffered as much as the auditorium, and the unfortunate +players were propitiated for the ruin of their performance by a series of +presentations. + +Arrangements for this function were always made with a high seriousness. +The committee was composed of representatives from each year in the +school of medicine and from each of the other faculties. In this affair, +as in all matters of sport or communal life, the older foundation of the +medical school took the most prominent part; but the prestige of Griffin +as the nephew of the Vice-Chancellor and an acknowledged expert on all +matters theatrical, had induced the brewers to run him for the +secretaryship; and since the secretary was the official on whom the bulk +of the work fell, and no one was particularly anxious to take on the job, +Griffin, in his first year, had been elected to the post. + +There was no denying the fact that it suited him. To begin with, he was +already on intimate terms with every theatre manager and stage-doorkeeper +in North Bromwich, and was used to dealing with the susceptibilities of +theatrical people. Again, he had plenty of money, a circumstance that +would help him in the preliminaries, which were expensively conducted in +the local Bodega and other bars and restaurants. Also, it gave Griffin +something to do; for the life of the student in brewing was of the +leisurely and somnolent character that one would naturally associate with +malt liquors, and most of his time had previously been spent sprawling in +a deep basket chair in the Common Room, playing an occasional languid +game of poker, or jingling sovereigns in his pocket while he waited for +the results of racing in the evening papers. + +At the annual meeting, which Edwin had not been sufficiently interested +to attend, there had been the usual difficulty in selecting a member from +the unknown quantities of the first year, and Griffin, full of resource, +had suggested Edwin, who was straightway elected, and summoned to attend +the deliberations that followed. His election caused a good deal of +amusement to his friends, and particularly Martin, who preserved an +aristocratic contempt for this vulgar theatrical business, and W.G., who +prophesied Edwin’s conversion into a thorough-going blood; but it +introduced him to a new and bewildering society in which he met a number +of men of his own faculty who had already become impressive at a +distance. + +Such were the brothers Wade, the elder unapproachable in his final year, +the younger of an elegance surpassing that of Harrop. Such was Freddie +St. Aubyn, a slight and immaculate figure with fair hair and moustache, +and the most carefully cultivated reputation for elegant dissipation in +North Bromwich. This Byronic person had already suffered the pangs of a +long intrigue with the _première danseuse_ in a musical comedy company, +on whom he was reputed to have spent money and passion lavishly but +without the least suggestion of grossness. + +In addition to this he was a poet: that is to say, he had published two +volumes of verse that were so eclectic as to be out of print. At the +present time he had stuck midway in his medical career pending the issue +of his unhappy passion; and presented the unusual spectacle of a +“chronic,” not by force of incompetence, but by choice. In point of +fact, he was an unconscious survival from the nineties, and the lady of +his choice resembled a creation of Beardsley more than any type commonly +known to nature. Edwin was impressed, for the writer of the exhausted +_Poems of Passion_ was the first poet that he had met in the flesh. +Naturally, St. Aubyn’s attitude towards the first-year man was a little +patronising; but Edwin found his mixture of cynicism and melancholy +enchanting, and was particularly impressed when Freddie, languidly +supporting his sorrows in one of the Common Room easy-chairs, offered him +a fill from his pipe. + +“Oh, by the way, there’s opium in it,” he said casually. + +Visions of Coleridge and de Quincey invaded Edwin’s mind. He stopped +filling his pipe. + +“Opium? Why on earth do you put opium in it?” + +“It is an aid to the imagination,” said Freddie, “and it deadens pain.” + +“Mental pain,” he added significantly, after a pause. “For that alcohol +is useless. I’ve tried it.” + +“I think I’ll have some of my own, if you don’t mind,” said Edwin. + +“I quite agree with you. It would be much wiser,” said St. Aubyn. +“Luckily you have no need for it. _Facilis descensus Averni_.” + +From that day forward Edwin was always eagerly searching the face and the +pupils of Freddie for any symptoms of opium poisoning. He never found +any; and W.G., to whom he confided this thrilling incident, assured him +that there was nothing in it, that Freddie had probably never smoked +opium in his life, and that the whole thing was nothing more than one of +the poses that this gentleman adopted for shocking the youthful and +bourgeois. The impressive Freddie, according to W.G., was a damned +anæmic waster. If only it had not been for the exhausted _Poems of +Passion_, Edwin might have agreed with him. + +The solemn meetings of the panto-night committee engaged Edwin three +afternoons a week. As a congregation of amazing bloods they were +enthralling but as business gatherings they were more remarkable still. +They were held in the saloon bar of a modern public house, all palatial +mahogany, red plush and plate-glass, called the White Horse; and the +principal business of the day was the consumption of hot whisky with +sugar and slices of lemon in it, during which Griffin, armed with a +conspicuous note-book, reported on his activities, which appeared mainly +to be social. + +“On Thursday,” he would say, “I took Mary Loraine to lunch at the Grand +Midland, and she said . . .” or “I saw Tommy Fane in his dressing-room +the other night, and he said: ‘Look here, old boy. . . ’” Apparently all +Griffin’s theatrical friends called him “old boy.” The effect of these +narrations on Griffin would be so exhausting that he found it necessary +to order more whisky all round. The manager himself would bring it in; a +brilliant gentleman named Juniper with red baggy cheeks the laxness of +which was compensated by a waxed moustache that stuck out on either side +as if a skewer had transfixed them. To Griffin this magnificent creature +was most decorous; for the White Horse was one of Astill’s houses, and +Griffin had taken the trouble to inform him that the great Sir Joseph was +his uncle. In spite of, rather than as a result of these meetings, the +panto-night arranged itself. The date was fixed, the bouquets and +presents purchased, the announcements in the papers that warned any +patrons of pantomime that on this particular night they could not hope to +see a normal performance, inserted. Griffin, in the Common Room, became +a centre of feverish importance, and even Edwin, in spite of the +superciliousness of Martin, and the rough chaff of W.G., caught a little +of the reflected glamour. + +Edwin now had to face the ordeal of announcing the approach of +panto-night to his father. If he were to see the thing through, as was +his duty as a member of the committee, it would be quite impossible for +him to catch the last train to Halesby, which left North Bromwich at +nine-thirty, except on Thursday and Saturday night. Mr. Ingleby, +hearing, saw the pit gaping beneath Edwin’s feet. “You didn’t mention +this to me before. . . . I suppose you have had to spend quite a lot of +time at these committee meetings? I think it was rather unwise of you to +undertake it in your first year. . . . There’s only four months before +your examination.” + +“Oh, I think the exam. will be all right,” said Edwin airily. + +“I don’t like to hear you speak like that, Edwin,” said his father. +“Over-confidence is a dangerous thing.” + +“But it wouldn’t be any better pretending that I didn’t think it was all +right, surely?” + +“Well, humility is a great virtue.” + +“Not any greater than honesty.” + +“It’s all very well to talk about honesty; but it would have been more +honest, wouldn’t it, if you’d told me that”—he hesitated—“this was going +on?” + +“There you are. . . . That’s the whole point. If I told you everything +you wouldn’t sleep for imagining things that hadn’t happened. It’s the +thing that’s worried me ever since I was at school. If you’re absolutely +honest with other people, life simply isn’t worth living, because they +don’t understand it. It isn’t done. I’ve come to the conclusion, +father, that the only thing that really matters is to be honest with +yourself.” + +“If you can trust yourself—” + +“Well, I think I can. . . . And I wish you’d believe in it.” + +“I do, Edwin. Only naturally I’m anxious. You’re a child. Where is +this . . . this performance held?” + +“At the Queen’s Theatre this year.” + +“Well, I suppose that is better than a music hall.” + +His father’s prejudice against the music halls, or, as they were then +beginning to be called, Theatres of Varieties, was an old story. Edwin +could hardly resist the temptation of telling him that the performers in +the pantomime were nearly all music-hall artistes, but Mr. Ingleby saved +him, by asking him where he intended to sleep. + +“Oh, I expect W.G. will give me a shake-down in his digs.” + +“I suppose,” said Mr. Ingleby, with a shade of anxiety, “that Brown is +also on the committee—”. + +The idea of the honest W.G. as a member of this constellation of bloods +tickled Edwin. He now wished to goodness he’d never told his father of +W.G.’s family differences and of his lucky double on the Lincoln and +National. + +“Oh, no, old W.G.’s far too sober for this sort of thing.” + +It was an unfortunate word. + +“Sober?” repeated Mr. Ingleby. “Well, I suppose you will have to go; but +I do hope—” + +He didn’t say what he hoped; but Edwin knew, and was content to leave it +at that. + + +III + + +The great day came, and Edwin found, as some compensation for the +scoffing of W.G. and the superciliousness of Martin and Maskew, that his +position was really one of some importance. All the first-year men, even +the immaculate Harrop, had decided to go to the theatre, and up to the +last minute Edwin was busy selling tickets. He had asked W.G. to put him +up, and W.G., as a matter of form, had consented. “I don’t suppose I +shall see you after midnight, my son,” he said. With his usual +thoroughness in everything that he attempted, W.G. had determined to make +a night of it. “It will do me good to make a damned fool of myself for +once in a way,” he said, “if it’s only for the sake of realising it +afterwards . . .” + +They put in a hard afternoon’s work together first, and then he and Edwin +and Maskew went together to W.G.’s rooms to change. They were all rather +excited, and W.G. carried a bottle of whisky in each of his coat pockets, +the first of which was broached as an aperitif while they were changing. +In less than an hour they emerged, W.G. attired as nearly as convention +would allow him, in the manner of his woaded ancestry: a splendid caveman +with lowering black brows and hairy arms like those of a gorilla, a +disguise that only called for a little accentuation of his natural +characteristics to be made effective; Maskew, again in character, as a +Restoration cavalier; and Edwin in the modest guise of Pierrot. In the +foyer of the theatre they met Martin, who had driven down in a hansom +from Alvaston clothed in six feet of baby linen, with a feeding bottle +round his neck. The stalls were already full of a carnival crowd of +students, and the rest of the house was crowded with spectators who had +come to enjoy the rag, and other unfortunate people who had entered in +ignorance of the festival and the fact that their form of entertainment +was to be changed for one night only. + +There, among the crowd, Edwin found Griffin, a fleshy and unsubtle +Mephistopheles, the Mephistopheles of Gounod, not of Goethe, and Freddie +St. Aubyn, romantically pale in a wig of black curls that he had procured +for his presentation of Byron. Freddie, in the interests of +verisimilitude, had even shaved his moustache. + +Only the earlier part of the performance remained in Edwin’s memory. The +rest of it was no more to him than a brilliant haze, from which single +moments of wild picturesqueness detached themselves: as when he had a +vision of a prehistoric man armed with a waving whisky bottle for a club +and feebly restrained by a flushed cavalier, flown with insolence and +wine, storming his way through the surging crowd in front of the stalls +bar and planting his feet upon the counter; or of the same barbarian, +gently armed by a tactful manager in evening dress, putting his weapon to +the usages of peace and friendliness by uncorking it and offering its +contents to a firm but good-humoured policeman. + +“What a splendid fellow W.G. is,” Edwin thought to himself. “Splendid . . . +splendid . . . magnificent.” And while he was thinking this, a +sombre poet with shining eyes drew him aside and confessed to him, almost +with tears, that all this brilliance and colour and life meant nothing to +him compared with the memory of the Beardsley lady, whose ankles were so +thin that they might be spanned with his little finger. “As light as a +feather,” said the poet, “gossamer . . . swansdown . . . all soul. Of +course, old fellow, I know that you can understand. I shouldn’t talk +like this to any other person in the world.” + +And Edwin understood, and realised the justice of the poet’s choice of a +confidant so sympathetically that he was spurred to confidences on his +own part. “You see, I happen to be a poet myself,” he said, and to prove +it he felt bound to recite a sonnet that he had composed a year or two +before at St. Luke’s. A magnificent sonnet it seemed to him, perhaps +more magnificent for the accompaniment of a song in waltz rhythm by the +theatre orchestra. It was flattering to find that Byron agreed with him +as to its excellence; but while the poet was pressing his hand in +congratulatory brotherhood, and Edwin was just deciding to recite it all +over again, the sinister figure of Mephistopheles appeared and parted +them, telling him that Miss Marie Loraine was now singing the last verse +of her song and that in two minutes it would be his duty to present her +with a bouquet and a pair of silver hair-brushes. Still reciting the +most telling lines of his sonnet, he was conducted by Mephistopheles +through the manager’s office, where a young lady who, in her inviting +softness, resembled Miss Wheeler, was counting the counter-foils of +tickets, and through a subterranean passage with the welcome chill of a +catacomb, to the wings of the theatre, where a florid bouquet was thrust +into his hands. + +It struck Edwin that the scent of the flowers was of a suffocating +heaviness, until he realised that the overpowering perfume of which he +was aware proceeded not from the bouquet but from the scents and powders +of a bevy of creatures of unnatural loveliness who stood waiting in the +wings. They were the ladies of the chorus, and the nature of their +costume would have given them an excuse for shivering; but they did not +appear to be conscious of the heat that throbbed in Edwin’s brain. The +scent and the proximity of such a huge expanse of naked flesh excited +him. At this moment all his awkwardness seemed to have vanished. He +could not believe that he was the same person who had blushed at the mere +contact of the American girl’s overall, or sat speechless in the presence +of Miss Wheeler at the Dousita. His old modesty seemed to him to have +been a ridiculous and inexcusable folly; for, at the moment, he would +have welcomed the prospect of making the most shameless advances to any +one of these houris in competition with any man of his acquaintance. +With the air of a Sultan he surveyed them, deciding to which of those +blossoms the handkerchief should be thrown. + +“Now get along with you,” said the stage-manager, pushing him forward. + +He gripped the presents in his hands, and treading on air, advanced on to +the stage, where Miss Marie Loraine was kissing her hands to the stalls. +The stage was very big, and sloped in such a way that he felt his feet +impelled towards the footlights; but, being determined that he would +accomplish his mission with dignity, Edwin steered a steady, if +resilient, course. In front of him he saw a creature before whose +elegance and beauty the beauty of the chorus was as nothing. She stood +waiting for him and smiled. For a moment Edwin faced the auditorium, a +vast and dark abyss in which not a single face was to be seen. It gave +him a sudden fright to think that so many thousands of unseen eyes were +fixed upon the patch of limelight in which he stood. He pulled himself +together. This was the moment, he thought, in which it was for him to +make some speech worthy of the bewildering loveliness that stood before +him. + +“Go on,” said the impatient voice of Mephistopheles in the wings. “Buck +up.” + +“Miss Loraine,” said Edwin, with a flourish, “I have the honour of—” The +middle of his sentence was broken by a crash and a tremendous peal of +laughter from the unseen thousands. The younger Wade, arrayed in the +panoply of a Roman legionary and balanced upon the parapet of the stage +box, had fallen with a clash of armour into the big drum. Edwin thrust +the bouquet and the hair-brushes into the arms of Miss Loraine, herself +convulsed with laughter. With a terrific draught the curtain swept down. + +“Splendid,” said the voice of Mephistopheles. + +The rest of the evening was more confused than ever. He remembered a +vision of this surpassing beauty standing in the wings in a long silk +wrapper that her dresser had thrown over her shoulders, and thanking him +for his presentation. To Edwin the moment seemed the beginning of a +passionate romance. He remembered other moments in the auditorium, in +which W.G. and Maskew figured. He remembered the taste of a glass of +Benedictine, a liqueur that he had never tasted before, that Maskew gave +him to pull him together again after his exertions on the stage. He +remembered a flashing of lights, an uproar, a free-fight, and the singing +of “God Save the Queen.” And then he found himself a member of a small +but distinguished brotherhood streaming at a tremendous rate up the wide +street that led towards the Prince’s Hospital. All of them were +medicals, and most of them his seniors. Freddie St. Aubyn, the Wade +brothers, W.G., and Maskew were among them. Out of the main road they +passed singing into the meaner streets that surrounded the hospital: +miserable streets with low houses and courts clustered on either side, +from the upper windows of which astonished working men and women in their +nightdresses put out their heads to look at the vocal procession. +Opposite the portico of the hospital was a cab rank on which a solitary +hansom was standing with the horse asleep in the shafts and the driver +taking his rest inside. The sight appeared to arouse the fighting +instincts of the elder Wade. + +“Good God,” he said, with indignation, “here’s a cab. What the hell does +the fellow think he’s doing here at this time of night? He must be +drunk. Look at it!” + +His brother, who could carry his liquor better, tried to persuade him to +leave the cab alone; but before any one knew what was happening, he had +thrown himself on it and turned the whole affair upside down in the road. +Edwin heard a crash of splintered glass; he saw the cab on its side and +the sleepy horse with its legs in the air. He thought: “Good God! What +has happened?” And the next thing he saw was a red-faced cabman, +buttoned up to his ears, crawling out of the wreckage and cursing +fluently at Wade, who stared for a moment, dazed, at the havoc his +strength had created, and then bolted for the shelter of the hospital. +The cabman, now thoroughly awakened, bolted after him. Edwin glowed with +admiration for Wade’s achievement. It was the deed of a Titan, a +splendid Berserker. The cabby had burst through the concourse on the +hospital steps, thirsting for the blood of Wade, who, by this time, was +lying quietly on a hooded stretcher swatched in bandages and quite +unrecognisable. A house surgeon in a white overall confronted the +cabman. The hospital porters in uniform stood solemnly at his elbow. +The house surgeon was assuring the cabby that he was drunk: the cabby +telling the lot of them exactly what he thought of them. + +“Take hold of this fellow,” said the house surgeon to the porters, “and +hold him while I get a stomach pump.” The porters, specially qualified +for dealing with midnight drunks, obeyed. There was a splendid struggle +in which the foaming cabby was pitched out into the road, —ing their —ing +eyes to Hell. The bandaged Wade was carried solemnly upstairs on his +stretcher and brought round with whisky in the house surgeon’s room, a +chamber full of Olympian card-players, pickled with cigar-smoke and the +fumes of alcohol. Some one, it was the cavalier, began to play the +piano. Edwin seized the opportunity to recite his sonnet, until W.G. +laid a monstrous hand on his mouth. + +That vision ended, and to it succeeded one of cool, deserted streets with +far too many kerb-stones for Edwin’s liking, and then the dishevelled +sitting-room in W.G.’s digs in which they had dressed with a pale gas-jet +hissing and flaring and a momentary impression of W.G. asking him where +he’d put the damned corkscrew. Edwin remembered rising to a brilliant +extreme of wit. “Am I your corkscrew’s keeper?” he said; and while he +was explaining at length the aptness of his mot W.G. knocked the neck off +the bottle with his poker, eclipsing any possible verbal brilliance. + +In the middle of the night Edwin woke and staggered in the dark to the +washhand-stand, where he drank a draught of water, so cool and sweet as +to be astonishing, until he remembered that it had possibly come from the +mountains beyond Felindre. W.G. was snoring heavily on the bed that he +had just left. W.G.’s snoring got on his nerves so that he had to prod +him in the ribs and wake him, a proceeding that W.G. seemed unjustly to +resent. + +“I say, W.G.,” he said, “do you think I was drunk?” + +“Drunk?” said W.G. “Good God, you didn’t wake me to ask me that? You’ll +know all right in the morning.” + +Edwin only knew that his head was splitting and that he was hellishly +cold. + + + +CHAPTER IV +SCIENCE + + +I + + +W.G.’s prophecy that Edwin would know all about it in the morning proved +correct; but it was some consolation to him to know that he shared the +experience with his friends. All the next day he went about his work +with Maskew feeling a little light-headed, and a peculiar weakness in the +legs made him disinclined for any exertion that could be avoided. Maskew +recovered himself more easily; but W.G., who never did anything by +halves, solemnly embarked on a “bust” that lasted for a whole week. + +This defection disgusted Maskew, who, in his hard, capable way, believed +in moderation in all things—even in vice. He considered W.G.’s conduct +“a bit thick”; principally because he was deprived of his company in the +dissecting room; but to Edwin the big man’s debauch seemed in some ways +heroic and in keeping with his titanic physical nature: a spectacle +rather for awe than for reproof. It was even impressive to see W.G. +returning like a giant refreshed with vice, throwing his huge energies +into the pursuits that he had abandoned as readily as he had lately +squandered them in an atmosphere of patchouli. In this line Edwin would +have found it constitutionally impossible to compete with W.G., but, for +all that, he could not deny that he felt better, more confident, and more +complete for the pantomime experience. It even flattered him to find +himself regarded as something of a blood by the humbler members of his +year who had witnessed his adventure on the Queen’s Theatre stage, though +he could not conceal from himself the fact that Martin, more absorbed +than ever in blameless but exacting relations with the eligible young +ladies of Alvaston, was a little supercilious as to his attainments. + +With the approach of the summer and the first examination he found little +time for anything but work. The preparation for the exam. was so much of +a scramble that he had no time to realise the imaginative significance of +the subjects in which he was engaged. He did not guess that the little +fat professor of Physics who lectured so drily on the elements of his +science was actually employing his leisure in the tremendous adventure of +weighing the terrestrial globe, or that certain slender aerials stretched +like the web of a spider from a mast at the top of the university +buildings were actually receiving the first lispings of wireless +telegraphy, an achievement to which that bearded dreamer, the Principal, +had devoted twenty years of his life. + +To Edwin there was nothing intrinsically romantic in Chemistry or +Physics. His mind could not conceive that science was a minute and +infinitely laborious conquest of the properties of matter. Atoms and +Molecules and the newly-dreamed Electrons, still trembling in the realms +of imponderable speculation, were no more to him than abstractions +unrelated to the needs of practical human life. They were only facts to +be learned by rote, symbols to be memorised and grouped together on paper +like the letters in an algebraic calculation; and the whole of this +potentially romantic experience was clouded by his own headachy distaste +for the gaseous smells of the laboratory: the choking yellow fumes of +chlorine that escaped from the glass cupboards in which it was +manufactured, and the less tolerable, if more human, odour of +Sulphuretted Hydrogen, in an air that was desiccated by the blue flames +of half a hundred Bunsen burners. These two subjects were nothing more +than an arid desert of facts relating to dead matter through which he had +to fight his way, and he hated them. + +In comparison with them, Biology was something of an oasis. Here, at any +rate, he had to deal with life, a mystery more obvious and less academic. +The contemplation of its lower forms, such as the Amoeba, a tiny speck of +dreamy protoplasm stretching out its languid tentacles, living its remote +and curiously detached life with no aims beyond that of bare mysterious +existence, filled him with a strange awe. The laboratory in which these +researches were conducted, was high and airy and not associated with any +unpleasant smells except at the season when the class were engaged upon +the dissection of the hideous dog-fish. It had even its aspects of +beauty in the person of the fair American in her dark overall; and for +this reason, if for no other, Edwin found himself becoming most +proficient in his knowledge of the subject. + +In the middle of the summer the examination came. Maskew was an easy +first, and carried off the Queen’s scholarship for the year; Edwin came +second with a first-class, which, even if it didn’t satisfy himself, was +enough to make his father enthusiastic; Martin ambled through with an +ease that challenged Edwin’s respect, and W.G., horribly intense and +determined through all the week of the exam., scraped through by virtue +of sheer bulldog tenacity. The result of the examination did Edwin good +if only by convincing him that Maskew, for all his suburban flashiness +and his inferior general education, had a better head than his own. Like +the excellent man of business that he was, Maskew did not rest upon his +oars: the week after the examination, and the first of the long vacation, +found him and W.G. back in the dissecting room, plugging into anatomy, +the next year’s principal subject, and Edwin saw at once that if he were +to keep pace with his rival he would have to forgo the months of summery +leisure to which he had looked forward in the vacation. Martin was +playing tennis in Ireland, and so he found himself thrown once more into +the society of these two. + +It was a pleasant time, for their leisure was their own and there were no +lectures to tie them to their work. They did a great deal of their +reading in W.G.’s rooms, full of easy-chairs, and wreathed in tobacco +smoke that escaped through a French window into a tiny garden plot green +and pleasant under the white Midland sky, and this room became a haven of +escape from the burning brick pavements in which Edwin and his friends +would work together without strain, talking of the future and of W.G.’s +romantic past, and stabilising their own ideas on the uncertainties of +sex: a problem that so far had meant very little to Edwin, but which W.G. +was not in a position to ignore. + +“You know, it’s damned funny,” he said, “but when you get to know more +about things, when you’ve done some anatomy and that, you begin to think +of sex in a different light. It knocks all the mystery out of it, and +I’m sure that’s a jolly sound thing. Good Lord, when I think of the +ignorance with which I started on this sort of thing! Finding out +everything by experiment, you know. . . . Why, if I’d had a short course +of anatomy before I left school I should have been saved a lot of rotten +experiments that didn’t do me or any one else any good. I’d have been a +damned sight cleaner-minded than I ever was. A medical training’s a +jolly good thing in that way: shows you exactly where you are instead of +letting you go fumbling about in the dark.” + +“Knocks all the poetry out of it though,” said Maskew. + +“Poetry be damned,” said W.G. seriously, “there’s a good deal too much of +your poetry about it. Poetry and mystery and a lot of bunkum like that . . . +Male and female created He them. I don’t particularly admire the +method. I think He made rather a better job of the amoeba. Think how +much simpler it would be to split open a chunk of protoplasm instead of +having to make a ridiculous fool of yourself if you want to propagate +your species. Still, there it is, and the sooner you realise exactly +what it means and what it’s all about, the less you worry your head about +it.” + +“Well, of course, if you’re going to treat it in that light you’re going +to knock all the pleasure out of life—” Maskew protested. + +“Oh, you’re a sensualist,” said W.G. “The main thing that I have against +it is that it wastes valuable time.” He became scornful. “Think of all +these rotten fellows who spend their days writing books on sexual +problems, analysing their rotten little sensations in detail and gloating +over mysteries of sex. It’s only their ignorance that makes them like +that. What they want is a thorough course of anatomy and a whack of +practical experience to cure them; and if every one else had the same +sort of education there’d be no sale for their books.” + +Edwin, listening to their sparring, remembered the library at St. Luke’s +and a certain shelf of anatomical works that was always kept locked with +a special key that Mr. Leeming carried mysteriously on his watch-chain. +On the whole, he agreed with W.G. and his preferences for the methods of +the Amoeba’s parthenogenesis. He wondered, however, if the kind of +education that W.G. advocated would have scotched the production of such +works as _Romeo and Juliet_ or the love poems of Shelley. + +“It would be rather rotten if you did away with love, W.G.,” he said. + +“Oh, I’m not talking about love,” said W.G. “I’m talking about a fellow’s +ordinary physical needs. Being in love is not the same thing as that.” + +“It is usually,” said the cynical Maskew. + +“It’s all a ridiculous mix-up,” said Edwin. “Thank God it doesn’t worry +us.” + + +II + + +With the beginning of the new year these delicious hours of leisure +disappeared. Edwin and his friends, with the assurance of second-year +men, became the real possessors of the dissecting room. Anatomy and +physiology now absorbed all their time, and the leisurely interest in the +first subject, which had been subsidiary in the first year, was now a +matter of academical life and death. From the simple anatomical details +of the upper and lower extremities that he had dissected with Martin in +the year before, he passed to the more vital regions of the human body: +the thorax, the abdomen, and the head and neck. He still attended the +polished course of lectures on anatomy that the Dean delivered in the +theatre; but this process he was forced to regard as a waste of time, +since the Dean’s presentation of the subject did not differ greatly from +that of any text-book of anatomy, and the Dean’s personality, which +curiously resembled that of his cousin Martin, was too aristocratically +remote ever to seem real. + +In the dissecting room, on the other hand, he became acquainted and +fascinated with the first of his medical instructors who had aroused his +imagination. This was the chief demonstrator of Anatomy, Robert Moon, +or, more familiarly, Bobby, a figure of romantic picturesqueness. He was +tall and inclined to be fat, he always wore a black frock-coat, and his +serious face, which was of a size and pallor that his surname suggested, +was crowned by an erect crop of black and curly hair. In Edwin’s first +year he had always seemed to him a strange and distant figure, walking +slowly up and down the dissecting room, on the occasions when he emerged +from the dark chamber which he inhabited in the corner near the door, +like a fat and rather sinister spider. + +He rarely spoke: when he did so it was with a broad, north country accent +and the most extraordinary deliberation and formality in his choice of +words. With the men in the second year he possessed an enormous +reputation not only for his exhaustive knowledge of anatomy, by the side +of which the Dean’s attainments seemed merely those of a dilettante, but +also for his excellence as a coach. Edwin and his two friends became +sedulous attendants at his tutorials, where, standing in immobile dignity +behind one of the zinc dissecting-room tables in front of an appropriate +background of blackboard, and surrounded by a ring of second-year +students, who came to sit at his feet voluntarily, like the disciples of +a Greek philosopher, he would demonstrate the details of some ragged +anatomical part that had lain in spirit until it was of the colour and +consistency of leather. + +In Bobby’s demonstrations there was neither imagination nor romance: they +were merely fascinating in virtue of the amazing exactitude of the detail +which his brain had acquired through long familiarity with the +dismembered fragments of humanity. There was nothing in the way of +minute observation that could escape him, and his questions were so +searching and unexpected that even Maskew, who had himself a prodigious +memory for minute detail and could carry the letter of a textbook in his +head, was constantly floored by them. It was a magnificent stimulus to +Edwin; for it became a kind of game to master a part so thoroughly that +Bobby could not stump him. + +By this time he was so used to railway travelling that between the +morning discussion of the progress of the war that had just broken out in +South Africa, and the appearance of halfpenny papers, that multiplied +like greenfly in this heated atmosphere, he could read his text-books of +anatomy in a crowded carriage without disturbance apart from the natural +curiosity that a vision of luridly coloured diagrams awakened in the +minds of his fellow passengers, and particularly the bank clerk, who +thirsted in a way that W.G. would have approved for technical instruction +in the matter of certain organs. Edwin prepared himself for the +demonstrator’s tutorials as rigorously as if he had been approaching a +vital examination; he spent long hours in his bedroom, utterly heedless +of his wide prospect of wintry fields, thinking of nothing but his +collection of bleached bones, now carefully marked with coloured chalks +to show the origins and insertions of muscles, and particularly those +intricate fretted plates that are joined to form the fragile casket of +the human skull. + +So engrossed was he in absorbing the mere details of their physical form +that his mind had no room for other speculations of the kind that had +impressed him in the days of his first acquaintance with anatomy. It +never struck him that the articulated skull which grinned at him from his +mantelpiece when he woke each morning, had once contained the +convolutions of a human brain: a mass of pulpy matter that had been the +origin of strange complications of movement and feeling and thought, the +storehouse of memories, the spring of passions and the theatre of dreams. +He did not even know if the skull were that of a man or a woman. To him +it was no more than an assembly of dry bones, intricate in their +relations with one another, pierced by the foramina of bewildering nerves +and blood-vessels, all of which must be visualised and stored and +remembered within the limits of another structure of the same kind—the +sutures and eminences of which he could feel with his own fingers when he +rubbed his puzzled head. + +He used to go back to Mr. Moon’s tutorials convinced that he knew all +that was to be known of the subject in hand, and then Bobby, in his slow +Lancashire voice, with broadened “a”s and “u”s, would put to him some +leisurely question that showed him that he knew nothing. Very decorously +and slowly these questions would be asked; and since the answers were +concerned with the dryest and most exact of physical facts, guessing was +of no help to him and silence the only refuge of the ignorant. No +display either of knowledge or ignorance had the least effect on Bobby +Moon. His wide and dreamy face showed no emotion on the discovery of +either. On very rare occasions he would descend to a kind of ponderous +verbal humour, slow and elephantine, like the humour of Beethoven; but +even in these moments his face showed no signs of emotion, and he would +pass on without waiting for any recognition of his joke to the next +lethargic question. “Mr. Harrop,” he would say slowly, “what is the +fotty pod of Hovers?” And Harrop, sitting on a high stool that showed +his variegated socks to perfection, would reply that the fatty pad of +Havers was a small cushion of fat set in the head of the femur to +lubricate the hollow of the acetabulum. + +The picturesque figure of Moon soon began to dominate Edwin’s impressions +of the dissecting room. There was something provocative in the +remoteness of this black and solitary form from all the concerns of human +life. Edwin conceived him to be a kind of cerebral abstraction, no man, +but an advanced text-book of anatomy; curiously endowed with the powers +of locomotion and speech but bereft of any human characteristic. It +amazed him to discover, in the end, that Bobby Moon was nothing of the +sort, but a creature of the most delicate human tenderness, so sensitive +to the appeals of beauty and humanity that he had been forced to adopt +the impassive mask that was all that his pupils knew of him from an +instinct of self-protection. + +It happened in this way. During the early part of his second year Edwin +had become conscious of a new figure in the dissecting room, that of a +man named Boyce, a student with a brilliant reputation who had managed in +some inexplicable way to fail in his first examination and be left behind +by the other men of his year. He was a tall, fair creature, with a long +face and small, very blue eyes. The society of Alvaston had made him +friendly with Martin, from whom Edwin’s new relations were gradually +separating him. The only characteristic that Edwin had so far noticed in +Boyce was an almost literary fluency in the use of foul language which +left even Harrop gasping. Boyce was working alone on a thorax a few +tables away from Edwin. He was a neat and laborious dissector, and Edwin +had been tempted to admire the skill with which he had defined the +network of blood-vessels, the system of coronary arteries and veins, with +which the human heart is enmeshed. Boyce was evidently far less +unapproachable than Edwin had imagined, and while they were examining his +dissection together they had not noticed the approach of Dr. Moon, who +had walked slowly to their table and stood gazing at the specimen through +his moonlike pince-nez. They did not realise that he was near them until +they heard his voice, slowly intoning a line of poetry. “The heart,” he +said: “arras’d in purple like a house of kings. Are you acquainted with +that line, Mr. Boyce?” + +“No, sir. Who wrote it?” + +“A man named Francis Thompson. He was a medical student at Manchester, +several years senior to me.” + +“Oh, I know his name,” said Boyce. “He is a friend of my father’s.” + +“A great poet,” said Bobby solemnly. “A great poet. The contemplation +of mortality in this place should be full of poetical reflections. You +see, this is the heart of a very old or a very dissolute man. The +coronary arteries are stiff with atheroma.” + +“I was thinking, sir,” said Edwin, encouraged, “of the heart of Shelley +that Trelawny was supposed to have picked out of the funeral pyre when +the body was burned. His account says that only the heart was left. He +gave it to Hunt, didn’t he? But you’d think the heart would be burned +more easily—” + +“Yes. . . . It’s an unlikely story. Shelley’s heart”—he looked up +dreamily at the ceiling—“Shelley’s heart. . . . It’s a strange +reflection.” And he moved away, his big head still in the air and his +hands behind his back. + +“I say,” said Edwin; “I’d no idea Bobby was like that. You wouldn’t +associate him with poetry, would you? He seems such an awfully +matter-of-fact chap. Dry bones, you know.” + +Boyce laughed. “Oh, you don’t know Bobby. Nobody does here except my +father. He’s an incurable sentimentalist. He lives an awfully lonely +sort of life in some digs up in Alvaston. His mind’s crammed with poetry +and old music and a lot of ethnological lumber. Do you know, he’s about +the biggest authority in England on prehistoric man?” + +“I hadn’t the least idea. I imagined he dreamed of nothing but bones and +soft parts.” + +“You would. . . . But he’s a wonderful chap really. Are you keen on +poetry?” + +“Of course I am.” + +“There’s no ‘of course’ about it. I don’t imagine that your friends +Brown and Maskew are particularly interested in it. My guvnor’s by way +of being a poet, you know. Bobby’s awfully keen on his work. Do you +know it?” + +Edwin was ashamed to say he did not. + +“Oh, I’m not in the least surprised,” said Boyce. “He’s not appreciated, +you know, except by other poets, like this fellow Thompson. I think he’s +rather good, as a matter of fact, quite apart from the fact that he’s my +father. If you’ll come up to our place some day I can show you a lot of +interesting things in his library: first editions and things like that. +I’d no idea that you were keen on them.” + +The tone implied such an appreciation of Edwin’s hectic past as typified +by his solitary appearance on the stage of the Queen’s Theatre that he +hastened to deny the impeachment. He was tremendously pleased to have +struck a man like Boyce, who went on to talk about music, of which Edwin +knew nothing, and exuded an easy atmosphere of culture, of a kind that he +envied, without ever losing sight of the fact that Edwin had come to him +in rather a questionable shape. Edwin was thrilled to think that he had +reached the threshold of a new and exciting friendship which made his +association with Brown and Maskew seem commonplace and shabby; but he was +far too shy to force himself on Boyce, and so the acquaintance remained +for many months at the exact stage in which it had begun, and he had to +be content with the sudden insight that Boyce had given him into the +hidden, romantic qualities of Dr. Moon. + +Sometimes, while he was scrubbing his hands with carbolic soap, the only +thing that really banished the smell of the dissecting room from his +fingers, he would hear Boyce discussing music, and particularly the work +of Tschaikowsky, whose sixth symphony had just inflamed his imagination, +with Mr. Moon in his gloomy bunk, and he would go on washing his hands +until they were ridged and sodden in the hope of hearing what they were +saying or even of entering into their conversation, until W.G. would come +along and drag him off to Joey’s, asking him what the hell he was +dawdling about. Then Edwin would be almost ashamed of W.G.’s company, +and hated himself for it, since he knew in his heart of hearts that, even +if he were a Philistine, W.G. was one of the best and soundest fellows on +earth. + +The friendship with Boyce, however, was bound to come. It began with the +formation of a small literary society, that had been originated by +certain of the third-year men with whom Boyce was acquainted, and which +held its meetings in the newly-opened smoking room that adjoined Dr. +Moon’s chamber of horrors. Papers were read every fortnight, and +discussions followed in which Edwin had scarcely dared to take part, but +Boyce was a polished and fluent protagonist. In the end, when the first +enthusiasms of the society, to which Brown and Maskew, naturally enough, +did not belong, had been spent, Edwin was asked to read a paper. He +chose for his subject Browne’s _Religio Medici_, a work with which this +medical audience seemed strangely unacquainted. The paper was a success, +and at the end of the meeting Boyce accosted him friendlily and asked him +why he had never been up to see his father’s books. Edwin withheld the +obvious reply that the invitation had not been pressed although he had +never ceased to think of it; and Boyce at once suggested that they should +go up to Alvaston together that evening. “We can put you up for the +night if that will be more convenient,” he said. + +They walked up together under the high, frosty sky, talking of poetry, of +all the beautiful things that they had worshipped in common without +knowing it. It seemed strange to Edwin that they should have worked side +by side for a couple of years and scarcely spoken to each other when all +the time they had so many delights that might have been shared. The +unlocking of this closed and secret chamber of his heart gave him a +strange feeling of elation and made the world suddenly beautiful. The +hard and wintry pavement seemed curiously smooth and resilient; the +roadway ran in masterly and noble curves, the black branches of +plane-trees and laburnums, even the pointed gables of the smug suburban +villas seemed to take on a new and piercing beauty against the starry +sky, and they swung along together as triumphant in their ecstasy of +youth as if indeed they were treading on the stars. + +“What a topping night,” said Boyce. “God . . . look at Vega!” He waved +his long arms and quoted:— + + “Or search the brow of eve, to catch + In opal depths the first faint beat + Of Vega’s fiery heart. . . .” + +“Whose is that?” + +“My guvnor’s. He’s a tremendous chap on astronomy.” + +“It’s damned good,” said Edwin, thrilling. + +“Not bad, is it? He’s a very sound man, the guvnor. I think you’d like +him.” + +But when they reached the Boyces’ house they found that the poet was not +at home. In place of him Edwin was introduced to a mild and beautiful +figure with a soft voice who turned out to be Boyce’s mother. She had +her son’s soft blue eyes, and spoke to him with such caressing tenderness +that Edwin was seized with a sudden feeling of aching emptiness for the +memory of his own mother, of whom, so potent is the anodyne of time, he +had scarcely thought for more than a year. + +Boyce presented Edwin with a high social recommendation. “A friend of +Denis Martin’s,” he said. Mrs. Boyce smiled on him. + +“Look here,” said her son, “I’m afraid we can’t very well go into the +guvnor’s study. He hates any one invading it when he’s not there. Let’s +go upstairs to my own room and talk.” + +Edwin had a passing vision of the forbidden chamber, the flanks of a +grand piano in which a reflection of firelight glowed red, and endless +shelves of gilt-lettered books. The rest of the house seemed to him +rather untidy, as if it were no more than a dry chrysalis protecting the +central beauty of the poet’s room; but he had not time to see much +following in the rear of Boyce’s long-legged progress up the stairs. He +found himself, at last, in a small attic with a gable window that framed +the starry sky: the kind of room that satisfied all his own ideals of +comfort and seclusion. + +Boyce was proud and willing to exhibit his treasures. They showed a +curious mixture of the schoolboy, represented by photographic groups of +cricket teams, glass cases of butterflies, and a tasseled Rugby cap, and +the more mature intelligence that now possessed them. Edwin and he sat +down opposite one another in a couple of easy-chairs, and talked and +smoked incessantly all that evening. They spoke of Wordsworth, the idol +of Boyce’s literary devotions, of Browning, whose claims to poetry he +would not allow, and of Shenstone, whose name he had never met before. +By this time Edwin was getting rather ashamed of his early admiration for +Shenstone, and the fact that Boyce had never heard of the Pastoral Ballad +confirmed him in his decision that the author was an acquaintance whom he +had better drop. They went on to Francis Thompson—Dr. Moon’s quotation +from the _Anthem of Earth_ had sent Edwin searching for his works in the +municipal library—and he now learned that this bewildering genius, who +had once, like him, been a medical student, had actually slept in the +room beneath his feet. + +“He never qualified,” said Boyce dreamily, “and yet medicine is a +wonderful thing. I should think the fact that the medical man is always +face to face with mortality”—he pointed to a suspended skeleton in the +corner—“and all the other big fundamental things like birth and pain, +ought to give him a sort of sense of proportion and make him sensitive to +the beauties of life. Your friend, Sir Thomas Browne, is an example. +Then there’s Rabelais.” + +“There are heaps of others,” said Edwin. + +“Well, yes. . . . Keats.” + +“Byron and Akenside,” Edwin supplied from the eighteenth century. + +“I don’t know the gentleman,” said Boyce. + +“Well, then, Goldsmith and Crabbe. Crabbe’s rather good, you know. And +Shelley—” + +“Shelley?” + +“Yes, Shelley walked a hospital when he was in London with Harriet.” + +“I’d no idea of that,” said Boyce, “but there’s a modern fellow that the +guvnor’s rather keen on, named Bridges. Robert Bridges, who’s a +physician.” + +“I’ve never heard of him.” + +“No . . . he’s not well known, but I believe he’s pretty good.” + +And so they talked on, deciding that the world was ripe for great +poetical achievement, awed to think that perhaps they were living, +without knowing it, in the beginning of a great age of literature; +convinced, to a degree of enthusiasm, of the splendour and magnanimity of +the calling that they had adopted; conscious—thrillingly conscious—of the +fact that the whole world lay before them full of undreamed delights as +mysterious and yet as clear as the wintry sky. + +Edwin had to run for his train. He didn’t mind running. On a night like +this he felt that violent exercise was a mode of expressing the curious +elation that his talk with Boyce, and his excitement in the new +friendship that promised so many hours of happiness, had given him. At +the gates of the station he paused to buy an evening paper. It contained +the news of Buller’s defeat at Colenso and the result of a cup-tie +between North Bromwich Albion and Notts Forest, but he had no room in his +mind for football or for this African war in which W.G., to the ruin of +his future finances, was itching to enlist. Edwin’s thoughts were of the +great names and the great works of which he and Boyce had been talking. +The newspaper lay folded on his knees; the flares of the black country +swept past him in the night, unseen. He was not even aware of the other +occupants of the carriage until he suddenly found himself staring +straight into the eyes of his opposite, whom he recognised as Edward +Willis, the son of Walter Willis of the Great Mawne Furnaces. + +All Aunt Laura’s attempts, heroically made in the interests of social +advancement, had so far failed to bring about a friendship between these +two. Edwin, on his side, could never get out of his head an unreasonable +prejudice against the Willises, the natural result of Aunt Laura’s +adulation of their wealth, and even a knowledge of his own humble origins +had not affected his traditional distrust of people whom he regarded as +flashy and self-made. In Edward Willis he found a creature even more shy +than himself, and the very fact that Mrs. Willis and Aunt Laura, putting +their heads together, had decided to throw them into each other’s arms, +was enough to create an atmosphere of distrust and uneasiness. The +sudden recognition in the railway carriage was merely an embarrassment. +Edwin was startled into saying “Hallo,” and Willis replied in exactly the +same way; then both of them retired with precipitation to the cover of +their evening newspapers, from which they listened to the conversation of +a commercial traveller who was returning home from London and had all the +latest and most authentic gossip on the South African situation. + +“Mind you,” he said, “they’re wily fellows, these old Boers; we may not +be up to their dirty tricks: I’m proud to say we aren’t. We shouldn’t be +English if we were. But one thing, sir, you’ll see in the end, and that +is that dogged British pluck will come through. You mark my words.” + +Edwin felt an overpowering impulse to say that dogged British pluck +pretty obviously hadn’t come through at Colenso; but Edward Willis’s +presence made him far too self-conscious to commit himself, and at the +next station the traveller and his friend picked up their bags and +departed, breathing the word “Buller” as if it were an incantation +warranted to fortify and console. Edwin and Willis were alone. + +When their silence had become altogether too ridiculous, Edwin plucked up +his courage and said, “Rotten thing this war.” + +“I don’t know,” said Willis. “It’s all right for my old man.” + +“What do you mean?” + +“Iron. . . . We’re chock full of Government work for South Africa: +gun-carriages and rifle barrels. You’re doing medicine, aren’t you?” + +“Yes.” + +“Lucky devil. You’re learning to cure people, while I’m learning to make +things to kill them.” + +He stared out of the window towards a patch of sky in which the glow of +his father’s furnaces pulsated as though it registered the beatings of a +savage, fiery heart, and relapsed into gloomy silence. The tunnel +swallowed them, and in a moment they pulled up at Mawne Hall. Willis +prepared to go. “I say,” he said, “we’re giving a dance next week—” and +hesitated. + +“What for?” said Edwin, for want of something better. + +“I don’t know . . . unless it’s to celebrate the Colenso casualties. I +believe you’re invited. I hope you’ll come.” + +“Thanks,” said Edwin. But Willis was gone. + + + +CHAPTER V +ROMANCE + + +I + + +MR. INGLEBY wanted to know why he was so late. “I read a paper at the +Literary Society,” he said, “and then went back to Alvaston with a man +named Boyce. He’s a son of Arthur Boyce.” + +“The auctioneer?” asked Mr. Ingleby. + +“No . . . the poet.” + +Mr. Ingleby’s features showed a faint anxiety, as though he doubted if +such an influence were healthy. “Well, I hope your paper was a success,” +he said. + +“Oh, I think it went all right. Any letters?” + +“Yes . . . two. Here they are.” He handed them to Edwin. + +One of them was the invitation from Mawne. He showed it to his father. + +“A dance—” said Mr. Ingleby. + +“Yes. . . . I suppose I’d better go.” + +“Your Aunt Laura told me about it. If it won’t interfere with your work, +I don’t see why you shouldn’t.” + +“I haven’t any proper clothes. Evening dress, you know” + +“I suppose that is quite necessary,” said Mr. Ingleby regretfully. + +Edwin could see that the question of expense was troubling his father’s +mind. He wished to goodness he would say so outright, instead of looking +vaguely distressed. It would be so much more satisfactory. As it was, +he could only feel indefinitely in the wrong, as if the dance were a +piece of reckless and inexcusable levity in which he had no right to take +a part. The dress suit, the acquisition of which had been anticipated +with some satisfaction, now appeared to him in the terms of an +accumulation of small change hardly earned in his father’s dusty shop: as +the outcome of pennyworths of Epsom Salts, sticks of liquorice, or +teething powders. It was humiliating, and even distressing to realise +that every single comfort or luxury that he enjoyed—even the prime +necessities of life, had to be accumulated, literally scraped together +from this incredibly humble source and by the personal exertions of this +simple and pathetic person. With these conditions in his mind he could +not bear accepting money from his father, the weight of his obligation +was so overwhelming. Now he found it difficult to face the idea of a +tailor’s bill that might represent the profit on at least three days of +small trading in the shop. + +“I don’t think I’d better go, father,” he said. + +“It would be rather ungracious if you didn’t, Edwin,” his father replied. +“It was extremely kind of the Willises to ask you. I think you’d better +go and be measured to-morrow by Mr. Jones.” + +The idea of a Halesby tailor’s cut was not inspiring and made Edwin +inclined to press his refusal; but Mr. Ingleby went on to explain that +Mr. Jones owed him a bill that he had begun to look upon as a bad debt, +and that Edwin’s dress suit would be a way of working it off. This +circumstance made the order less shameful, except in so far as it applied +to the hateful penury of Mr. Jones, whom Edwin remembered as a man with a +beard, as shabbily unlike a tailor’s dummy as it was possible for a man +to be. The occurrence was unfortunate in another way; for such an +addition to his wardrobe would almost certainly scotch the idea of asking +for a dress allowance, a plan which had been maturing in his brain for +some months and only needed a callous frame of mind for its performance. + +Next evening, however, he went to see Mr. Jones, who measured him +obsequiously, and assured him that in the happy days before he was his +own master, he had actually cut morning-coats for Sir Joseph Astill, a +gentleman who was very difficult to fit on account of a slight . . . er . . . +fullness in the figure. Edwin, primed by the observations of The +Major in _To-Day_, was able to tell Mr. Jones exactly what he wanted, and +Mr. Jones’s manner, when he rubbed his hands over Edwin’s instructions, +did not suggest for a moment the fact of which Edwin was all the time +aware: that this was not a _bona-fide_ order, but a rather shabby way of +making him pay a bill that he had scamped for a couple of years. + +Stepping out of Mr. Jones’s melancholy shop, Edwin thanked heaven that +his father had not wanted him to follow in his footsteps; for it seemed +to him that the life of a struggling tradesman in a small town must be +the most humiliating on earth. He was awfully sorry for all of them as +he walked down the street and read their names on the boards above their +windows. He had never quite realised their condition before he smelt the +particular odour of lower middle-class poverty, vaguely suggestive of +perambulators, aspidistras, and boiled mutton, that moved down the +linoleum floored passage at the back of Mr. Jones’s shop. + +In due course the clothes arrived. On the whole, Mr. Jones had not done +badly; but even so, Edwin was still scarcely qualified for the business +in hand. He had never learned to dance, and it was necessary to acquire +this accomplishment in a little more than a week. At first he had +decided to pull his courage together and approach Martin, whose +eligibility compelled him to be an expert dancing man; but, at the last +moment, he funked a confession that would expose such depths of social +ignorance, and went instead to a certain Professor Beagle, who advertised +classes in dancing and deportment at the hour of five on Tuesdays, +Thursdays, and Saturdays, in the Queen’s Assembly Rooms, next door to the +theatre of the same name. + +On the next Tuesday afternoon Edwin presented himself to Mr. Beagle at +the advertised hour. He found him alone sitting on a platform at the end +of a long room that smelt of dust and moth-eaten rep curtains. When +Edwin appeared at the other end of the room the professor dismounted, +cleared his throat, clasped his hands in front of him, and made a formal +bow. He was a little man, and very fat. He wore a navy blue coat that +was cut very short at the back, so that it ruckled up over his round +haunches, and his collar rose so high and stiff above a white Ascot tie, +that he was forced to carry his head tilted backwards in the direction of +his waxed moustache. His face was purple and his watery eyes stared, +whether as the result of the collar’s asphyxiation or his past manner of +life it was difficult to say. His feet were excessively small, and his +striped grey trousers tapered to the ankles in such a way that every step +he made seemed a nice feat of balancing. He bowed to Edwin, and Edwin +explained the urgent circumstances of his mission. + +“I see,” said Professor Beagle. “I quite understand. You must not, +’owever, expect me to be able to turn you out as I should wish to in the +time at our disposal. Perhaps you will be good enough not to mention my +name in this connection, and keep my instructions, as it were, dark?” + +Edwin assured him of secrecy, and the professor proceeded to ask him +where the dance was to be held. “I do not wish to teach you anything +that will not be useful,” he said. “In some circles the Quadrille, which +I myself consider the most dignified of dances, is still in favour. In +others the Valeta is coming into vogue. In different planes of society +different conditions prevail.” + +In the end the professor decided that Edwin’s case called for the Waltz, +the Lancers, and the Polka, with the possible addition of the Pas de +Quatre. He demonstrated to Edwin the position in which his feet should +be placed, and then invited him to have a try at the waltz. + +“You will take my harm, please, in the following way . . . so. . . . +Now, neither grarsping nor clarsping, let the lady’s ’and lie gently in +yours, with the fingers ’alf bent, and under no circumstances squeeze the +figger. So . . . ” + +Edwin placed his right arm above the ruckles in Professor Beagle’s broad +back: into his left hand a podgy fist descended like a lump of moist +dough, and from the little man’s back-tilted, strangled head a faint +sound of whistling proceeded that raked Edwin’s own nostrils with a +cross-fire of whisky and cachous. Then the professor began to revolve +like a peg top, and Edwin felt himself swept round by the arm that lay +upon his shoulder, to the rhythm of the whistled tune, which was +sometimes suspended and replaced by: “Wonn-two-three. Wonn-two-three. +Wonn-two-three. Gently now. Keep-on-the. Tips-of-your. +WONN-two-three. Toes.” + +In this manner they circled the room several times. Edwin was getting +out of breath; but the professor, to whom this form of exercise was so +usual as to be negligible, showed no signs of fatigue, except that his +eyes became a little more glassy and his cheeks more purple. Indeed, the +power by which he swung Edwin round the room was a thing of mystery; for +his little feet did not seem to move, and the upper part of his body was +rigid. He moved like a cyclone or a dust-storm, Edwin thought, revolving +terrifically on its own axis. + +“I am afraid,” said Professor Beagle formally at the end of the first +lesson. “I am afraid you have no great natural gift. It is better that +I should be candid with you. You will need half a dozen lessons at least +before you can take your place with the young ladies in one of my +advanced classes.” + +Edwin stuck to it. On six more occasions he visited the Assembly Rooms, +where, with exactly the same formalities, Mr. Beagle received him. With +Mr. Beagle in his arms, prevented by sheer physical bulk from, in any +circumstances, squeezing the figger, he revolved in the vortex of the +waltz. In the Lancers he set to imaginary partners, or went “visiting” +with Mr. Beagle’s hand lying gently in his, with the fingers ’alf bent. +In the Pas de Quatre, where the draught of whisky and cachous was happily +directed forwards, he pointed an awkward toe alongside Mr. Beagle’s +tapered and elegant extremity. In the end the professor pronounced +himself satisfied with him. + +“If I were you,” he said, “I think I should come along to my advanced +class this evening and familiarise yourself with the proximity of young +ladies. The fee is a purely nominal ’alf-crown.” + +Edwin decided to do so, and walked up in the evening with his patent +leather pumps in his pocket. He felt very shy. The place was lighted +with flaring gas jets, and in a room marked Gentlemen, that he had always +taken for a lavatory, a number of young men, who looked like shop +assistants, were putting on white kid gloves. They all seemed to know +one another and to look upon Edwin as an intruder. No one spoke to him, +and he waited in the cloak room until the last had disappeared before he +dared to emerge. From the room on the opposite side of the passage there +issued a breeze of concentrated perfumes, and a round of subdued titters. +This room was labelled “Ladies.” + +While Edwin stood waiting and wondering if he dare risk an encounter, the +door opposite opened and a bevy of bloused figures appeared. The sight +of the first took him by surprise: it was the elder of the two anæmic +young ladies in the drapery who travelled in the morning train with him +from Halesby. She gave him a smile of recognition that revealed her +defective teeth. This prospect was altogether too much for him. An +acute shyness drove him back into the cloak room, and, as soon as he had +taken off his pumps and put on his shoes again, he left the Queen’s +Assembly Rooms and bolted down Sackville Row to his train. + + +II + + +The Willis’s dance, to which Edwin had looked forward with such mingled +pleasure and anxiety, was destined to bring forth a violent emotional +experience. Mr. Jones had not undergone the experience of cutting for +the undulant figure of Sir Joseph Hingston for nothing. Apart from the +fact that the sleeves were rather too long for his arms, Edwin’s dress +coat was a success, and, as Aunt Laura benignantly pointed out, it was +just as well that some allowance should be made for future growth. Mr. +Jones had been extremely anxious that Edwin should be supplied with a +magenta silk handkerchief, an ornament which, he was assured, all the +best people wore stuffed in the corner of their waistcoats. + +On this problem the Major had never delivered judgment, so Edwin mustered +sufficient courage to approach Denis Martin for advice. Martin +scornfully told him that the idea was preposterous. “It’s the kind of +get-up that your friend Maskew would adopt,” he said. He also impressed +upon Edwin the fact that the infallible index of a bounder in +evening-dress was a ready-made tie. No doubt the advice was excellent; +but it let Edwin in for an hour of agony on the evening of the dance, +when the tie refused to answer to the Major’s printed instructions, and +finished up by making him look as if he had gone to bed in his boots and +slept on it. + +He had never been to Mawne Hall before. That pretentious mansion with +its castellated façade set on a steep bank above the valley of the Stour, +in which the works that maintained it lay, was so brightly lit upon this +evening that it glowed like a lantern through the bare boughs of the +hanging wood beneath. In the gun-room at the side of the hall in which +the hats and coats of the guests were being received by Bassett, the +Willises’ coachman, he recognised a number of incredibly elegant +creatures of his own sex with shining white waistcoats, pearl studs, and +immaculate ties. He knew scarcely any of them, for they were mostly +neighbouring ironmasters or professional people to whose society the +Willises’ money had proved a sufficient introduction. Among them he +recognised Sir Joseph Hingston, playing ducks and drakes with his +aitches, and wearing, to Edwin’s encouragement, a flagrantly ready-made +tie. In this particular, at any rate, he was one up on the baronet. He +hoped that some one else would realise this fact. In the middle of these +reflections he thought he heard a voice that he recognised, and turned to +find himself rubbing shoulders with Griffin. Edwin said, “Good-evening.” + +“Good Lord, Ingleby, are you here? I haven’t seen you since the +pantomime night. What are you doing here? Do you know these people?” + +It struck Edwin that he spoke rather contemptuously of his hosts. + +“Yes. . . . I live near here, you know,” he replied. “I didn’t know the +Willises were friends of yours.” As a matter of fact he knew nothing +about the Willises’ friends; but it sounded rather well. + +“No . . . I don’t know them,” said Griffin, “but the old man is a +business friend of my uncle’s, and apparently they were rather hard up +for men.” The sound of waltz music was heard, and Griffin left him +hurriedly. “See you later,” he said. + +Edwin, anxious not to be left behind, pulled on his gloves and split the +thumb of one of them. He passed through the hall, where his name was +announced, rather contemptuously, as he thought, by Hannah, the Willises’ +tall and starchy servant, and was received in a manner that was +reassuring and homely by Mrs. Willis. She spoke for a moment of his +mother, and tears gathered in her rather watery eyes; then she introduced +him to her small daughter Lilian, very self-conscious in a white party +frock with a pale blue waistband, and another dark girl with beautiful +grey eyes and a creamy rather than pale complexion, who was standing +beside her. Miss Dorothy Powys, she said. Edwin, hedging for safety, +booked a dance with Lilian, who took the matter as seriously as himself. +Next, no doubt, he must have a shot at Miss Dorothy Powys, in spite of +the disturbing beauty of her eyes; but when he came to ask her for a +dance, he saw that Griffin was talking to her. + +“May I have another—number sixteen?” Edwin heard him ask easily. She +smiled and nodded. Her smile seemed to Edwin very beautiful: so +beautiful, indeed, that he couldn’t possibly bring himself to approach +her when Griffin turned away. It was awfully silly of him, he thought. + +The evening was not exactly a success. He polkaed with Lilian, and took +his place in the Lancers with several mature ladies to whom Mrs. Willis +introduced him. Luckily none of these belonged to Halesby, a +circumstance that must be attributed to Mrs. Willis’s tact, so that the +question of his origin never arose. He danced according to the letter of +Professor Beagle’s instructions. Neither grasping nor clasping, he let +the ladies’ hands lie gently in his with the fingers half bent, and in no +circumstances did he squeeze the figger. What he missed was the terrific +motive power that the unladylike Professor Beagle had applied to his +revolutions. It now appeared to him that to supply this was the part of +the male; and as most of the matrons with whom Mrs. Willis supplied him +were bulky, he had his work cut out. Once, returning thoroughly blown +from one of these adventures he caught the eye of Dorothy Powys; and he +thought she smiled. Could this be true? He wondered. . . . During the +greater part of the evening when he had not been dancing he had found +himself following her movements with his eyes. He had decided that she +must be at least a year or two older than himself; but that didn’t really +matter, for she seemed to him a creature of such very perfect grace, and +her eyes, in the moment when he caught them, had been so wonderful. +After the next dance, which was the one that she had booked with Griffin, +he watched them disappear into the library. + +It made him feel sick with himself that he hadn’t taken the opportunity +of his introduction. What a damned fool he was! And afterwards, when he +watched her, she did not smile at all, either for him or for any one +else. Indeed, she seemed pale, and anxious, as if something had happened +to upset her. In despair Edwin wandered off into the card-room, where he +saw Lady Hingston, who was partnering Mr. Willis at bridge, revoke three +times in two games, to the intense annoyance of her husband. From the +card-room he strolled on to the buffet, where he found Griffin absorbing +quantities of whisky and soda. He begged Edwin to join him; but Edwin, +who was particularly anxious to behave himself, struck to claret-cup. + +“Well, have you struck any cuddle?” said Griffin brutally, with his mouth +full. + +“Any what?” + +“Cuddle. . . . Girls. . . . What the devil do you think one comes to a +dance for?” + +“No. . . . I haven’t,” said Edwin. + +“Well, they are a pretty scratch lot,” Griffin confessed. “That Powys +girl’s all right though.” + +Edwin blushed furiously. He suddenly wanted to throw his glass of +claret-cup at Griffin’s head. Why? . . . He calmed himself. + +“Do you know her?” he asked. + +“Never met her before to-night. She’s got a topping figure. She must be +pretty well connected. Lord Alfred Powys is one of their directors +here.” + +“But you don’t mean to say—” Edwin began. + +“The night is yet young,” said Griffin, gulping another whisky. “God, +there’s number twelve! I must hook it.” + +Edwin wandered back to the ballroom. He couldn’t keep away from it, but, +at the same time, he was anxious not to appear disengaged, for fear that +Mrs. Willis should induce some other heavy partner to abandon her +arm-chair for his amusement. He hung about the pillars of the folding +doors that led into the supper room, just out of range of Mrs. Willis’s +maternal gaze. From this point he could watch the beautiful Miss Powys, +and wonder, with a sort of bitter excitement, exactly what Griffin had +meant by his suggestions. Watching her, he could not believe that she +could be anything but graceful and beautiful in everything she did. The +band started to play the music for waltz: number sixteen. He remembered +it was the second dance that Griffin had booked with her. For some +reason that he couldn’t imagine, he felt that he wanted to be near when +Griffin came for her: perhaps he could tell her attitude towards him by +something that she might say. He went over to the place where she was +sitting next to Mrs. Willis. He tried not to look at her. + +In a moment he heard Griffin’s voice. “Ours, I think.” The tone was a +little blurred by Griffin’s potations. + +“I think you’ve made a mistake,” she said. + +Edwin turned round, and at the same moment she looked towards him. +“Surely I am dancing this with you, Mr. Ingleby.” + +“But look here, I’m sure these are your initials on my programme, Miss +Powys. Let me look at yours.” + +He tried to take the programme from her fingers, but she moved it away. + +“Really, we mustn’t contradict each other, Mr. Griffin. The dance is Mr. +Ingleby’s. Will you take me, please?” she said to Edwin. + +In an ecstatic dream Edwin found himself walking away with her on his +arm. It was a miracle, an astounding, beautiful miracle. She picked up +her skirt by the loop of ribbon with which it was suspended and looked +him full in the eyes, smiling. “Shall we start?” she said. + +They started. In one fatal moment Edwin, who hadn’t been doing badly at +the beginning of the evening, forgot every single precept that Professor +Beagle had taught him. + +“I say, what a shocking dancer you are,” she said with a laugh. + +“I’m most awfully sorry, I only learnt this week.” Now that his mind was +diverted by speaking to her the steps came more naturally. + +“That’s better,” she said. “Who on earth taught you?” + +He confessed to Professor Beagle, and she appeared to be amused. + +“You see you’re dancing away from me all the time. Just as if you were +afraid of me. You ought to hold me closer. It upsets the what d’you +call it . . . centre of gravity.” + +“I was told never under any circumstances to—” He couldn’t very well +repeat Professor Beagle’s formula. + +“Now you’re getting on beautifully. Don’t think about it. That’s the +idea. Just dance.” + +The music ended. “Where would you like to go?” he asked. + +“Out into the hall, if you don’t mind . . . on the stairs. I want to +explain to you. It was really awfully good of you to take me on.” + +“It was a wonderful piece of luck for me.” + +They sat together on the shallow oak staircase and she proceeded to tell +him that Griffin had upset her in the dance before by trying to kiss her +shoulder. “I really couldn’t stick a repetition of that,” she said. +“Besides, I think the man had been drinking. So I just pitched upon your +poor innocence and lied for all I was worth. Who are you, by the way? I +only just remembered your name when Mrs. Willis introduced us. She’s +rather a dear, isn’t she?” + +The music of the next dance struck up. “Are you dancing?” Edwin asked +eagerly. + +“I don’t know, I expect so. Just look at my programme. It’s too dark +for me to see.” + +Edwin took the programme from her fingers. It was a thrilling moment. +In the dusk he deciphered two initials, “E.W.,” he said. + +“Oh, that’s only Edward Willis. He’s very shy of me. If you’ve nothing +better to do I think we’ll stay here.” + +It was so easy to talk to her. To Edwin, indeed, it seemed as if he had +now become articulate for the first time in his life. She did not speak +very much of herself; but she asked him many questions about his life at +school, where, he confided to her, he had first known Griffin, and then +again about his new work in North Bromwich. And when she did speak her +voice was low, and her speech, to his ears, of an amazing limpid purity, +more beautiful than any human speech he had ever heard. Edwin would have +liked to listen to it for ever. He felt that he wanted words to describe +its peculiar music, but no words came to him. He could only remember a +line in Browning’s _Pauline_:— + + “Her voice was as the voice of his own soul + Heard in the calm of thought. . . .” + +That was the nearest he could get to it; but the words, although they +expressed a little of his absorption, did not convey the musical +qualities that he wanted to describe. He tried to compare it with the +tones of some instrument that he knew, but neither wood-wind nor strings +suggested what he wanted. No . . . it was a sound nearer to nature than +any man-made instrument. It was the voice of a Naiad: the sound of +running water in a clear brookland. And all the time that he listened to +her he was thrillingly conscious of her physical presence. She was +sitting on the stair beneath him, and fortunately she could not see that +he was gazing at her in the gloom, thinking how beautifully shaped was +the nape of the neck from which her dark hair was drawn upwards; overcome +by the loveliness and smoothness of her curved shoulder. + +“I’m talking all the time,” he said, “and you’re saying nothing. It’s +rather a shame . . . because you speak so beautifully.” + +“Whatever do you mean?” For a moment her eyes were on his. He dared not +look at them. He could not answer her, for the moment seemed full of +such an overpowering sweetness. + +“Do tell me.” + +“Oh, I only mean that when you say a thing like that, it . . . it +suggests that everything about you is marvellously clean and clear and +musical—” He paused, for he felt that she might laugh at him. + +“Yes . . . go on,” she said. + +“Like water in a hill country. It makes me feel as if I weren’t within a +hundred miles of North Bromwich.” + +She laughed softly, but not unkindly. + +“No, I’m not a bit like that. I’m really awfully hard and worldly—I wish +I were the least bit what you imagine. You’re most awfully young, aren’t +you?” + +Perhaps she did not mean the word cruelly, but it seemed very cruel to +Edwin. It was quite possible that she was a few years older than +himself, if age were to be counted by years; but in reality he knew that +she was beautifully young, certainly young enough to love and to be +loved. + +“Don’t let’s talk about me,” she said. + +“But I want to talk about you.” + +He wanted to talk about nothing else. His head was full of words that he +wanted to throw before her like jewels, but he did not know how much he +dared to say. He knew it was impossible for him to express a hundredth +part of his delight in her. It would be nearly as bad as kissing her +neck in the manner of Griffin, to say that the curve of it sent him +delirious with joy. It would be indecency rather than candour to say +that the faint scent of her intoxicated him. He was silent with +tremulous emotion. He wondered if she could be conscious of it; and he +could not guess, for she, too, did not speak. From the ballroom they +heard the music of another dance begin. Two shadowy couples emerged from +the passage beneath them. A curtain of Indian beading made a sound like +dead leaves driven over a dry pavement by the wind. The intruders’ +voices died away. + +“I suppose we must go too,” she said with a sigh. + +“Why must you go? Are you dancing?” Edwin asked, with a catch in his +throat. + +“No, I don’t think I shall dance any more. I was rather upset. It was +silly of me. But I think we’d better go.” + +Edwin offered her his arm in the best manner of Professor Beagle. + +“Thank you,” she said in a low voice. For a moment she hesitated. She +was smiling, and her eyes were wonderful in the gloom. Their faces were +level with each other. And, suddenly, amazingly, she kissed him. + +“I’m going,” she said. Edwin tried to take her hand as she moved away +from him. For a second it lay in his, soft and small and warm. Then, +before his arms had time to follow the impulse of his flaming brain, she +had slipped away from him and passed into the shadow of the passage. He +stood there at the foot of the stairs alone, his heart thudding like a +steam-hammer in a bewildered, intoxicating elation. Why had she left +him? Why? . . . unless it were only a part of her adorable modesty. +That must be the reason: and yet it was hardly consistent with an exalted +ideal of modesty to kiss a young man, whom she had only known for fifteen +minutes, on the lips. A new aspect of the miracle presented itself to +him. Was it possible, after all, that Griffin had been right, that she +was really exactly what he had insinuated, a fast little baggage who had +determined, in a sudden caprice, to throw Griffin over and try a new +experiment? + +He could not believe it. Everything that he had noticed and adored in +her, her grey eyes, the delicious quality of her speech, her fragrance, +the indescribable fineness—there was no other word for it—of her, denied +the possibility. He found it difficult to realise that she had gone in +the moment of such an astounding revelation. Such was the way of a +Naiad, melting away out of her sweet mortality in the moment of +possession. Standing alone at the foot of the gloomy staircase, +listening in a dream to the luscious music of the Choristers’ waltz, he +tried to recreate his dream out of memory. Nothing of her was left but +her delicate perfume. On the stairs he saw a small crumpled muslin +handkerchief from which the perfume came. He picked it up with the +reverence of a pilgrim touching a relic, eagerly triumphant that he had +managed to rescue a fragment of his dream. It did not strike him that +this tiny square of scented muslin was presumably the instrument with +which divinity blew its nose: and indeed its dimensions scarcely fitted +it for this material function. He placed it in the satin-lined pocket of +Mr. Jones’s creation. It pleased him to think that it lay near his +heart. + +This, of course, was only the beginning of a romance. No doubt, in the +course of the evening, he would see her again. Somehow he must persuade +her to see him alone, and then he would be able to do all the +magnificently passionate things of which her flight had cheated him. He +would kiss her; he would hold her exquisiteness in his arms; he would +tell her all the glorious things that he had been fool enough to +withhold. + +He went back into the ballroom. Nobody seemed to notice him there. It +pleased him to think that these ordinary people were too dull in their +perceptions to guess at the wonder in his heart. It was a secret that he +shared with only one other person in the world, and that secret had +altered his whole outlook on life. He was no longer the timid boy, +conscious of his social disadvantages and of his new dress clothes, who +had entered the Willises’ house a couple of hours before, but a man, a +lover, to whose passion the whole beauty of the world ministered, a +creature miraculously placed beyond the reach of envy or of scorn. He +was happy to wait patiently for the supreme moment when he should see her +again. And so he waited, mildly tolerant of Griffin, over whom he had +scored so easily, of Edward Willis, who performed with a set face his +penitentiary programme of duty-dances, of Mrs. Willis, who watched the +joy of her small daughter Lilian with the proud but anxious eyes of a +mother hen, of Mr. Willis circulating among his guests with an expansive +smile, of poor Lady Hingston, still revoking automatically in the +card-room. + +But Dorothy Powys never returned to the seat that she had occupied under +the shadow of Mrs. Willis’s wings. She had told him that she didn’t mean +to dance any more, but surely that didn’t mean that he was not to see her +again. He grew uneasy. Of course she could easily escape if she wanted +to do so, for she was staying in the house. He wondered if he dared ask +Mrs. Willis what had become of her, but decided that this would certainly +give him away. + +Instead of doing this he posted himself in a corner from which he could +hear everything that was said in Mrs. Willis’s circle. This was not a +very profitable pursuit, for Mrs. Willis was not an interesting talker, +and the only excitement that penetrated the broody calm that surrounded +her was the arrival of her husband, very excited over a telephone +message, that had no foundation in fact, announcing the relief of +Ladysmith by General Buller. Edwin was beginning to give the business up +as a bad job when he saw a tall, languid man, whom he considered to be +rather shabbily dressed, approach Mrs. Willis and ask her what had +happened to his niece. + +“Oh, she was here half an hour ago,” said Mrs. Willis. “The poor child +told me that she had a headache and was going to bed. I told Hannah to +take her a hot water bottle. . . . I do hope you’re quite comfortable, +Lord Alfred,” she went on. “It is nice, isn’t it? to see all these young +people enjoying themselves. At least it would be, if one didn’t have to +think of all the poor creatures in South Africa being fired at by these +treacherous Boers.” + +And the tall, shabby man mumbled, “Yes . . . yes, certainly. . . . +Very,” in his beard. + +It was enough for Edwin. He said good-bye to Mrs. Willis, who seemed +only mildly surprised at his departure, and left the house. There was no +reason now why he should stay. On the stone terrace he paused, listening +for a moment to the muted music from within the house. In the upper +stories only one window was lighted. He could see the glowing yellow +pane beyond a bough of one of the cedars with which the lawn was shaded. +He wondered if that window were hers. He would like, he thought, to stay +there all night in the black shadow of the cedar, gazing at that window +and feeling that he was near her. Later on, no doubt, the light would be +extinguished, and then he would imagine her lying there asleep. How +beautiful she must be when she lay there sleeping! + +He sighed, and went on his way, under the wonderful night. He climbed +the steep slope of Mawne Bank, under the smouldering pit-fires, in a +dream, and found himself, surprised, beneath the walls of the cherry +orchard at the back of Old Mawne Hall. Inside the walls the cherry-trees +lay locked in a wintry sleep. He stopped, for the steepness of the hill +had stolen his breath. He remembered a day when he walked there with his +mother. “How mother would have loved her!” he thought. Yes . . . she +was more wonderful than his mother. On the day that he remembered, so +many years ago, it had been spring. The branches had been full of +billowy bloom. Now, in the wintry night, he felt that spring was near: +spring was in his blood, stirring it to new and passionate aspirations as +in a few months time it would stir the dreamy sap of the cherry-trees. A +strange, unseasonable miracle. Glorious, indefinite words formed +themselves in his mind. Spring, with its warm, perfumed breath, +triumphing beautifully over the powers of winter and death. Death at +Colenso under those tawny kopjes. Love in his heart. A sublime, +ecstatic muddle. . . . The Mawne furnaces leapt into a sudden flower of +fire that made the sky above them tawny. Love was like fire . . . an +exultant leaping flame. + +He did not know where he was going until he found himself at home in his +little shabby room taking off his dress-suit and staring at himself as a +stranger in the dusty mirror. “Who am I?” he thought, “that this should +have happened to me? I do not know myself. I am greater and more +wonderful than the image that I see in the glass.” + +He placed his precious talisman of muslin under his pillow, and wondered +if he might be blessed with a dream of her. “She kissed me,” he thought. +“She kissed my lips—” + + +III + + +It was evident that if he were to see her again he must make friends with +Edward Willis. He was sorry that he had not done so before. For once in +a way the recommendations of Aunt Laura had been prophetically right. +His self-consciousness made it difficult for him to do so, for he felt +certain that this cold, calculating young man would see through him. For +two days he debated with himself on the various ways in which Mawne might +be approached without coming to any satisfactory conclusion. On the +third he was so lucky as to meet his victim on the Halesby train. Willis +did not seem in the least anxious to renew their acquaintance; and it was +at the expense of some awkwardness that Edwin managed to drag him into +conversation. + +They talked a little about the war, which Willis seemed to view from a +remote and pessimistic angle. From that, by way of Mr. Willis’s +Ladysmith rumour, they passed on to a discussion of the dance. Edwin was +enthusiastic. + +“I’m glad you enjoyed yourself,” said Willis. “I hate dancing.” + +“I rather admired that Miss Powys,” said Edwin. + +“Dorothy Powys? Yes, she’s a pretty girl, isn’t she?” + +“Who is she?” + +“Oh, she’s a niece of Lord Alfred Powys, one of our directors. Lives +with him, I believe. I don’t really know her.” + +“Isn’t she staying with you?” + +“Oh, no. . . . She only stayed at Mawne for the night of the dance. Her +uncle happened to be coming over for a directors’ meeting, and the +governor asked him to bring her along with him as there was a dance on.” + +This was all very discouraging. + +“Where do they live?” Edwin asked. + +“Somewhere over in the Teme valley, I think. Lord Alfred’s a great +fisherman. He’s a nice chap.” + +“And she lives with him?” + +“Yes. . . . I think he’s sort of adopted her. But I understand she’s +going to India sometime next month.” + +“India? What on earth is she going to India for?” + +“Going to be married to some fellow in the Indian army. A major, I think +he is.” + +“To be married—” said Edwin. + +And the train pulled up at Mawne Hall. + + +IV + + +He took it very hardly. On the face of it, it seemed that her kiss had +been no more than a piece of mad, cynical trifling; but his respect for +himself—which was considerable, as became his years—would not allow him +to believe this. He decided, instead, that Dorothy Powys’s kiss had been +the symbol of a great and noble passion, fated, in the melancholy manner +of nearly every legendary lore, to frustration. He was convinced that +the unknown major in the Indian army would never be loved; that the +memory of that intense moment on Mr. Willis’s back stairs would haunt his +wife for ever, and temper with romance the vistas of an unhappy marriage. +The main result of the incident in Edwin’s case was a spate of passionate +but imitative verses, a new devotion to such music as repressed his +particular portion of _weltschmerz_, and an anxiety to confide the story, +with elaborations, to some sympathetic friend. He turned it on to W.G. + +“Well, W.G., what do you think of it?” he asked, when he had finished. + +W.G. sucked at his pipe and smiled good-humouredly. + +“Better luck next time, old chap,” he said. + + + +CHAPTER VI +THE DRESSER + + +I + + +IN the following June the second professional examination was held. On a +stifling morning, when the blue brick pavements of North Bromwich +reflected a torrid heat, and a warm wind, blowing like a sirocco from the +black desert outside, swept the streets with clouds of dust, Edwin, +Maskew, and W.G. waited in the cloakroom outside the Dean’s office to see +the results of the examination posted. Maskew was the only one of the +three who showed no signs of nervousness; for W.G. could never overcome +the difficulty of expressing his thoughts on paper, and Edwin had passed +ten minutes of purgatory with an outside examiner in the anatomy _viva_. +He knew, on the other hand, that his Physiology had been extraordinarily +good, and put his faith in the general impression of intelligence that he +hoped he had created. + +The porter came out with the lists, and W.G., striding to meet his fate +like some Homeric hero, snatched the paper from his hands. He went very +white as he read it. + +“Good God—” he said. “Well, I’m damned—” + +“Rotten luck if you’re down, W.G.,” said Maskew sympathetically. + +“Down? . . . I’m not down. I’m through.” + +He still looked bewildered. Edwin took the paper from his trembling +hands. As he had expected Maskew was first, but he saw that he himself +was second on the list. Martin had ambled through respectively somewhere +about the middle. W.G. and Harrop were last and last but one. He pinned +the list on the notice-board. It was an exhilarating moment in which he +was conscious of the herculean, sweaty handgrip of W.G. who was +muttering: “Well, I’m damned if we don’t all deserve it.” + +Talking and laughing together, they went out to lunch at Joey’s and +caught the next train down to Evesham, where the coolness of the glassy +Avon made the June heat more tolerable, and in the evening, blistered +with rowing and sunshine, they came back to North Bromwich, dined +together, and afterwards went to a music-hall. It was wonderful to Edwin +to see the physical elation of W.G. The big man wanted to dance like a +child, and it was with difficulty that Maskew restrained him from +smashing a plate-glass window in Sackville Row. “You’re a cold-blooded +swine, Maskew,” he said indignantly. “God, man, don’t you feel you want +to do something? You must let off steam in some way, and it’s just as +well to do it decently.” + +Next morning the Dean sent a message to Edwin and Maskew, asking them to +call at his office during the morning. They went together, and were +received with his usual urbane politeness. + +“Good-morning, Mr. Maskew . . . Mr. Ingleby. . . . You had better sit +down. I am very pleased to see your names at the top of the list. Yes . . . +very pleased. I’ve consulted Dr. Moon, and he approves your +appointment as prosectors. It is an office that you will be very wise to +undertake if you have any surgical ambitions, and I am very pleased to +offer it to you. Perhaps you will let me know to-morrow? Thank you, +gentlemen. . . . Good-morning.” + +“Shall you take it?” said Edwin, as soon as they were outside. + +“Of course I shall. I’m rather keen on Anatomy. It only means putting +one back a year, and it’s worth it a hundred times over, if one gets the +primary Fellowship. You’ll be a fool if you don’t do it. We should have +a topping time together. No lectures . . . just a year of research +work.” + +“I shall have to think about it,” said Edwin. + +It was the financial side of the question that had to be considered. To +add another year to a course that was already expensive in pursuit of an +elusive Fellowship of the Royal College of Surgeons: was it worth while? +To begin with, he might easily fail. The primary examination was +notoriously fluky, the results depending on the individual caprices and +preferences of examiners. Edwin knew very well that better men than +himself had failed in it. If, after draining his father’s pockets for +another year, he should be ploughed, the situation would be altogether +too pathetic. + +Anything that affected his father’s purse seemed to Edwin, in those days, +a matter for delicacy and shame. He hated to receive money from him. It +was an acute embarrassment to see him write a cheque. He wrote slowly, +with a regular, formal hand, and all the time Edwin, watching him, would +think how many small, degrading sales of tooth paste and castor oil and +pennyworths of camphor had gone to the making of that tenuous +bank-account, and how easily and carelessly the painful accumulations +would be spent. He hated asking his father for money, and for this +reason had compelled himself to refrain from asking for the perfectly +reasonable and necessary allowance that he had been wanting to settle for +the last year. + +And so he did not dare to tell his father that he had been offered the +prosectorship and the opportunity of taking the Fellowship. If he had +done so he was almost certain that Mr. Ingleby would have consented, and +his father’s sacrifice would have thrown such a weight of obligation on +him that life would not have been worth living. Indeed, if, in the end, +he should have failed, his shame would have been intolerable. These +reflections on the humility and penury of his father always plunged Edwin +into a debauch of sentiment in which he would return with the zeal of a +prodigal to the resolutions that he had made at the time of his mother’s +death. They filled him with a kind of protective fervour that might +easily have been mistaken for love, but was, in reality, an excuse for +its absence. Still, even if the sentiment harrowed, it consoled, and +Edwin was heroically elated by the performance of a sacrifice that he had +not been brave enough to refuse. + +It pleased him also to find that W.G. was thankful for his decision. +“You see, it would have been rotten for me,” he said, “if you and Maskew +had both been left behind. When you’ve got into the habit of working +with a fellow in your first two years, it’s a bit of a break to have to +go on by yourself. Of course, I should never have the least earthly +chance of getting the Fellowship, and even if I had, I couldn’t afford to +waste a year over it. I’m damned glad you’re coming on with me, +Ingleby.” + +The tribute was flattering. Edwin, always rather pathetically anxious +for friendship, was particularly pleased to have it offered so frankly by +a creature as unlike him in every way as W.G. There was something stable +and reliable about the big man’s simplicity. He felt that he would be as +loath to give offence to W.G. as to his father; and though he still felt +some indefinite hankerings after the atmosphere of culture that he would +have enjoyed in the society of Boyce, he couldn’t deny the fact that W.G. +was a sound and splendid fellow, and a good man to have by his side in an +emergency. Together they plunged into the new world of hospital life. + + +II + + +Two general hospitals supplied the clinical needs of the North Bromwich +Medical School. The older, from which the school had originated, was a +small institution, the Prince’s, with which Edwin had become acquainted +on the occasion of his first panto-night. It stood in the upper and +healthier part of the city, in the middle of the slums that lie upon the +fringe of the fashionable suburb of Alvaston: a solid building of early +Victorian red brick, with a stone portico facing upon a thoroughfare of +rather older houses that had once been reputable but had now degenerated +into theatrical lodging-houses. + +The hospital itself was small enough to be homely, and W.G. and Edwin +soon became accustomed to its narrow entrance hall, and the lodge in +which porters, who already knew all that was to be known about the +reception of casualties, were housed. + +Edwin would arrive at the hospital early in the morning, when no sign of +life was to be seen in the “professional” lodgings sleeping with drawn +blinds upon the other side of the road. At this time of the day the +hospital porch smelt clean and antiseptic, for the stream of stinking +humanity had not yet begun to trickle through. He would hang his coat in +the narrow passage that served for cloakroom and lounge with a cigarette +in his mouth before the glass-fronted notice-boards on which the lists of +operations for the day were exhibited, and exchange greetings with the +night porter departing in a state of drowsy ill-temper, or the day-porter +coming on duty with a military swagger and his grey hair plastered down +with vaseline, from the casualty department, and cold water. + +Here, too, the members of the consulting staff would arrive in their +frock-coats and top-hats: great men, such as Lloyd Moore, the outstanding +surgical genius of the Midlands; old Beaton, the professor of surgery, +with his long, grey beard, and Hartley, the ophthalmologist, whose +reputation was European. These giants would pass on through the swinging +doors to their wards or consulting rooms, and on the very stroke of nine, +W.G., who was a bad riser, and always cut things fine, would plunge in, +carrying with him the strenuous atmosphere of a cold sponge and breezy +enthusiasm. Then the clock would strike nine, and they would pass on +together arm in arm, into the huge, airy waiting-hall with innumerable +benches set crosswise like the pews in a church; and, at the same moment, +the military porter, who had been marshalling the queue of out-patients, +would release them, and a bewildering crowd of poorly-clad human wreckage +would drift in behind them, settling patiently into the benches opposite +the door of the department from which they were seeking relief. + +The work of Edwin and W.G. lay in the Casualty Department, a small room +full of pleasant morning light. On one side of it ran a long counter +with shelves for bottles, and drawers in which plasters, dressings, and +ointments were kept. On the other, half a dozen chairs were ranged for +the reception of patients. The medical staff consisted of four persons +only: two professionals, a young and enthusiastic surgeon named Mather +who held the post of Assistant Surgeon to Out-patients, and an elderly +sister who had been on the job for years, and two amateurs in the shape +of Edwin and W.G. + +All of them were clothed in white overalls; for the work of the casualty +department was of a dirty nature, and these long garments also served as +some protection from the swarming parasites that lived upon the bodies of +their patients. Edwin, who suffered agonies of irritation from their +attacks, also armed himself with a glass-stoppered bottle of ether with +which he would drench the seat of irritation in the hopes of inflicting +death or at least unconsciousness upon his tormentors. + +Then, one by one, the patients would file in, and plant themselves upon +the wooden chairs: old men whose skins were foul with the ravages of +eczema and dirt combined; women, exhausted in middle age by +child-bearing, and the accepted slavery of housework; sturdy mechanics +who had been the victims of some unavoidable accident; pale young women, +made anxious for their livelihood by illness that its conditions had +caused, and, more terrible than all, the steady stream of wan, +transparent children, the idols of maternal care, the victims of maternal +ignorance. + +In the human wreckage of the casualty department there was no great +variety; but all of it was new to Edwin and W.G., and they threw +themselves into the labour with enthusiasm, working so hard from nine +o’clock till one, that their backs ached and they lost all sense of the +passage of time. Mather himself seemed to them a prodigy of skilfulness, +so swift in his decisions, so certain and adroit in the work of his +hands. Even the sister, whom Edwin had originally regarded as a mere +woman, aroused their admiration by the ease with which she worked and her +invincible good humour. Edwin found that she could teach him more than +his male superiority would ever have dreamed. + +Little by little the astounding confusion of their work began to seem +more simple. Bandages, that had seemed condemned to unsightly ruckles, +or liable to fall unrolled upon the dirty floor, began to fold themselves +in symmetrical designs. Edwin and W.G. vied with one another in the +neatness of their dressings. The smell of the place, that had seemed at +first to fester beneath an unconvincing veil of carbolic and iodoform, +now seemed natural to their nostrils, even pleasant in its familiarity. + +Edwin began to have time to look about him, to form individual +attachments to the patients who came there every day, to take a +particular interest in cases that he regarded as his own. Gradually, +from the mass of evil-smelling humanity, personalities began to emerge +and even intimacies that were flattering because they implied a trust in +his own imperfect skill. + +He did not know the names of his patients any more than they knew his. +To him they were grouped under conventional generics: Daddy, Granny, +Tommy, Polly, and the like. To them he was always “Doctor”; but the +thing that made them human and lovable to him was the sense of their +dependence on him; and the preference for his attentions that was +sometimes timidly expressed, gave him a flush of gratification deeper +than any he had ever known. It pleased him to think that it was true +when his patients told him that he dressed them more gently than the +other workers in the casualty department. Such confidences almost +convinced him that he had found a vocation. + +After lunch Edwin and W.G. would talk over their cases together in the +lounge of the Dousita. Maskew, who still met them every day at this +resort, found their conversation boring, and fell back more and more upon +the charms of Miss Wheeler, who did not seem to have varied by a single +hairpin since the day of their first acquaintance. And from the +discussion of their individual cases, W.G. would sometimes pass on to the +more general questions that their work aroused. + +“This life’s worth living,” he would say. “When you first take up +medicine and spend a couple of years over learning the atomic weights of +heavy metals or dissecting the stomach of an earthworm, you begin to +wonder what the devil you’re getting at; by Gad, this hospital work opens +your eyes. You’re doing something practical. What’s more, you’re doing +a job that no professor of classics or stinks could touch, and you see +the actual results of your treatment on your patients.” + +“Thank God, I’m not one of them, W.G.,” said Maskew morosely. “As a +matter of fact, it’s no more than when an electrical engineer finds a +short circuit and makes a new connection, or when a carpenter makes a job +of a rickety staircase.” + +“That’s all you know about it, my friend,” said W.G. “In our job you’re +dealing with human life; you’re relieving physical pain—and sometimes you +get thanked for it, which is damned pleasant. And you’ve a +responsibility too. If you make a slip the poor devil you’re +experimenting on is going to suffer. You may even kill him. And the +extraordinary thing is that he trusts you . . .” + +To Edwin also that was the most extraordinary thing, and, indeed, the +most pathetic. It showed him that the practice of medicine imposed an +actual moral discipline on those who followed it: an obligation of the +most meticulous honour and devotion. But if the discipline of practice +demanded much, it repaid a thousandfold. He had his reward not only in +the thanks of the scabrous old men whose varicose ulcers, or “bad legs,” +as they called them, he dressed, but in the rarer consciousness of actual +achievement which came to him more frequently as the scope of his work +extended. + +One case in particular he always remembered, principally because it was +the first of the kind. She was a little Jewish tailoress who laboured at +piecework in some sweater’s den in the rookeries on the southern side of +the hospital. She was not beautiful. Her face had the peculiar ivory +pallor, and her whole body the unhealthy brittleness, of plants that have +sprouted in a cellar. But her voice was soft, and her hands, the +fingertips of which were made callous by the plucking of threads and +rough with innumerable needle pricks, were beautifully shaped. A week or +so before she had stabbed her left forefinger with an infected needle, +and lit a focus of suppuration in the tendon sheath. She had to live, +poor thing! and so, for a week she had worked in a state of agony, while +the tissues grew tense and shiny with compression, and the pain would not +let her sleep. At last, when she could work no longer, she had come to +the casualty department, nursing her poisoned hand in a bandana +handkerchief. She had not slept for four nights, and was very near to +tears. + +Edwin, who saw that surgery was needed, showed the case to Mather. The +surgeon stripped the sleeve from her thin, transparent arm and showed him +the red lines by which the poison was tracking up the lymphatics towards +the glands of the axilla that stood like blockhouses in the way of +bacterial invasion. + +“Why didn’t you come before?” he said, with a roughness that was not +unkind. How many times was Edwin to hear those very words! + +“I couldn’t, doctor. There was my work—” + +“There’d be no more work for you, my dear, if you went on much longer,” +said Mather: and then, to Edwin, “Yes . . . you’d better incise it at +once, I’m busy putting up a fracture. Straight down in the middle line. +Don’t be afraid of it.” + +“Oh, you’re not going to cut me, doctor?” she said. “Not till to-morrow. +. . . Oh, please . . . when I’ve had a night’s sleep.” + +He was very nervous. He assured her that he would give her no pain; but +while he left her to fetch the scalpel and the dressings he heard a queer +drumming noise and turned to see that it was made by the heels of his +patient trembling on the floor. He was nearly as tremulous himself. + +“I promise you I won’t hurt you,” he said, and she returned him a painful +smile. It was a look he knew. “Just like the eyes of a dog,” W.G. had +said. + +He sprayed the finger with ethyl chloride, that froze into a crust like +hoarfrost on the fingertip and blanched the skin that was already pale +with the pressure inside it. All the time the girl was making little +nervous movements, and sometimes her heels began to drum again until she +tucked them under the bar of her chair. + +“I’m sorry, doctor, I can’t help it,” she said. + +Then, with his scalpel, he made a clean longitudinal cut through the +tense skin down to the bone of the phalanx. She gave a start and +clutched his hand so that he nearly gave it up. “I’ve got to do it,” he +thought. “I must do it.” It was the first time that he had ever cut +with a knife into living flesh. A strange sensation. . . . But the bead +of matter that escaped showed him that he had got to the root of the +trouble, and the sight of it filled him with a new and curious +exultation. + +It was a long business, for the neglected pressure had impaired the +vitality of the bone and the wound would not heal until the dead spicules +had been separated from the living tissue. Edwin dressed the finger +every morning. The patient would have been a poor subject at the best of +times, and he knew that the fact that she was now out of work probably +meant that she was starving. It would have been easy for him to tell her +that she must have plenty of nourishing food; but he knew well enough +that the words would have been no more than a mockery. In the hospital +wards, he reflected, she might have been well fed; but the wards at the +Prince’s were full of more serious cases who could not walk to the +hospital to receive their treatment. On occasions of this kind he wished +that he were a millionaire: an extravagant idea—for doctors are never +millionaires. He could only ram iron into her and dress her and try to +get her well so that she might travel back around the vicious circle to +the conditions that had been responsible for her illness. It seemed to +him that people who were not doctors could never really know anything +about life. + +In a little while there were others, many of them, in whose cases he knew +that he had been privileged to effect some positive good: notably an old +woman, always dressed in black and loaded with crepe as though she were +attending her own funeral, who had fractured her wrist by slipping on an +icy pavement one evening when she was fetching her husband’s supper beer, +an office that she appeared far too ladylike ever to have performed. She +had put out her hand to save herself, and a Colles fracture of the ulna +and radius had been the result. + +She called Edwin “My dear,” and the first thing that he noticed about her +was the amazing cleanliness of her withered skin. He remembered the +fortitude that she had shown when first he reduced the fracture; how her +bony fingers, on one of which was a wedding ring worn very thin, had +clasped his. For some curious reason he felt very tenderly towards her, +and when the bones were set and he had passed her on to the massage +department, he felt quite lost without her early “Good-morning!” That +was another strange thing about medical practice: the way in which people +with whom he was thrown into an intimate sympathy for a few days passed +completely and irrevocably out of his life. + +W.G. and Edwin found their experience so intriguing that they took turns +to visit the casualty department in the afternoons when the work was +light, and the absence of Mather gave them a free hand in the performance +of minor surgery. At this time of the day the work of the department was +more suggestive of its name; for the people who came there were nearly +all the victims of sudden illness or accident that needed diagnosis and +immediate treatment. It pleased Edwin to deal with these off his own +bat, and he spent the long afternoons that were free from lectures in +suturing wounds, removing brass filings or specks of cinders from eyes, +extracting teeth, gaining confidence every day and suffering the mingled +emotions of pain, pity, and violent indignation. Not infrequently the +last . . . for he saw so much suffering that might easily have been +prevented but for the ignorance or callousness of humanity. These things +aroused his anger; but he soon realised that anger was the one emotion +that a doctor is most wise to suppress. + +Sometimes a woman from one of the neighbouring slums would enter in a +state of hollow-eyed terror, carrying in her shawl a child that was +obviously dying from broncho-pneumonia. + +“Why, in the name of Heaven, didn’t you come up before?” he would ask +indignantly. + +“The neighbours said it was only the teething, doctor,” she would reply. + +Edwin would try to suppress an inclination to damn the neighbours upside +down. “Surely you could see the child was ill?” he would say. + +“Yes, doctor, but how could I get away? There’s seven of them, bless +their hearts, and me going with another, and the house looking like a +pigsty, and the master’s dinner to cook. I haven’t got no time to spare +for hospitals.” + +And he knew that she spoke the truth, contenting himself, as he filled in +the form for admission to the children’s ward, with telling her that the +diet of bread-crusts soaked in beer, which she had been giving it, was +not ideal for a baby eight months old. + +“Take the baby along to ward fourteen,” he would say, “they’ll do what +they can for it,” and be met, as likely as not, with a volume of tigerish +abuse from a wild-eyed woman who swore that if her baby was going to die +it wasn’t going to do so in any bloody hospital, was it, my pretty?—the +last words sinking to a maternal coo and being accompanied by a paroxysm +of kisses on the baby’s lips that were already blue for want of breath. +And then Edwin would control his indignation and resort to wheedling and +coaxing, feeling that if the baby were left to the mercies of maternal +instinct, he himself would be little better than a murderer. + +Indeed, the responsibilities of his calling and its immense obligations +impressed themselves on him more deeply every day. He saw that this +profession of medicine was not to be taken lightly; that his work in it +would be useless, almost impious, if it were not religiously performed. +Even from the earliest ages this had been so. One day, idly reading a +back number of the _Lancet_, he came upon a historical article that +contained a translation of the Hippocratic oath, which had been +administered to all those who were initiated in the mysteries of medicine +two thousand years ago. It seemed to him that it might have been written +on the day that he read it. Thus it ran:— + + “I swear by Apollo the Healer, and Æsculapius, and Hygieia, and + Panacea; and I call all Gods and Goddesses to witness, that I will, + according to my power and judgment, make good this oath and covenant + that I sign. I will use all ways of medical treatment that shall be + for the advantage of the sufferers, according to my power and + judgment, and will protect them from injury and injustice. Nor will + I give to any man, though I be asked to give it, any deadly drug, nor + will I consent that it should be given. But purely and holily I will + keep guard over my life and my art. + + “And into whatever houses I enter, I will enter into them for the + benefit of the sufferers, departing from all wilful injustice and + destructiveness, and all lustful works, on bodies, male and female, + free and slaves. And whatever in practice I see or hear, or even + outside practice, which it is not right should be told abroad, I will + be silent, counting as unsaid what was said. + + “Therefore to me, accomplishing this oath and not confounding it, may + there be enjoyment of life and art, being in good repute among all + men for ever and ever: but to me, transgressing and perjured, the + contrary.” + +Fine reading, Edwin thought. . . . The only deity of whom he was not +quite certain was Panacea. Obviously the classical representative of +Mother Siegel. It seemed to him a pity that the modern student was not +bound by the formulæ of the Physician of Cos. + +His three months in the casualty department passed away quickly, and in +the spring of the year he found himself attached as dresser to that +startling surgeon, Lloyd Moore. The appointment, as he soon realised, +was a privilege; for Lloyd Moore was the one man of unquestionable genius +in the North Bromwich Medical School. At first the experience was rather +alarming, for the vagaries of his chief, and, not least, his genial +vulgarity, seemed at first as though they were going to destroy the +pretty edifice of ideals that Edwin had constructed on the basis of the +Hippocratic oath and his experience in the casualty department. Lloyd +Moore, to begin with, was no respecter of persons, ancient or modern; his +wit was ruthless and occasionally bitter, as Edwin had reason to know; +his language, particularly in moments of stress, was unvarnished and +foul, even in the presence of women. + +On the surface, indeed, he seemed a person whom Hippocrates would have +regarded as undignified and improper. Sometimes in the out-patient +department Edwin would blush for his chief’s violence and cruelty, but, +in the end, all these things were forgotten in the realisation that the +little man was a great surgical genius, to whom diagnosis was a matter of +inspired, unerring instinct, and practice a gift of the gods. Nor were +his virtues merely professional. L.M. (as he was always called) was a +man of the people, one who had fought his way inch by inch into the +honourable position that he held as the greatest of surgeons and the +wealthiest practitioner in the Midlands. The unpaid work of the hospital +absorbed him even to the neglect of private practice, and every doctor in +the district knew that he could count on the very best of the great man’s +skill for a nominal fee in any case of emergency. Far more than any +consultant in the Midlands, he was regarded as the general practitioner’s +friend, and, as a result of this confidence, all the most interesting +surgical material of the district found its way into his clinic. + +In a little time Edwin became wholly subject to the spell of this amazing +personality, until it seemed strange to him that he could ever have +doubted the propriety of anything that L.M. said or did. He wondered +more and more at the man’s titanic energy, for Lloyd Moore was a little +fellow, so pale that he always looked as if he were fainting with +exhaustion. His patients also adored him, and more than once Edwin was +told in the wards by elderly female admirers that Mr. Lloyd Moore was the +very image of Jesus Christ. + +In the days of the casualty department Edwin’s main concern had been with +the alleviation of immediate pain. The problem of the wards was graver, +being no less than the balance of life and death. In the achievements of +L.M.’s scalpel, he saw the highest attainment of which surgery was +capable. In a hundred cases offhand he could say to himself that but for +Lloyd Moore’s skill the patient would have died, and when he saw the +fragile figure of the surgeon with his pale face and burning eyes enter +the theatre, Edwin would think of him as a man worn thin by wrestling +with death . . . death in its most cruel and invincible moods. + +But in the theatre, at the time of one of L.M.’s emergency operations, +there was no time for dreaming or for romantic speculation. An +atmosphere of materialism, of pure, sublimated action, filled the room as +surely as the sweet fumes of chloroform and ether. Everything about the +place was clean and bright and hard, from the frosted-glass of the roof +and the porcelain walls to the shining instruments that lay newly +sterilised in trays on the glass-topped tables. Even the theatre sister +in her white overall gave an impression of clean, bright hardness. +Indeed, in this white temple of sterility, everything was clean except +those parts of the patient’s body that the nurses in the wards had not +scrubbed with nail-brushes and shaved and painted with iodine, and the +language of L.M., whose physical lustrations had no effect whatever on +his vocabulary. + +Even L.M.’s language was at times a relief, for it seemed to be the only +human thing that ever gained admission to the theatre, and the sister was +so inhuman as never to take the least notice of it. Not a smile, nor +even the least compression of the lips marked her appreciation or +disapproval of the surgeon’s sallies. Physically she was an extremely +attractive woman, with very beautiful eyes that were not without their +effect upon Edwin; but the influence of the place robbed her of any +sexual attributes; so that she became no more than a monosyllabic +automaton, intent, devoted, faultlessly prepared for any of the desperate +emergencies of surgery. From the first Edwin had noticed that the more +embarrassing physical details of the patients had no disturbing effect +upon her modesty. He soon saw that if she had permitted herself for one +moment to be a woman she could not have remained the wholly admirable +theatre-sister that she was. “But I can’t imagine,” he thought, “how any +man could marry a nurse—” + +From such reflections he would be roused by the anæsthetist’s laconic +“Ready.” On one side of the operating table he would stand, and on the +other L.M. with the theatre-sister ready at his elbow. The surgeon would +pick up a scalpel carelessly, as a man picks up a pencil to write, and +then, apparently with as little thought, he would make a long, clean +incision through the skin and superficial fatty tissues of the abdomen, +putting his head on one side to look at it like an artist whose pencil +has described a beautiful curve. Then, sharply: “Swabs . . . Ingleby, +what the hell do you think you’re doing?” And Edwin would press a swab +of gauze to the incision to absorb the blood that escaped from the +subcutaneous veins. + +“Right.” + +Layer by layer the various planes of fascia, muscle, and peritoneum would +be opened and neatly laid aside, every one of them slipped in its own +pair of artery forceps. Then, from the gaping wound, that L.M. probed +with his thin finger, a sickening odour would rise . . . one that Edwin +never remembered apart from the other sickening smell of ether. + +“Pus. . . I thought so,” L.M. would say. “The brute’s perforated, damn +him.” And Edwin knew that yet another creature had been snatched out of +the jaws of death. + +In the hands of L.M. surgery seemed so simple. His scalpel—for he used +fewer instruments than any surgeon Edwin ever knew—was a part of him in +the same way as a perfect rider is part of his horse. There was never +any hesitation in his surgery, never any room for doubt; everything was +straightforward and self-evident from the first incision to the last +suture; and he was at his best when he threw into it a touch of bravura, +rejoicing in the amazing virtuosity of his own technique and playing, a +little, to the gallery. + +“There you are,” he would say, “you see there’s nothing in it. Nothing +at all but a working knowledge of anatomy and a dollop of common-sense. +That’s all surgery. Why on earth should they pay me a hundred guineas +for doing a simple thing like that? There’s nothing in it, is there?” + +Edwin knew that there was a great deal in it: genius, and more than +genius: a life of devotion to one end only; infinite physical strains; +cruel disappointments; harrowing mistakes. For even L.M. had made +mistakes in his time; and a doctor pays for his mistakes more heavily +than any other man. + +Apart from the performance of emergency operations, that might take place +at any hour of the day or night, the surgeon only occupied his theatre on +three mornings in the week; and the greater part of Edwin’s time was +devoted to the work of the wards. Here he performed his proper function +as dresser, being, under the house-surgeon, responsible for the +after-treatment of the patients on whom L.M. had operated This business +kept his hands full. Nearly all the acute surgical cases needed dressing +daily, and some more than once a day. It was usual for the dresser to +leave the second dressing to be done by the house-surgeon on his evening +round, or by the sister of the ward, who would doubtless have performed +it, as well as either of them; but nothing could induce Edwin, in his +newest enthusiasm, to drop a case into which his teeth were fixed. + +The morning visits were ceremonial. The great floors of the wards shone +like the faces of such patients as were fit to be scrubbed, with a soapy +flannel; the rows of beds were set with a mathematical correctness, the +sheets turned down at exactly the same level; the water in the jugs stood +hot, awaiting the dresser’s hands, his towel lay folded in the jug’s +mouth; a probationer, pink-faced and red-armed, stood waiting to do his +professional pleasure; morning sunlight flickered over the leaves of +aspidistras that flourished in pots on the central tables, and on the +trays of dressing instruments that were ready for his hand. + +At ten o’clock precisely, Edwin, an older and more experienced Edwin +whose shaves were no longer a luxury, whose clothes no longer looked as +if he were in the act of growing out of them, and whose collars were +adorned by the very latest thing in ties, would enter the ward, roll up +his shirtsleeves, and be helped on with a white overall by the obedient +probationer—whose main function in life this office seemed to be—or +sometimes by the sister herself. The new Edwin, product of six months in +hospital, was no longer afraid of these attentions because they happened +to be performed by women. In a mild way he was even an amateur of the +physical points exhibited by the _genus_ probationer, and had arrived at +a touching intimacy with the sisters, who found in him a clean and +pleasant mannered youth, and on occasion hauled him out of the +difficulties into which his inexperience landed him. Thus attired, he +would begin his progress of the ward, followed, wherever he went, by the +females who had robed him, the junior pushing before her the wheeled +glass table on which the dressings and instruments were kept. For the +time being he was, or imagined himself to be, the most important person +in the ward, until, perhaps, the house-surgeon entered, and his +attendants forsook their allegiance and hastened to put themselves at the +service of this superior person. + +In the duties of the wards Edwin became far more familiar with his cases +than in the casualty department. The work was less hurried, and the +patients themselves were less fully armed with the conventional social +gestures by which men and women protect and hide themselves. They lay in +bed helpless, dependent on the hospital staff for every necessity and +amusement; and the stress of physical pain, or the catastrophe of a major +operation had generally shaken from them the little superficialities that +they had gathered to themselves in the course of everyday life. Edwin +noticed that, even at their worst, the women were hardly ever too ill to +be a little concerned for their personal appearance, and, as they grew +better, the patients of both sexes would make an heroic attempt to appear +as they wished themselves to seem rather than as they were; but he +realised, none the less, that the doctor gets nearer to the bed-rock of +human personality than any other man who ministers to humanity. With +him, the person into whose hands their suffering bodies were committed in +an almost pitiful confidence, they were concerned to hide themselves far +less than with any other; and in this triumphant discovery Edwin +flattered himself that he was becoming richly learned in human nature. +He did not realise how little he had learned. + +One thing, however, that these days taught him, he never lost in after +life: an intense appreciation of the inherent patience and nobility of +human beings, the precious ore that the fire of suffering revealed. Even +the worst of his patients—in North Bromwich as elsewhere disease is an +impartial enemy, falling on the virtuous and abandoned alike—revealed +such amazing possibilities of good. In these hospital wards the +fundamental gregarious instinct of mankind, with the unselfishness and +sympathy that go along with it, asserted itself. The common life of the +ward was happy, extraordinarily happy. Removed from the ordinary +responsibilities of wage-earning and competition, fed and housed and +tended without question, the patients lived together as happily as a +community of African savages, supported by the female labour of the +nursing staff, obedient to the unquestioned authority of the sister in +charge. + +And in Edwin’s eyes these, too, were wonderful people. At first he had +taken them more or less for granted; but gradually he realised the +tremendous sacrifices that their life implied: the long hours: the +unceasing strain of keeping their temper: the clean, efficient +materialism for which they must have sacrificed so much of the obvious +beauty of life, committing themselves—for most of them were +middle-aged—to an abnegation of the privileges of marriage and motherhood +in a cloistral seclusion as complete as that imposed on the useless +devotee of some mystical religion. He took it for granted that the life +of a nun was useless to any one except herself. . . . Well, this was a +religion worth some sacrifice: the religion of humanity. They themselves +would only have called it a profession. At first it had seemed to him +that their interests were narrow and their lives, of necessity, mean. He +had been astonished at the small things that gave them pleasure: a bunch +of primroses from a grateful patient; a ride on the top of a bus; a word +of commendation from one of the consulting staff; a house-surgeon’s or +even a student’s compliment; and, above all, the passionate attachments +and enmities that made up the life of the nunnery in which they lived: +but in the end he began to sympathise with them in the humility of their +pleasures, to feel that anything might be forgiven to creatures who had +made so great a sacrifice. In a mild way he idealised them; and for this +reason they decided that he was “quite a nice boy.” + + +III + + +In the winter of his third year Edwin’s newly formulated enthusiasm for +humanity in the bulk suffered something of a check. The hospital +absorbed him so completely that in those days he saw very little of the +city, going to and from his lectures and his work in the Pathological +Laboratory at the University without taking any real share in the life of +North Bromwich, or being aware of the passions and interests that swayed +the city’s heart. Coming down from the hospital, one evening in +December, he suddenly became conscious of a constriction in the traffic +which grew more acute as it reached the narrows that debouch upon the +open space in front of the town hall; and while he was wondering what +could be the cause of this, a huge rumour of voices, not unlike that +which proceeds from a Midland football crowd when it disapproves of a +referee, but deeper and more malignant, reached his ears. + +He wondered what was the matter, and since it looked as if the traffic +were now completely blocked on the main road, he cut down the quiet +street that faces the university buildings and overlooks the paved court +in which the statue of Sir Joseph Astill inappropriately dispenses water +to a big stone basin. Almost immediately he found himself upon the +fringes of an immense crowd over which the waves of threatening sound +that he had heard at a distance were moving like catspaws on a sullen +sea. The windows of the town-hall itself blazed with light, making the +outlines of the Corinthian pillars that surrounded it almost beautiful. +He edged his way into the black crowd. It was composed for the most part +of workers in iron and brass, and exhaled an odour of stale oil. In a +moment of relative silence he asked the man who stood in front of him, a +little mechanic who had not troubled to change the oily dungarees in +which he worked, what was the matter. + +“It’s Lloyd George . . . the b—,” he said, and spat fiercely. Edwin was +not sure where he had heard the name before. He seemed to remember it as +that of a Welsh member of Parliament who had come into notoriety during +the debates on the South African War. He inquired what Lloyd George was +doing. + +“Come to speak agen’ Joe,” said the mechanic savagely; and, as a wave of +sound that had started somewhere in the middle of the crowd came sweeping +towards them, he suddenly began to squeal hoarsely like a carnivorous +beast in a cage: a ridiculous noise, that seemed, nevertheless, to +express the feelings of the multitude. From scraps of conversation that +he heard beneath the crowd’s rumour, Edwin began to understand that this +beggarly Welshman, who had spent the last few years in vilifying the +workmen of North Bromwich generally, and their political idol in +particular, had actually dared to bring his dirty accusations to the +political heart of the city: the town-hall in which their favourite had +delivered his most important speeches; that, at this very moment, the +meeting which popular feeling had proscribed, was beginning behind the +Corinthian pillars, and that the just indignation of North Bromwich had +determined that he should not escape with his life. + +It struck Edwin that whatever else the Welshman might be, he was +certainly not lacking in courage; but, for all that, he found it +difficult to prevent his own feelings in the matter from being swamped +and absorbed and swept away by the crowd’s vast, angry consciousness. +Almost in spite of himself, his heart palpitated with vehement malice +against the intruder. He felt that he would have experienced a brutal +satisfaction in seeing him torn limb from limb. + +A yell of extraordinary savagery, in which he found it difficult not to +join, rose from the square. + +The meeting, it seemed, had begun. Edwin saw members of the crowd +scattering in all directions. A cry of “stones!” was raised, and he saw +that men, women, and children were streaming towards an area of slum that +was being dismantled to make room for some monument of municipal +grandeur, returning with caps and hands and aprons full of stones and +broken brick. Soon the air was full of flying missiles, and though the +crash of glass could not be heard, ragged holes were torn in the frosted +glass of the town-hall windows. + +A body of police, tremendous strapping fellows, marched by, followed by +impotent jeers and hooting, and planted themselves in front of all the +doors with truncheons drawn. Their presence seemed to enrage the crowd, +inflaming that suppressed hate of the forces of order that slumbers in +most men’s hearts. The volleys of stones increased as the supplies of +ammunition grew more plentiful. A little dark man with a red tie +monotonously shouting the words: “Free speech!” was caught up, and, as it +seemed to Edwin, trampled to death. Somewhere in the middle of the +struggling masses people began to sing the revivalist hymn: “Shall we +gather at the river?” It reached Edwin in an immense and gathering +volume, with words adapted for the occasion:— + + “Shall we gather at the fountain, + The beautiful, the beautiful, the fountain? + We’ll drown Lloyd George in the fountain. + And he won’t come here any more.” + +The very volume of sound was impressive and inspiring. + +Suddenly the crowd was parted by the arrival of a new body. It was a +phalanx of university students who had dragged an immense beam of oak +from the debris of the dismantled slum and were hurling it forward as a +battering ram against one of the principal doors. Edwin could see +amongst them the towering shoulders of W.G., and the mouth of the elder +Wade, the hero of the hansom cab, wide open and yelling. It seemed as +though the savagery of the crowd had reached its height: they tore a way +through it, trampling the fallen as they went. And then the police, who +had been held in reserve, charged at right angles to them, hitting out +right and left with their loaded batons. The less courageous part of the +crowd tried to scatter. The wave of a stampede spread outwards till it +reached the edge on which Edwin was standing. He was thrown violently +from his feet into the chest of a stranger, who shouted, “Hallo, +Ingleby—” It was Matthew Boyce. “I think we’d better get out of this,” +he said. + +The words seemed to pull Edwin back into sanity. Together they forced +their way into a street that was empty but for a stream of people +hurrying to the square with stones. They stood panting in the quiet. + +“God . . . what animals men are!” said Boyce. “I suppose it was +something like this a hundred years ago, when they burned Priestley’s +house.” + +“Yes, it’s pretty rotten,” said Edwin, “but didn’t you feel you wanted to +join in it?” + +“Yes, that’s the amazing part of it,” said Boyce. “What’s happening to +you in these days? We seem to have lost sight of one another.” + +They walked down to the station together. “It’s an extraordinary thing, +isn’t it?” said Edwin, “that ordinary peaceable men should go mad like +that?” + +“They aren’t men,” said Boyce. “They’re a crowd.” + + + +CHAPTER VII +THE CLERK + + +I + + +WITH this chance encounter, the friendship of Edwin and Matthew Boyce +really began; and during the fourth year, that now opened before him, the +figure of W.G., who had dominated his stage by sheer physical magnitude, +gradually receded. It was inevitable; for the atmosphere of the Boyces’ +house at Alvaston, with its air of culture and refinement, was far more +in keeping with Edwin’s inclinations than the obtuse, if honest, +companionship of W.G. Edwin felt some misgivings for his desertion; but +Maskew, who had now brilliantly taken his Primary Fellowship, began his +hospital career and rejoined his old partner. So, seeing that the needs +of W.G. were provided for and his responsibilities of friendship at an +end, Edwin drifted into a happy intimacy with the poet’s son. + +They were both so young as to be convinced that they were very old. The +world was theirs; for they were full of health and contentment and, at +present, so free from complication that they could enjoy to the full the +treasures of the past and shape the future into splendid dreams. In the +beginning they had found a field of common interest in great works of +literature; but these enthusiasms did not carry them very far, for the +appreciation of literary masterpieces is at its best a solitary pleasure +that is not increased by the joy of sharing. It was in the enjoyment of +music that their friendship found the most intense of its pleasures. + +Edwin’s musical development had been slow. The first seeds had been +planted in his babyhood when, without understanding, he had listened to +his mother’s playing. The chapel services at St. Luke’s, made +interesting by the exotic harmonies of Dr. Downton, had nursed his +interest in the beauty of organised sound. The closed piano in his +mother’s drawing-room had been the symbol of an instinct temporarily +thwarted, and from this he had escaped by way of Aunt Laura’s late +Victorian ballads which had seemed to him very beautiful in their kind. +Luckily his mother’s library of music had been good if old-fashioned, and +when he amused himself, more or less indiscriminately, by trying to learn +the piano at home, he had been forced to do so by way of the sonatas of +Beethoven, Schubert, and Mozart, and the Wohltemperiertes Klavier of +Bach. + +The emotional disturbance of his strange adventure with Dorothy Powys had +thrown him into an orgy of verse-making which produced such poor results +that he was forced to turn to the love-poetry of the Elizabethans and of +Shelley, which he embroidered with musical settings that gave him more +satisfaction. These attempts at song-writing pleased him for a time; but +it was not until he became friendly with Boyce that he began to realise +what music was. Not only were the Boyces the possessors of a grand-piano +on which his homely tinklings became magnificently amplified, but his +friend’s father, the poet, was intimately acquainted with the best of +modern music. + +Boyce introduced Edwin to the great German song-writers from Schubert and +Schumann to Hugo Wolf, and laid the foundations of a feverish devotion to +Wagner, whom the friends approached perforce by way of Tannhäuser and +Lohengrin, the two operas that the Moody Manners company ventured to +present to provincial audiences. Edwin discovered that North Bromwich, a +city that takes its music as a boa-constrictor takes food, in the +triennial debauch of a festival and then goes to sleep again, +supported—or rather failed to support—a society for the performance of +orchestral music. The concerts were held fortnightly in the town-hall, +the windows of which had now been repaired, and to these concerts Edwin +and his friend went together, always sitting in the same two seats under +the gallery at the back of the hall. In this way they heard a great deal +of good music: the nine symphonies of Beethoven, with the Leeds Choir in +the last: the usual orchestral extracts from the Ring, the Meistersingers +Overture, and the Siegfried Idyll: the fourth, fifth, and sixth +symphonies of Tschaikovski: the tone-poems of Strauss, and a small +sprinkling of modern French music. These were ambrosial nights to which +they both looked forward, and Martin, who had developed an unexpected +inclination for music, sometimes went with them. + +The concerts became the central incident in a kind of ritual. At seven +o’clock the two, or sometimes three, would meet in the grill room behind +the bar at Joey’s and consume a gross but splendid repast of tripe and +onions together with a pint or more of bitter Burton. All the best +music, they had decided, was German, and beer was the only drink on which +it could be fully appreciated, de Quincey’s preference for laudanum +notwithstanding. Pleasantly elated, they would cross the road to the +town-hall and take their familiar seats, pleased to recognise the people +who, like themselves, were regular attendants or subscribers to this +unfashionable function; and Boyce, who, by virtue of his distinguished +parentage, knew every one in North Bromwich who was interested in music, +would point out to them all the distinguished people who were present: +Oldham, the critic of the _Mail_, whom Arthur Boyce declared to be the +soundest living writer on musical subjects, and Marsden, who did the +musical criticism for the _Courier_. Matthew knew them both. Oldham, he +said, was a wonderful fellow, who wrote with a pen of vitriol that made +such short work of baser metals that the gold of beauty appeared brighter +for his writing. Oldham became Edwin’s prophet; but, on the whole, he +preferred the looks of Marsden. + +“What is Marsden like?” he asked. + +“Marsden? Oh, well, as a matter of fact, Marsden’s a bit of a gas bag. +The governor says that he always reminds him of an old hen. Didn’t you +notice him in Joey’s talking nineteen to the dozen to that queer fellow +with a face like a full moon who sits in front of us?” + +The fellow with the face like a full-moon was only one of twenty or +thirty people with whom the friends experienced a sort of comradeship on +these nights. Perhaps the most wonderful time was the end of the concert +when they would walk out together into the spring night, parting at the +corner of the town-hall; and the memory of great musical moments would +accompany Edwin home through miles of darkling country, and even fill his +little room at Halesby with their remembered glory or wander through his +dreams. + +His life at home was the least satisfactory part of these enchanted +years. There were moments, indeed, when it seemed as if the ideal +relationship with his father, that had been his early ambition, were +being realised. Sometimes, on a Sunday morning, they would walk round +the garden together in the sun, and Edwin would experience a return of +the passionate good-will and anxiety to please that had overwhelmed him +in the moment of their bereavement; but their two natures were radically +so different that such moments were rare, and, when they came, were +really more of an embarrassment than a pleasure. + +He felt that, on his side at any rate, the relationship was artificial; +that, however unnatural it might seem, he really had to whip himself up +to a proper appreciation of his father’s virtues. A sense of veiled but +radical antagonism underlay all their dealings with each other; and at +times this hidden thing, that Edwin held in such dread, came so +perilously near to the surface as to threaten an open rupture. + +The question of Edwin’s allowance created one of these dangerous +situations. Edwin knew that it was impossible for him to live the +ordinary life of a medical student in North Bromwich without one; but the +distaste for speaking of money matters, which arose from his delicate +appreciation of his father’s finances, had made it difficult to approach +the subject. At last he had screwed up his courage to the point of +making a very modest demand, and his father, instead of realising the +difficulty he had found in doing so, had hedged in a way that made Edwin +feel himself a hard and mercenary parasite. + +“All right, father, we won’t say anything more about it,” he said, +comforting himself with the assurance that in a couple of years he would +be qualified and in a position to earn his own living and pay his way. +On the strength of this, and with his eyes wide open, he ran up a number +of small tailors’ bills in North Bromwich; and all would have been well +if Mr. Ingleby, in a fit of absent-mindedness, had not opened these +incriminating documents and leapt to the conclusion that his son was +going rapidly to the dogs. An unfortunate scene followed. + +“I suppose you realise, Edwin,” he said, “that you are a minor, and that +while you are under age I am responsible for these bills?” + +“I’ve not the least intention of letting you pay them,” said Edwin. + +“I’m afraid I have no alternative. I want you to tell me truthfully if +there are any others.” + +“Of course there are others. Please don’t bother about them. In a +little while I shall be able to pay them.” + +“This is a great blow to me,” said Mr. Ingleby solemnly, overwhelming +Edwin with a picture of virtuous poverty staggering from a cowardly blow +in the dark; and the obvious distrust with which his father regarded him +made his position at home almost intolerable. It seemed to him that his +father now looked upon all his pleasures with suspicion; and, as a +natural result, he lived more than ever to himself, only returning to +Halesby late at night or at times when he knew that his father would be +busy in the shop. One circumstance came to bridge the gap between them, +a course of pharmacology that Edwin took early in his fourth year. He +was delighted to find a subject in which his father was more learned than +himself, and spent a number of hours that were almost happy in the shop +answering the questions that Mr. Ingleby put to him on pharmacopoeial +doses and searching the little nests of drawers for rare drugs to +identify in their raw state. But the pharmacology course was short, and +the subject that was so important in his father’s life was small and +unimportant in Edwin’s. In addition to which he could not help feeling a +sort of ethical prejudice against the complacency with which his father +discharged patent medicines that he knew to be worthless if not harmful. + +Every circumstance tended to isolate him from the influences of Halesby. +His sudden attempt to be friendly with Edward Willis had withered under +the humiliating _dénouement_ of his adventure with Dorothy Powys; the new +fields of music that he explored with Matthew Boyce had made him +discontented with Aunt Laura’s ballads; the general air of elegance and +refinement with which he had become acquainted in one or two Alvaston +houses to which the Boyces had introduced him, made everything in +Halesby, even his own home, seem a little shabby and unsatisfactory. +North Bromwich, and his work there, claimed him more and more. + + +II + + +Even when his first enthusiasms and the inspiring generalisations that +arose from them were exhausted, he found that he could not escape from +the fascination of the studies which he now pursued, for the most part, +in the company of Matthew Boyce. His third year had not only introduced +him to the romance of surgery and the human interests of hospital life. +He had spent long hours in the pathological laboratory and had made +acquaintance with bacteriology, a science that was still in its infancy. + +In this work he had shared a desk with Boyce, to whom it was particularly +attractive, and between them they had developed a bacteriological +technique rather above the average, taking an imaginative delight in the +isolation of the microscopic deadly forms of vegetable life that are +responsible for nearly all the physical sufferings of mankind. When they +looked together at the banded bacilli of tubercule, stained red with +carbolfuchsin, they saw more than a specimen under a coverglass: they saw +the chosen and bitter enemies of genius, the malignant, insensate spores +of lowest life that had banished Keats to fade in Rome, Shelley to drown +by Via Reggio, Stevenson to perish in Samoa: the blind instruments of +destruction that were even then draining the last strength from the +opium-sodden frame of the author of _The Hound of Heaven_. Here, in a +single test-tube, they could see enclosed enough of the organisms of +cholera to sweep all Asia with a wave of pestilence; here, stained with +Indian ink, the dreamy trypanosome that had wrapped the swarming shores +of the Nyanzas of dark Africa in the sleep of death. + +Both of them were seized with a passionate fever for research, to rid +humanity of this insidious and appalling blight. Now, more than ever, +they felt the supreme responsibilities of their calling; and when, in +their fourth year, they passed on to their work in the medical wards, as +clerks to the senior physician at the Infirmary, and saw the effects of +bacterial havoc on the bodies of men and women, their enthusiasm rose to +a still higher pitch. + +The canons of the new university decreed that students who had learnt +their surgery at one hospital should study medicine at the other. It was +something of a disappointment to Edwin to exchange the homely atmosphere +of Prince’s, where everything was familiar, for the colder and more +formal wards of the Infirmary. This hospital, which was nearly twice the +size of the other, was situated in the lower and less healthy part of the +city. At Prince’s there had been a way of escape westwards through the +pleasant suburban greens of Alvaston to the country and the hills. The +Infirmary, in its terra-cotta arrogance, had been set down in the heart +of unreclaimed slums, in such a way that its very magnificence and +efficiency were depressing by contrast. Edwin disliked the palatial +splendour of its shining wards which, for all their roominess, were full +of an air that suffocated; for the windows were never opened, and the +atmosphere that the patients breathed had been sucked into the place by +an immense system of forced ventilation, filtered until it seemed to have +lost all its nature, heated, and then propelled through innumerable +shafts into every corner of the building. In the basement of the +hospital the machine that was responsible for this circulation of heated +air made a melancholy groaning; and this sound made the whole structure +seem more like an artificial assembly of matter than a real hospital with +a personality and a soul. + +It is possible that the teaching methods of the Infirmary were superior +to those of Prince’s; and the supporters of the institution prided +themselves on the fact that the nursing staff was drawn from a higher +social stratum; but for a long time Edwin felt considerably less at home +there than he had been at the older hospital. The ward work, however, +was even more fascinating, for the reason, no doubt, that his wonder was +now tempered with a higher degree of erudition. + +He found his new chief an inspiring figure. In the first place, the fact +that he was a gentleman and a man of culture made him an effective +contrast to that dynamic but plebeian genius, L.M. He was a graduate of +one of the older universities, and though this counted for little in the +mind of Edwin, who now affected to despise the city of his broken dream, +it did lend an air of distinction to Sir Arthur Weldon’s discourses. He +had a quiet voice, an admirable manner with women patients or nurses, and +beautiful hands, on one of which he wore a signet ring embellished with +his crest and a motto which his presence merited: “In toto teres atque +rotundus.” The rotundity, it may be added, was so mild as to do no more +than accentuate the elegance of a gold and platinum watch-chain that he +wore. He was a great stickler for the traditions and dignity of his +profession, and no word that was not infallibly correct disturbed the +urbanity of his slow and polished periods. For this reason his tutorials +in the wards were models of academic dignity, and much frequented by +students who knew that he was far too anxious for the form of his +discourse to break its continuity by asking awkward questions. He +treated his clerks, and indeed every member of his classes, as if they +were gentlemen nurtured in the same fine atmosphere as himself. He +inspired confidence, and demanded nothing in return but correctness of +behaviour and speech. + +All these things made it easy to work for him; and the fact that over and +above these social qualities he was a particularly sound physician, with +a reputation that was already more than provincial, made Edwin sensible +of the privilege of acting as his clerk. + +His speciality was disease affecting the heart or lungs, and though his +wards at the infirmary were open to all sorts of general medical cases, +these two types of tragedy came most frequently under his care and +Edwin’s observation. Sir Arthur exacted from his clerks the preparation +of accurate and voluminous notes on all his cases, and Edwin spent many +hours in the wards extracting from his patients the details of family and +medical history and moulding them into a balanced and intelligible +report. The emotions that the study of the tubercle bacillus had aroused +in him in the laboratory were reinforced a hundred times in the wards +devoted to phthisical patients, too far advanced in dissolution for +sanatorium treatment, that were his chief’s especial care. + +They were most of them creatures of intelligence and sensitiveness above +the average of the hospital patient; their eyes shone between their long +lashes with a light that may have been taken for that of inspiration in +those of dead poets; even in the later stages of the disease, when their +strength would hardly allow them to drag up their emaciated limbs in +their beds, and their bodies were wrung nightly with devastating sweats +or attacks of hæmorrhage that left them transparent and exhausted—even +then they were so ready to be cheerful and to let their imagination +blossom in vain hope, that Edwin found them the most pitiful of all his +patients. The _spes phthisica_ seemed to him the most pathetic as well +as the most merciful of illusions. + +In this ward he became acquainted with one patient in particular, a boy, +the son of labouring parents whom heredity and circumstance alike had +marked down from the day of his birth to be a victim of the disease. His +mother and two sisters had died of it, and all his short life had been +spent in a labourer’s cottage made deadly by the family’s infection, at +the sunless bottom of a wet Welsh valley. + +As a child he had been too delicate to enjoy the fresh air that he would +have breathed on the way to the village school. He had lived, as far as +Edwin could make out, in the single room in which his mother had lain +dying, and had learned to read and write at her side. Then she had died; +and as soon as he was old enough he had been sent out to work on the farm +where his father was employed, an occupation that might well have saved +him if the work and the exposure had not been too severe, or if he had +not returned at night to the infected hovel. As it was, in the rainy +autumn weather of the hills, he had caught a chill and sickened with +pleurisy, and thus the inevitable had happened. + +He was only fifteen. Education had never come his way, and he had never +read any books but the Confessions of Maria Monk and the family Bible; +but whenever Edwin came to go over his chest and make the necessary +report of progress—fallacious word—upon his case sheets, he noticed that +the boy would hide a sheet of paper on which he had been writing. His +confidence was easily won, and without the least shame he showed Edwin +what he had been doing. He had spent his time in writing verses +composed, for the most part, in the jingling measures of Moody and +Sankey’s hymns. They were sprinkled with strange dialect words that +filled them with splashes of sombre colour; most of them were frankly +ungrammatical; but there were things in some of them that seemed to Edwin +to bear the same relation to poetry as the mountain tricklings of that +far hill country bore to the full stream of Severn. Their banalities, +faintly imitated from the banalities of the hymn book, were occasionally +relieved by phrases of pure beauty that caught the breath with surprise. + +“Why do you do this?” Edwin asked, and when he had recovered from the +shyness and diffidence into which the question had cast him, the boy told +him that he wrote his verses because he couldn’t help it, because the +words became an obsession to him and would not let him sleep until they +were written down. The thin flame of creative aspiration showed itself +in other ways, in the patient’s vivid delight in colours and sounds, and +in the strange pictures, having no relation to nature, that he drew with +coloured chalks. + +It seemed to Edwin that in this case the exhaustion of chronic disease +had revealed the existence, as it sometimes will, of a faint fire of +natural genius. “There, but for the spite of heaven,” he thought, “goes +John Keats,” and, with the feelings of an experimenter in explosives who +mixes strange reagents, he lent his patient a copy of the poet’s works. + +The boy fell on them eagerly. He confessed that he did not understand +them; but he would read them all day, mispronouncing the words as the +classical student perhaps mispronounces those of the Greek poets, but +extracting from their sonorous beauty a curious and vivid sensual +satisfaction. A single line would sometimes throw him into a kind of +trance, and he would lean back in his bed with the book open on his chest +and his slender clubbed fingers clasped above it, repeating to himself +his own version of the words without any conception of their real +meaning. Sometimes a line would fill him with memories:— + + “Deep in the shady sadness of a vale + Far sunken from the healthy breath of morn, + Far from the fiery moon, and eve’s one star . . .” + +“That is like our home,” he would say. + +The house-physician did not approve of these experiments. On principle +he would have disapproved of poetry, and in this case he considered the +reading of it unhealthy. As if there were any element of health in this +misfortune! . . . A few weeks later the patient had an attack of +hæmoptysis and died. + +It was only in such cases of chronic illness that the question of the +patient’s intellectual state arose. Such speculations might mitigate the +fatigue of slow siege warfare that had only one end in view, but the +acute medical wards, and particularly those devoted to acute pneumonia, +were the scene of shorter and more desperate conflicts, grapplings with +death, in which the issue was doubtful and medicine could at least give +support, and sometimes turn the tide. + +These were indeed terrible battles, in which devoted nursing counted for +much. To Edwin it was a sight more awe-inspiring than the quiet of +death, to watch a strong man stretched upon his back, breathing terribly +through the night-long struggles of pneumonia. In it he could see the +most tremendous expression of a man’s will to live, in the clenched +hands, in the neck, knotted and swollen with intolerable strain, in the +working of the muscles of the face and nose in their supreme thirst for +air. The sound of this breathing would fill the room that was otherwise +so silent that one could hear the soft hiss of the oxygen escaping from +its cylinder. The train of students that followed Sir Arthur round the +wards would stand waiting in the doorway, knowing that nothing was to be +seen, and the physician himself would step quietly to the square of red +screens and exchange a whisper with the sister who stood at the patient’s +bedside, her lips compressed as though their muscles were contracting in +sympathy with the other tortured muscles that she watched. + +“Weill, how is he?” the physician would ask. + +“I think he’s holding his own. No sleep.” + +“That’ a pity. Well, persevere with the brandy and the warm oxygen.” + +“Yes, sir.” Her tense lips scarcely moved. + +And then Edwin’s chief, so quietly that the patient did not know what he +was doing, being indeed no more than a mass of labouring muscles bent on +life, would feel the temporal pulse in front of the ear with his firm +white finger. + +“Not so bad, sister . . . not so bad.” + +Then he would sweep away with the tails of his frock-coat swinging. + +“Ingleby, did you notice anything about the patient’s hands?” + +“His hands, sir?’ + +“Yes . . . his hands.” + +“No, sir. Nothing, I’m afraid. I don’t think he was plucking the +bedclothes . . . carphology, do they call it?” + +“You had better look the word up if you are not sure. No . . . it was a +finer movement. He was rolling his thumbs over the tips of his index +fingers, just like a man making pellets of bread at a dinner party. +There are men who do that. Remember it. It’s a bad sign in a case of +lobar pneumonia. Come along, gentlemen. The pneumococcus is a sporting +antagonist. Short and sweet. I’d as soon die of pneumonia as anything +and have a run for my money. That case has put up a good fight.” + +That “case” . . . On the face of it the use of the word seemed to +justify the accusation of gross materialism that is so usually made +against the profession of medicine. The patient who lay there fighting +for his life was, in the physician’s eyes, a case, and not, as Edwin, who +had taken notes of his history in the earlier stages of the disease knew +him to be, a bricklayer’s labourer from Wolverbury with a wife and six +children, two of whom had died in infancy. He was a case: a human body, +the soulless body that Edwin had learned in detail through two years of +labour in the dissecting room, consisting of a heart hard-pressed, a +nervous system starved of oxygen and weakened by the virus of pneumonia, +and a pair of clogged lungs. This was the whole truth as far as it +concerned the physician. The calamity was a material calamity to be +fought with material weapons, and the state of his soul, or his relations +with his wife and the rest of the community in which he lived, only +mattered in so far as they affected his body and revealed him to have +been a clean-living and temperate man. For the rest he was a case; and +it were well for the physician to leave the _animula_, _vagula_, +_blandula_ to the poets. This was one of the hard lessons of medicine. + +These were sombre things; but it must not be imagined that they reflected +the general tenor of hospital life. The Infirmary, indeed, was so vast +as to be microcosmic, and its loves, its jealousies, and its ambitions +combined to produce a broad effect of human comedy, not without tears, +but leavened by the rich, and often unprintable humour that flourished in +the out-patient department. Hospital politics, hospital scandals, +hospital romances, combined to make life a vivid and exciting experience. +In the toils of the last, spring found W.G. securely bound. Harrop, too, +had launched into a desperate affair with a probationer in the children’s +wards whom the matron promptly transferred to the infectious block and +perpetual quarantine. Edwin and Boyce escaped this epidemic of +tenderness that swept through the fourth year like measles. They were +far too absorbed in their own interests and discoveries to worry their +hearts about anything in a nurse’s cap and apron. + +Spring passed in a swift vision of plum-blossom in the Boyce’s Alvaston +garden and two weeks of musical debauchery, one Wagnerian and the other +of Gilbert and Sullivan. Most of the time they were working at high +pressure; but a week before the beginning of the fourth examination, +Boyce proposed that they should cycle down together to the country house +that his father rented in Gloucestershire, and blow away the vapours of +forced ventilation with Cotswold air. + +On the eve of an examination it seemed a daring but enthralling plan. +Edwin put the proposal before Mr. Ingleby, and was surprised to find that +he didn’t object. Indeed, it had seemed to Edwin for several months that +his father was curiously distrait and less interested than usual in his +work. This consent freed his conscience, and the two friends set off +together on a Saturday afternoon in the spirit of abandoned holiday that +is the highest privilege of youth. They had decided to take no medical +books with them. As far as they were concerned, the examination might go +hang; for a whole week they would live with no thought for the morrow, +taking long rides over the Cotswolds, lunching at village inns on bread +and cheese, returning at night to feasts of beans and bacon and libations +of Overton cider. + +They started from the infirmary at half-past two, and had soon left the +dust and tram-lines of North Bromwich behind. The smooth, wide road that +they followed stretched in magnificent undulations over the heights of +the Midland plateau from which they could see the shapes of Uffdown and +Pen Beacon fading into the west under a pale, black-country sky. In +front of them southward the sky was blue. + +“We’re in for ripping weather,” Boyce shouted as he rode ahead. + +The weather didn’t really matter: they were in for a great adventure. +From the plateau they glided swiftly to the vale of Redditch, and when +they had left that sordid little town behind they climbed the backbone of +the Ridgway, where the road follows the thin crest of a line of small +hills and overlooks on either side two dreaming plains. In a blue haze +of summer these green dominions lay asleep, so richly scattered with dark +woodlands that no human habitation could be seen. They were as lonely as +the sky. Westward of Severn the Clees and Malverns towered over Wales; +but Boyce appeared to be more interested in certain lower wooded hills +upon the eastern side. He made Edwin the confidant of his latest +romance. + +“She and I,” he said, “used to bicycle out from Alvaston in the cool of +the evening . . . about an hour and a half’s easy ride. It was early +last summer. Those woods are full of nightingales. We used to sit on a +gate and listen to them and ride home together in the dark. I can tell +you it was pretty wonderful.” + +Of course it was wonderful. Everything must be wonderful in this +enchanted country. Riding along in the afternoon sunlight Edwin +constructed for himself just such another passionate adventure; and the +figure with which he shared these imaginary ecstasies was, for want of a +better, Dorothy Powys. While the dream nightingales were singing their +hardest and he was on the point of renewing that unforgettable kiss, they +came to a cottage half timbered and lost in clematis and honeysuckle +where a steep road fell on either side at right angles to the ridge. + +“Right,” shouted Boyce, “we’ll take the road down through the Lenches.” + +“What are the Lenches?” said Edwin, riding abreast. + +“Villages. Five of them, I think. There’s Rous Lench and King’s Lench +and Abbot’s Lench, and two others. They’re a proper subject for a poem.” + +“Right-o . . . let’s collaborate,” said Edwin. “How’s this for a +beginning?” + + “As I was riding through the Lenches + I met three strapping country wenches.” + +And laughing together, they constructed a series of frankly indecent +couplets, recording the voyager’s adventures with all three. It was a +matter of the most complete collaboration, for the friends supplied +alternate lines, outdoing one another in Rabelaisian extravagance. +Edwin, however, provided the final couplet, which, he declared, gave the +composition literary form:— + + “Home to my vicarage I hasted + Feeling the day had not been wasted.” + +“A parson of the type of Herrick,” said Boyce. + +“Yes . . . but more serious.” + +“That kind of affair is awfully serious . . . at the time.” + +The gables of Evesham and its one tall tower swam in a golden dust. They +drank cider in the inn courtyard, purchased a couple of Bath chaps at a +grocer’s and crossed the Avon. Through an orchard country they rode in +that hour of evening when bird-song is most wistful. The sun went down +in a blaze of splendour behind Bredon Hill. The perfume of a beanfield +swept across the road. + +“Good God, isn’t it good?” said Boyce. “We are nearly there.” + +A village of Cotswold stone half hidden in blossoms of crimson rambler +received them. The gardens were full of sweet-williams, pale phloxes, +and tall hollyhocks. “Straight on,” Boyce called. + +A sign-post pointed up the hill to Overton. They dismounted, and pushed +their bicycles up a steep lane in the twilight. Bats were flitting +everywhere, and a buff-coloured owl fluttered heavily between the +overarching elms. A faint tinkle of trickling water came to their ears. + +“That is the sound of Overton,” said Boyce. “Slow water trickling in the +night.” + +They slept together in the low-beamed room, so soundly that the sun was +high before they wakened next morning. + +The week that now followed was the very crown of youth. The Boyce’s +summer house stood upon a patch of terraced ground, being the highest of +the three farms round which the hamlet of Overton clustered, and +overlooked the blossomy vale of Evesham bounded by the Cotswold +escarpment, blue and dappled with the shadows of cloud. “_Parva domus_: +_magna quies_,” read the motto that Matthew’s father, the poet, had +placed above the lintel of the door: “small house: great quietness”—and +indeed it seemed to Edwin that there could be no quieter place on earth. + +He and Matthew would smoke their morning pipes together on a stone +terrace that bleached in the sun along the edge of a garden that the poet +had planted for perfume rather than for beauty of bloom. Here they would +sit, nursing books that were unread, until the spirit tempted them to set +out towards the blue escarpment, and, after a hard climb, lose themselves +in the trough of some deep billow of Cotswold and fall asleep on a bank +of waving grasses, or follow some runnel of the Leach or Windrush until +it joined the mother stream, where they would strip and float over the +shallows with the sun in their eyes, emerging covered with the tiny water +leeches that gave one of the rivers its name. + +On the height of Cotswold they found an inn that was half farm, +possessing a barrel of cider that Edwin was almost ready to acknowledge +as the equal of that which he had drunk in Somerset; and, for further +attraction a huge yellow cat beneath the lazy stare of whose topaz eyes +Matthew sat worshipping. In the evening the air that moved over the +wolds grew cool and dry and more reviving than any juice of yellow +apples, and with their lungs full of it they would spin down the winding +hills into the plain, past many sweet-smelling villages and golden +manor-houses, reaching Overton about sunset, when the evening stocks, +that Mr. Boyce had planted along the approaches to his doorway, recovered +from their lank indolence and drenched the air with a scent that matched +the songs of nightingales. + +There Mrs. Pratt, the wife of a neighbouring labourer, would have their +dinner ready: tender young beans and boiled bacon and crisp lettuce from +the garden that Matthew dressed according to the directions of his +epicurean father; and with their meal, and after, they would drink the +dry and bitter cider made at the middle farm from the apples of orchards +that now dreamed beneath them. + +Then came music. The drawing-room piano stood by the open window, and a +soft movement of air disturbed the flames of the candles in silver +candlesticks that lighted the music stand. No other light was there; and +in the gloom beyond, Edwin, playing the tender songs of Grieg and +Schumann, and the prelude to Tristan, would see the long legs of Matthew +stretched dreaming on a sofa. The nights were so silent that it seemed a +pity to mar them with music; and for a long time Edwin would sit in +silence at the piano, while strong winged moths fluttered in out of the +darkness and circled round the candle’s flame. Last of all, before they +turned in, they would go for a slow walk over meadows cool in the +moonlight, listening to the silence—“Solemn midnight’s tingling +silentness,” Matthew quoted—or to the gentle creaking of the branches of +elms, now heavy with foliage, that embosomed their small house. + +The last day of their holiday was wet; but that made no great difference +to them, for a succession of showers drew from the drenched garden a +perfume more intense. They spent the day in musical exploration, and +when the darkness came they sat together talking far into the night. +They talked of North Bromwich, for the ponderable influence of the morrow +had already invaded their quietude, and of their future work. + +“In a year’s time,” said Edwin, “we shall be qualified.” + +“What shall you do?” + +“Oh, general practice, I suppose. That’s the easiest way to make a +living. It’s what most men do.” + +“I don’t like the idea of it,” said Matthew. “It’s sordid, +unsatisfactory work. A hard living in which science stands no chance. +Selling bottles of medicine—quite harmless, of course, but unnecessary—to +people who don’t really need them. You have to do it to make a living. +If you don’t the other people cut you out.” + +“I don’t think it’s as bad as that. There must be something +fundamentally good about medical practice. You are actually helping the +people who are genuinely ill.” + +“That’s the ideal side of it. But there’s another. I don’t think I +shall risk it. If the governor can’t let me have enough money to wait +for consulting practice, I shall have a shot at one of the services. I +think the Indian Medical Service is the thing. Fairly good pay, a chance +of seeing the world, and a good sporting life.” + +“India—?” Edwin had never thought of it. Sitting there in an English +dusk the idea appealed to him. Great rivers: burning plains under the +icy rampart of Himalaya: strange, dark religions. India. . . . Yes, it +sounded good. His imagination went a little farther ahead. A +hill-station according to Kipling, or perhaps a more solitary cantonment +in the plains where the commandant was a major in the Indian army and the +wife of the commandant, a girl whose name had once been Dorothy Powys. +And the major, of course, would succumb to some pernicious tropical +disease through which Edwin would nurse him devotedly; and when he was +dead and buried his beautiful wife would come to Edwin—the only other +Englishman in the station, and say: “I never really loved him. I never +really loved any one but you.” Altogether an extremely romantic +prospect. . . . Yes, the Indian Medical Service would do very well. . . . + +The last night was more beautiful in its silence than any other. It had +been a wonderful week. There would never be another like it. The crown +of youth. And, as it came to pass, the end of youth as well. + + +III + + +It was late that night when Edwin reached home. After the huge openness +of the Cotswold expanses, the air of Halesby, lying deep in its valley, +seemed to him confined and oppressive, and to add to this impression +there was a sense of thunder in it. After supper his father went to his +writing desk and pulled out a sheaf of bluish, translucent papers which +he spread out on the table, and began to study intently. Edwin, +sprawling, tired and contented, in the corner, watched him lazily. + +“Whatever have you got there, father?” he said. + +“Plans . . . architect’s plans,” Mr. Ingleby replied nervously. + +“Plans? What for? Surely you aren’t thinking of building a new house.” + +“Well, not exactly. No . . . I am thinking of adding to this one.” + +“But that would be an expensive job. Isn’t it big enough for us?” + +“Yes. It’s big enough at present; but it may not be shortly.” + +“What do you mean?” + +Edwin laughed uneasily, for he could not understand this air of mystery. +Mr. Ingleby rose from his plans and cleared his throat. The little +lamp-lit room immediately became full of an atmosphere of suppressed +intensity, in which the tick of the clock could be heard as if it were +consciously calling attention to the importance of the moment. + +“I mean. . . . As a matter of fact, I had intended telling you this +evening; but I found it difficult to do so, because . . . because I could +not be quite sure how you’d take it. It . . . it may come as a shock to +you. I am thinking of enlarging the house because I am proposing to be +married again.” + +“Married? Good God!” + +A feeling of inexplicable passion choked Edwin so that his voice did not +sound as if it were his own. + +“Yes, I knew it would come as a surprise to you. Probably you’ll find it +difficult to understand my feelings. You mustn’t be hasty.’ + +“Good God!” Edwin’s amazement could find no other words. + +“You are the first person I have told, Edwin. I’ve thought a good deal +about it . . . about you particularly, and I’ve quite satisfied myself +that I am not doing you any injustice. In another year I suppose you +will be going out into the world and leaving me. Don’t decide what you +think too hastily.” + +He paused, but Edwin could not speak. + +“If you’ll listen, I’ll tell you all about it. I think you will approve +of my choice. I’ll tell you—” + +“For God’s sake, don’t. Not now—” + +“Very well. As you wish.” Mr. Ingleby’s hands that held the architect’s +papers trembled. He smiled, kindly, but with a sort of bewilderment. +“As you wish,” he repeated. + +And Edwin, feeling as if he would do something ridiculous and violent in +the stress of the curiously mingled emotions that possessed him, went +quickly to the door and ran upstairs to his room, where he flung himself +on his bed in the dark. + +In a little while he found himself, ridiculously, sobbing. He could not +define the passionate mixture of resentment, jealousy, shame, and even +hatred, that overwhelmed him. He could not understand himself. A +psycho-analyst, no doubt would have found a name for his state of mind, +describing it as an “Œdipus complex”; but Edwin had never heard of +psycho-analysis, and only knew that his mind was ruthlessly torn by +passions beyond the control of reason. He made a valiant attempt to +think rationally. Primarily, he admitted, it wasn’t his business to +decide whether his father should marry again or remain a widower. His +father was a free agent with responsibilities towards Edwin that were +rapidly vanishing and would soon be ended. He couldn’t even suggest that +this new marriage would be the ruin of any vital comradeship between +them, for the hopes of this ideal state that he had once cherished, had +not been realised during the last few years. There was no reason why his +father’s marriage should affect him personally, or even financially, for +he had never reckoned on the least paternal support when once he should +be qualified. There was not even the least suggestion that his father +was physically unsuitable for the married state, for there was no reason +why he should not live for many years to come. There were actually valid +arguments, that Edwin could not dispute, in favour of the plan—such as +Mr. Ingleby’s loneliness, soon to be increased, and the discomfort that +he had suffered as an elderly widower at the hands of a series of +inefficient house-keepers. From every point of view the world would be +justified in concluding that he was doing the correct and obvious thing. +Why, then, should Edwin lie on his bed in the dark wetting his pillow +with tears, and sick with shame? + +No reason could assuage his suffering. However calmly he tried to +consider the matter, the thought of his mother rose up in his mind; a +vision of her, beautiful and pathetic, and indefinitely wronged, came to +reinforce his indignation. He lit a candle and gazed for a long time at +her photograph, the one that he had always kept in his desk at St. Luke’s +and scarcely noticed for the last three years; and though he knew that +she was dead and presumably beyond the reach of any human passion, the +sight of her features filled him more than ever with this unconscionable +resentment so devastating in its intensity. The portrait took him back +to the tenderness that he remembered at the time of her death, and +particularly that strange moment when he and his father had knelt +together in the little room across the landing. The smell of Sanitas. . . . + +And then he remembered another incident in the gloom of that brown room +at the Holloway on the windy crown of Mendip, whence he had seen all the +kingdoms of the earth. Thinking of this, he seemed to hear the voice of +a very old woman, who said, “The Inglebys are always very tender in +marriage. I’ve seen many of them that have lost their wives, and they +always marry again.” How could she have known? And then the thought of +a strange woman in the house, treading in the places where his mother’s +steps had once moved, swept him off his feet again. + +“I could never stay here,” he thought. “I could never stay here. . . . +I should do something desperate and cruel and unreasonable. I couldn’t +help myself. I must go. It’s a pity . . . but I must go. I couldn’t +stay here. I simply couldn’t.” + +With this determination in his mind, but without the least idea of the +way in which it might be realised, he arrived at a state of comparative +serenity, in which he could contemplate his mother’s photograph without +so much passionate resentment at the slur that was being laid on her +memory. Now he saw everything in terms of his new resolution. He saw, +pathetically, the little bed in which he had slept for so many years, the +shelves on which his favourite books were ranged, the piano and the +sheaves of his mother’s music that he had managed to install in his room: +all the small details that went together to create its atmosphere of +homeliness. + +“How the devil shall I manage to leave them?” he thought. He went to the +window and saw, beyond the garden trees, the low line of those familiar +hills: the landscape that he had always delighted in as his own, and that +now was to be his no longer. He sighed, for to leave them seemed to him +impossible; they were so familiar, so much a definite part of his life. +A curious impulse seized him to creep downstairs and out of the house, +and visit the grave in the cemetery where his mother was laid; but he +restrained himself from this debauch of sentiment. “It will do no good,” +he thought. “It’s all over.” He even wondered if he might feel happier +if he went down to Aunt Laura’s house and confided in her: perhaps she +would understand. At least she was his mother’s sister and might be +conscious of the indignity; but when he had almost determined to do this, +he reflected that she and his uncle were probably in bed, and a ludicrous +picture of her putting her head out of the window to ask what was the +matter, with her hair in curling pins, restrained him. Besides, it would +be rather ridiculous to fall back upon the sympathies of a person whom he +had neglected for several years. + +“No. . . . I must go on my own way,” he thought. “It’s a sort of break +in my life, just like the big break before. It’s got to be faced, and +it’s no good worrying about it.” + +He suddenly remembered that in twelve hours’ time he would be sitting for +his fourth examination, and that it would be wise for him to get some +sleep; so he undressed and went to bed, wondering how many more times he +would undress in that little room and caring less than he would have +expected. He fell asleep soon, for he was thoroughly tired out, and +slept so soundly that he did not see his father enter the room a few +hours later. He came in softly, in his dressing-gown, carrying a candle, +and stooped above Edwin’s sleeping figure with troubled eyes. + + + +CHAPTER VIII +LOWER SPARKDALE + + +I + + +NEXT day, in a fever of restlessness, Edwin essayed and passed his fourth +professional examination. He had expected to get a first-class in it, +but when he found himself near the bottom of the list in the +neighbourhood of W.G., he was not seriously disturbed. The subjects of +Forensic Medicine and Toxicology were unimportant, and now that his life +had taken this sudden change of direction, it did not much matter what +sort of a degree he took. His one concern was to get qualified and +licensed to earn his living on the bodies of his fellow-men as quickly as +possible. + +Since his interview with his father, the determination to leave Halesby +had not faltered, although he had not then calculated the difficulties +that now faced him. To begin with, he had no money beyond a few pounds +that his mother had placed to his credit in the Post Office Savings Bank +in his childhood. Luckily his college and hospital fees had been paid in +advance, and he was only concerned with the actual cost of living and the +fees for the final examination. In some way or other he would have to +live for twelve months, and he smiled to himself to think that he was in +very much the same position as his father had occupied thirty years +before. + +On the whole, he thought, his father must have had less cause for +anxiety, with Dr. Marshall’s two hundred pounds behind him and the humble +standards of a village boy in place of Edwin’s more elaborate traditions +of life. He felt that he needed the advice of a sound man with some +knowledge of the world. In an emergency of this kind Matthew Boyce could +offer him very little but sympathy, and so he turned naturally to the +counsels of that battered warrior, W.G., feeling, at the same time, +rather shabby in making use of a friend whom he had practically neglected +in the last two years. + +W.G. providentially didn’t look at it in that light. He had always +regarded Edwin from a fatherly standpoint, and the mere fact that this +was a case of rebellion against domestic authority of the kind in which +he had been engaged since his childhood made him sympathetic, though he +didn’t, as Edwin saw to his despair, appreciate the delicacies of the +situation. + +“I can quite see why you want to cut adrift,” he said. “It’s a feeling +that any one’s who’s dependent gets, if he has any guts in him; but I’m +damned if I see any cause or just impediment why these two persons +shouldn’t enter into holy matrimony.” + +“I suppose it’s just rotten sentimentality. Still . . . I can’t help it. +There it is. It’s the idea of seeing another woman in my mother’s place. +I simply couldn’t stick it, W.G.” + +“Well, old chap, I’m quite prepared to believe you know best. The thing +is, what are you going to do? You can’t live on nothing in this hard +world. You can share my bed for a week or two if you like. I’m sorry it +won’t be for longer; but marriage appears to be in the air. To tell you +the truth, I’m going to get married myself.” + +“You married? . . . Good Lord! What on earth are you doing that for?” + +“I don’t know. Force of circumstance, I suppose. It’s one of the things +that happens when you least expect it.” + +“Do I know her, W.G.?” + +“Oh, yes . . . you know her. It’s Sister Merrion in Number Twelve.” + +There came to Edwin a vision of a tall, dark girl, with wavy brown hair +and Irish eyes, whom he couldn’t help remembering at the infirmary. + +“I didn’t even know that you were friendly.” + +“We weren’t until about three weeks ago. I happened to notice that she +was looking rather down in the mouth, and took her out to tea; and then +the poor girl broke down at the Dousita and told me all about her home +affairs. It’s the devil and all to see a pretty girl like that crying. +She’d been having a thin time of it at home with her father: a pretty +rotten sort of fellow, I gathered, and that seemed the only way out of +it. So we’re going to be married next month. A sort of fellow-feeling, +you know.” + +“But . . . Good Lord . . . are you in love with her?” + +“Of course I am, you old ass. I shouldn’t marry her if I wasn’t. It’ll +be a bit of a pinch till I’m qualified, though.” + +“I say, I hope you’ll be happy.” + +A sudden pang of something like envy overwhelmed Edwin. The picture of +settled peace, romantic love in a cottage, that W.G. was about to share +with the undeniably beautiful Sister Merrion struck him as an ideal +state. + +“You’re a lucky devil, W.G.,” he said. + +It seemed unreasonable that W.G. should devote himself to the smaller +problem of Edwin’s ways and means on the eve of such a momentous +adventure. It hardly seemed fair to bother him. + +“We’re going into rooms in Alvaston at first,” he said. “It’ll be less +expensive than furnishing, and we don’t intend to indulge in a family for +the present. Meanwhile, if I were you, I should go and talk to the +manager at Edmondson’s. He may be able to put you on to something. Yes +. . . have a shot at him first, and mention my name, he’s a very decent +sort.” + +Edwin laughed to himself. It seemed to him that he was in the grip of a +curiously ironical fate, for Edmondson’s was the identical firm of +wholesale druggists with whom his father had been employed on his first +arrival at North Bromwich. History was repeating itself in a way that +was proper to romance. + +In the afternoon he went down to Edmondson’s and asked for the manager, a +vigorous person with shrewd eyes that he screwed up habitually whenever +he made a point in his conversation. He called Edwin “Doctor”: a form of +address that was flattering, until Edwin realised that it was no more +than a habit with him. “Ingleby,” he said; “let me see, I know the +name.” + +“Probably you know my father. He’s in business at Halesby.” + +“Ah, yes, of course . . . your father. Come along to my room, doctor, +and have a cigar.” + +In this varnished chamber, decorated with a collection of barbarous +surgical instruments, survivals of the Middle Ages, Edwin unbosomed +himself. The manager listened in silence, screwing up his eyes from time +to time, to show that he was taking in Edwin’s story. + +“Well,” he said at the end of it. “Do you want me to tell you what I +think of it, doctor? Candidly, you know.” + +Edwin was only too anxious for another opinion. + +“Well, I think you don’t know when you’re well off. To tell you the +truth, doctor, I think you’re a damned fool. That’s straight. See?” + +“I’m not surprised,” said Edwin. “Still, I’ve made up my mind. I’m not +going to stay at home. I can’t do it, that’s all. I’m only wondering if +you can put me in the way of a job of some kind.” + +“Well, doctor, that’s easier said than done. When you’re qualified, +it’ll be a different matter altogether. I think I can promise to keep +you in ‘locums’ at four or five guineas a week, as long as you like to +take them; but I can’t honestly say there’s anything for you at present. +It’s not like the old days when doctors were allowed to keep unqualified +assistants.” + +“I’m through my fourth exam., you know. I could do dispensing.” + +“Dispensing. . . . Yes, I hadn’t thought of that. Well, doctor, I’ll +see what I can do for you. You know what I think of it, don’t you? In +the meantime you’d better leave your address. No good writing to +Halesby, I suppose?” + +Edwin gave him the address of W.G.’s diggings, and went off, hopelessly +discouraged, to find his friend. W.G., however, was at present far too +engrossed in the charms of Sister Merrion to be available. So Edwin went +on to the Boyce’s house in Alvaston, only to find that Matthew had cycled +down to Overton again with his father. It was impossible for him to +settle to any work; so he took an afternoon train to Halesby, at a time +when he knew his father would be busy at the shop, and collected the few +belongings that he felt he must take with him. + +The atmosphere of the house was inexpressibly poignant. Within its +walls, he reflected, dwelt the ghost of all his childhood, and memories +of his mother, that had lain submerged in his consciousness for many +years, rose to meet him wherever he went. Well, he would never see the +place again. This exile, it pleased him to think, was his final +sacrifice to her memory. That was the best way in which he could express +it. At the worst, another voice whispered, it was an excess of mawkish +sentiment. + +All through the afternoon, and particularly when he disinterred small +pieces of the lumber that he had collected in his schooldays, this sense +of a ghostly childhood haunted him. It followed him down the stairs into +the hall, where the grandfather clock ticked steadily as it had ticked +ever since he could remember, into the dead drawing-room, soon to be made +alive by the tastes of another feminine personality; on the lawn, where +the limes were shedding their sticky bloom; on the way to the station, +when he lugged his bag through the gnarled shadows of Mrs. Barrow’s +ancient garden, and caught a glimpse of the old lady’s kindly nodding +bonnet as she smiled at him from her place in the window, where she sat +hermetically sealed in an atmosphere of Victorian decay. + +There were the reedy pools and Shenstone’s hanging woods, ghostly waters +and woodlands, never to be seen again. And there was the platform of +Halesby station, reeking of hot coal dust and ashes, and, from the +incoming train, a flux of shabby people, including the bank-clerk in +tennis flannels and the mysterious commercial traveller with the brown +leather bag, reading the _Pink ’Un_ as he walked. From this, through the +black-country’s familiar desert, the train carried him into the bitter +reality of North Bromwich. With something approaching the feelings of an +intruder he installed himself in W.G.’s diggings, and made a supper, +undeniably pleasant, of bread and cheese with a large bottle of W.G.’s +beer. The latter, which happened to be Astill’s XXXX, induced a mood of +tolerant sleepiness, and luckily prepared him to receive, at midnight or +thereabouts, the confidences of his friend on the subject of Sister +Merrion’s intellectual charms. + +“You know, old chap, she’s different from me—reads poetry by the hour +when she’s in the bunk on night duty. Longfellow’s her favourite. A +long way above my head and all that; but it’s a wonderful thing, when you +come to think of it, to be married to an intellectual woman. . . .” So +the words poured into Edwin’s drowsy ears. He was far too sleepy to +smile, and, Longfellow apart, it did seem to him a comfortable and even +enviable thing to be the adored centre of the universe in the Irish eyes +of a tender creature with wavy brown hair and a painful domestic tragedy. +W.G. was still moralising on his past wickedness and the prospect of a +blameless future when Edwin fell asleep. + + +II + + +Next morning he was awakened by his friend, boisterous and ruddy from a +bath, performing a strange ritual of prostrations and contortions in +front of an open window discreetly veiled with fluttering butter-muslin. +Edwin lazily watched the sinuous play of muscles under the shaggy limbs +of W.G. through half-closed lids. + +“You’d make a topping subject for dissection, W.G.,” he said. + +“Hallo!” W.G. answered from between his legs. “You awake, you old +slacker? There’s a letter for you that came up with the tea. Tea’s +cold, by the way.” + +“Thanks,” said Edwin, as W.G. skimmed the letter over to him. “Good +Lord, it’s from Edmondson’s.” + +It was a note hastily scribbled advising Edwin to go at once and see Dr. +Altrincham-Harris at 563 Lower Sparkdale, North Bromwich, between nine +and ten a.m., or six and nine p.m., and signed by the manager who screwed +his eyes up. + +“Five hundred and sixty-three, Lower Sparkdale,” Edwin groaned. “I say, +that sounds pretty bad. Altrincham-Harris is rather hot stuff for Lower +Sparkdale, isn’t it? Queer place for a double-barreler.” + +“General practitioner,” said W.G., rubbing himself down with a pair of +flesh-gloves. “They all go in for hyphens. It impresses the +lower-middle classes. When I go into practice, my son, I shall be known +as Dr. William George-Brown, if I can afford the extra letters on a +plate.” + +“Lower Sparkdale’s a pretty awful slum, isn’t it?” + +“Never been there. It’s time you cleared off to the bathroom. You’ll +feel better when you’re awake.” + +Edwin spent the morning in writing, and four times rewriting, a letter to +his father. It was a difficult job, for he felt that the reasons for his +departure could not be explained in words, and he was particularly +anxious to make it clear that it was purely a matter of temperament and +that he didn’t wish it to imply any criticism of Mr. Ingleby’s plans. +When he had finished it he found that it was far too late to visit the +surgery of Dr. Altrincham-Harris. He therefore waited till the evening, +and then took a steam-tram through a succession of sordid streets, past +the public abattoirs and the newly-opened Rowton House, to the level of +563 Lower Sparkdale. + +The extreme end of that street was not as bad as he had imagined it might +be, for at this point the slum ended, resolving itself into the edge of a +growing suburb of red-brick. Number 563 was a corner house secretively +curtained with dirty muslin on flat brass rods. A shining plate revealed +the qualifications, such as they were, of C. Altrincham-Harris, Physician +and Surgeon, and as the front door seemed to have sunk into a state of +disuse, Edwin entered at another, marked “Surgery,” round which a number +of poorly-clad women, some of them carrying babies, were clustered. + +Inside the door was a narrow waiting-room that concentrated into an +incredibly small number of cubic feet the characteristic odour of an +out-patient department. Every seat was occupied, and Edwin, deciding to +wait for his turn, stood listening to a varied recitation of medical +history that every patient seemed compelled by the surroundings to relate +to her neighbour. At the moment when he entered a very stout woman, who +had been drinking, had the ear of the company, talking loudly over the +shoulder of a pasty child whose neck was covered with the pin-points that +fleas make on an insensitive skin, and occasionally, in accessions of +tenderness, hugging it to her bosom. + +“So I says to the inspector . . . yes, inspector, ’e ’ad the nerve to +call ’isself . . . says I, you can take your summonses to ’ell, I says. +I _love_ my children, I says. There’s more love for the little ’armless +things in my finger than there’ll ever be in your bloody body, I says. +And I caught ’er up and carried ’er straight along ’ere to the doctor. +Doctor ’Arris knows me, I says, and what’s more ’e shall ’ave a look at +Margaret’s ’ead with ’is own eyes. Shan’t ’e, my pretty?” The child +wriggled as she was clasped in another beery embrace. + +A bell tingled inside. “Now we shall see,” said the lady determinedly +rising. “And ’ave a stifficate if it costs me two shillin’s.” + +The room murmured low applause and sympathy, and she entered the surgery, +emerging, two minutes later, with the testimonial in her mouth. + +“What did I tell yo’?” she said. “The doctor says there ain’t one. Not +_one_. It’s time these inspectors was done away with. I only ’ope ’e +will summons me. Good-night, all.” + +She went out, hugging the child in both arms, and a pale woman, +respectably dressed, who had sat through her tirades in silence, took her +place in the doctor’s consulting room. Dr. Altrincham-Harris didn’t keep +her long. She came out, like the rest of them, after an interview that +lasted perhaps two minutes, carrying a bottle of medicine wrapped up in +one of the papers that are called comic. Again the bell rang. + +“Good God,” Edwin thought, “and this is general practice!” It was +evident that he had entered a world in which the academic methods of +diagnosis and prescription with which he had been educated were not +followed. On the surface it was quite clear that the physician could not +have given an eighth part of the usual time or care to the consideration +of any single case. He remembered instances of hospital patients who had +affected to despise the perfunctoriness of the methods of the Prince’s +out-patient department, and had boasted that they would receive better +attention from the hands of a “private doctor.” He hoped to goodness +that none of these unfortunate people would drift into the hands of Dr. +Altrincham-Harris. + +His own turn came, and relieved to be rid of the stink of the +waiting-room, he entered the surgery. Dr. Harris was sitting in an +attitude of impatience behind a desk littered with papers. He was a +little man, with grey, untidy hair and a drooping moustache. He held a +pencil in his hand, as if he were itching to dash off another +prescription, and an open drawer in the desk at his right hand was full +of small silver. When he saw that Edwin was better dressed than the +majority of his patients, his manner changed at once. “Please sit down,” +he said. “Now, what can I do for you?” + +Edwin hesitated, for he found it difficult to begin. Dr. Harris +encouraged him with a wink, and a grip of his left arm. + +“Now, my boy, you needn’t be frightened of me. You’ll find the doctor’s +your best friend. Had a bit of bad luck, eh? Well, you’re not the +first, and you won’t be the last.” + +The wink was the most disgusting part of this performance, but Edwin, +quickly recovering his sense of humour, pulled out Edmondson’s letter and +handed it to the doctor. + +“Well, now, why didn’t you say so at first,” said Dr. Harris, scratching +a bristly grey chin. “Yes . . . I did mention to their manager that I +was in want of some one to do a bit of rough dispensing and keep this +place tidy. You see I don’t live here. It’s what we call a lock-up, and +the work’s so pressing that I’ve really no time to do my own dispensing. +I suppose you hold the Apothecaries’ Hall Diploma—passed your exams and +that?” + +“No . . . I’m a medical student. I took pharmacology in my last exam. +I’m in my final year.” + +“Hm . . . I shouldn’t have thought it. You look very young. Final year +. . .” Then his eyes brightened. “Have you done your midwifery yet?” + +“No, I shall do that later in the year.” + +“That’s a pity . . . a pity. You could have been very useful to me in +that way, keeping cases going, you know, so that I could be in at the +finish. I could do twice the amount of midwifery that I do now if I had +some one to keep an eye on them. Before the General Medical Council did +away with unqualified assistants, I used to keep three of them: paid me +well, too. Now I’ve got to do everything myself. It’s a dog’s life, but +there’s money in it, I don’t mind telling you. Well, there’s no time to +waste. What do you want?” + +“I want a place to live in and my keep, and just enough money to keep me +going till I’m qualified. That’s all. You’ll understand . . . I’m on my +own, and I’ve just about ten pounds to carry me over a year. I hope you +can give me a job.” + +“I suppose you could take a hand with dressings and things like that?” + +Edwin saw that the little man was out for bargaining, but as long as he +could feel that something was being settled he didn’t really mind. + +“Yes . . . I can do anything you like to use me for in your surgery +hours. I can’t promise more. You see, I have to pass my final.” + +“You can learn a lot of useful things about general practice here,” said +Dr. Harris. “It should be extremely useful to you. You see, I’ve been +at this game for thirty years. It’s a great chance for you.” He took up +a handful of silver from the open drawer and started to jingle it. “Look +here, you’re wasting time.” + +Edwin agreed. + +“Well, suppose I take you on, I might be able to give you three . . . +better say two pounds a month. You can feed up at my place and sleep +here. If you sleep here, you’ll be able to take night-messages and +telephone them up to me. There’s a bedroom fitted up. One of my +assistants used to sleep here. How will that suit you?” + +With a feeling of intense relief Edwin accepted. + +“Very well, then, there’s no reason why you shouldn’t begin at once, just +to get into the way of things.” He paused, and added as an +after-thought: “We’ll count that you start from to-morrow.” + +He led Edwin behind the green baize curtain at the back of his desk, +disclosing a set of shelves and a counter stained with the rings of +bottles and measuring glasses. At the end of the counter was a sink into +which a tap with a tapered nozzle dripped dismally. One drawer held +labels, another corks, a third a selection of eight-ounce, four-ounce, +and two-ounce bottles. At the back of the counter stood a row of +Winchester Quarts, of indefinite contents, labelled with the Roman +numerals from one to nine. Dr. Harris swabbed the swimming counter with +a rag that was already saturated with medicines. + +“You can learn all you want in five minutes,” he said. “There’s no time +for refinements in this sort of practice. These big bottles are all +stock mixtures, and whatever they teach you in your universities, I can +tell you that these nine mixtures will carry you through life. There you +are . . . Number One: White Mixture. Number Two: Soda and Rhubarb. +Number Three: Bismuth. You have to go easy with Number Three: Bismuth’s +expensive. Number Four: Febrifuge . . . Liquor Ammond Acet: and that. +Number Five: Iron and Mag:Sulph. And so on. . . . Number Nine: Mercury +and Pot:Iod . . . you know what that’s for,” with a laugh, “we use a lot +of that here. Now you’ve one ounce of each stock mixture to an +eight-ounce bottle, and a two-tablespoonful dose. I used to put them up +in six-ounce bottles; but if you give them eight ounces they think +they’re getting more for the money: they don’t realise they’re getting +eight doses instead of twelve, and that’s their lookout, isn’t it? Same +proportions for children and infants, only you use the four and two-ounce +bottles instead, with dessert-spoon and teaspoonful doses. Simple, isn’t +it? But you want to simplify if you’re going to make money in these +days. Now, is that quite clear?” + +“Quite clear.” + +“Well, then, when a patient comes in I have a look at him—with my +experience you can tell in a moment—and I give you a slip of paper behind +the curtain. Like this. ‘Mrs. Jones. No. 5. T.D.S.’ Mrs. means an +eight-ounce bottle. One ounce of Number Five stock mixture. One +tablespoonful three times a day. Then, if I put ‘4tis horis’ instead of +‘T.D.S.,’ it means a tablespoonful every four hours; but I only do that +when I see they can afford to get through the bottle more quickly. +You’ll find powders in that drawer. Antifebrin—it’s cheaper than +phenacetin and caffein. And calomel for children. Then, as I was +saying, while I have a look at the patient and ask him one or two +questions you make up the medicine.” + +“Suppose, when you’ve had a talk to him, you change your mind about the +treatment.” + +“I never change my mind. There’s no time for that,” said Dr. Harris. +“And if I did we could change the medicine next time. But you needn’t +worry about the treatment: that’s my part of the business. Why”—and the +little man expanded—“I shouldn’t wonder if we got through as many as a +hundred patients in a couple of hours, the two of us together. Now, are +you ready?” + +He left Edwin behind the curtain and rang his bell. A patient entered, +and as soon as the doctor had said good-evening to her the prescription +was passed behind the curtain and Edwin proceeded to fill a bottle from +one of the Winchester Quarts. This business went on monotonously for +another hour. Edwin dispensed mechanically in a kind of dream. He never +saw a single patient; but little scraps of conversation showed him that +most of them were suffering from the evils of poor housing and a +sedentary life. It consoled him to think that most of the mixtures that +he dispensed were relatively harmless. Sometimes, by an access of +solicitude and deference in the doctor’s voice, he could gather that the +patient was of a higher social degree, and he smiled to find, in these +cases, that the mixture was invariably prescribed in four-hourly doses. + +All the men, it appeared, were judged to be in need of White Mixture or +Rhubarb: all the women demanded Iron and Mag:Sulph: all the children were +treated with a treacly cough mixture or calomel powders. In the space of +an hour he must have dispensed at least forty bottles of medicine, and +towards the end of the evening he noticed that Dr. Harris became even +more perfunctory in his examinations—if such a word were ever +justified—and that signs of irritation began to show themselves in his +voice. At last the waiting-room bell rang twice, and no patient +appeared. + +“That’s the lot,” said Dr. Harris, appearing from behind the curtain. “I +think I’ll have a wash.” It was the first time that he had washed his +hands in the whole of the evening. “Well, you see what it’s like,” he +said, “I think I’ll have a nip of whisky.” He produced a vitriolic +bottle from a cupboard and mixed some whisky with water in a +medicine-measure. + +“A good average day,” he said. “Three pounds ten.” He shovelled the +silver from the drawer into a leather bag that weighed down his coat +pocket. “That takes a lot of making at a shilling a time. Well, how do +you like it?” + +“I think I shall be able to manage,” said Edwin, who was not anxious to +commit himself. + +“You’d better come and see your room.” + +It was a bare bedroom on the first floor with iron bedstead and a +dejected washhand-stand, but it seemed to Edwin that, at least, it would +be quiet and free from distractions. “I shall be able to read here,” he +thought, “and after all, it’s only for twelve months.” + +“Not much to look at,” said Dr. Harris apologetically. “I’ll send you +down some bedding to-night. I’ll expect you for breakfast at eight +o’clock sharp. You’d better come along and have some supper now.” + +“I think I’d better go and collect some of my things. I’ve been staying +with a friend in his diggings.” + +“All right. As you like,” said Dr. Harris. “Nine o’clock sharp +to-morrow morning then? You have to be punctual if you’re to make money +in this business.” + +Edwin said good-night, keeping the key of the surgery. When the doctor +had gone he went back into the curtained dispensary and tried to +introduce a little order into the waste. A strange life, he thought . . . +a strange and degrading life. If this were general practice, he +wondered why he had ever despised his father’s trade, for surely there +was more dignity in selling tooth-brushes than in dealing so casually +with the diseases of human beings. “I must talk it over with old W.G.,” +he thought. “He’s a sound man.” But he knew at the bottom of his heart +that he couldn’t afford to speculate on the ethics of the case. All that +mattered to him, for the present, was the necessity of finding a roof—any +roof to shelter him and food to keep him alive. He was a beggar, and +could not choose, and had every reason to be thankful for this or any +solution of his difficulties. + +“It sounds bad,” said W.G., when Edwin had expanded on the refinements of +Dr. Harris’s medicine, “but, in a way, you’re lucky to have fallen on +your feet so quickly. As a matter of fact, you don’t deserve it. You’re +an old fool to have left home, you know. Now, there’s some chance of +your appreciating how comfortable you were.” + +Boyce was more sympathetic, entering with great pains and seriousness +into the cause of Edwin’s spiritual nausea. The results of it pleased +him in so far as they meant that in future Edwin would be living in North +Bromwich, and promised a perpetuation of the delightful comradeship that +they had enjoyed in the summer. “I expect we shall see a lot of you, old +boy,” he said, “ambrosial evenings, you know.” + +Edwin laughed. “The evenings won’t be exactly ambrosial. I shall be +earning my two pounds a month filling eight-ounce bottles with rubbish at +a shilling each. I shall feel like compounding in a felony. It’s the +devil . . .” + + +III + + +And it was pretty bad. No more concerts or operas; no week-ends at +Overton; no dinners at Joey’s; no possible diversion of any kind that +impinged upon the hours between six and nine. And yet Edwin was happy. +For the first time in his life, and at a price, he was realising what +independence meant. Even the break at Halesby had passed off without any +severe emotional disturbance. He had written to his father again, +telling him his new address and what he was doing, and his father had +replied in his formal business hand, not, indeed, with any offer of help, +but with an implied approval of what he had done, enclosing a number of +bills (opened) and a couple of second-hand book catalogues. + +There was nothing unfriendly in the letter, no heroics of outraged +paternity. Reading between the lines, Edwin felt that by consulting no +interests but his own he had made an awkward situation easy for his +father. In that case, he reflected, Mr. Ingleby might very well have +made him an allowance. It gave him a sense of grim satisfaction to +remember that he was still a minor and that even if he were too proud to +use it, he still held the weapon of his father’s legal responsibility in +reserve, but the next moment he was ashamed of this reflection: when it +came to a point the element of pathos in his father’s history and person +always disarmed him. + +It was enough that he should be happy, principally for the reason that +his days were so full and any moments of relaxation came to him with a +more poignant pleasure than any he had known before. He had very little +time for reading outside the subjects of his final exam., that now +overwhelmed him with an increasing weight. For pleasure he read little +but lyrical poetry, finding his chief enjoyment in the last hour before +he fell asleep in Dr. Harris’s empty lock-up, with a copy of Mackail’s +selections from the Greek Anthology that he had salved from one of the +second-hand bookstalls in Cobden Street. + +In spite of himself, he was beginning to like Charles Altrincham-Harris. +He didn’t for one moment alter his opinion of the degradation to which +the man had subjected the nobilities of his calling, his meanness and his +avarice. In his dealings with the unfortunate people who came to the +shilling doctor for treatment, he still abhorred him; he knew him to be a +person whose mind was a sink of pseudo-professional prurience, and whose +body and habits were unkempt and unclean; but for all this, he could not +deny the fact that in his relations with his dispenser he displayed a +curious vein of natural kindness, and that his ideals, apart from his +loathsome business, were of a touching simplicity. + +Every morning they met at breakfast. The doctor believed in good food as +a basis for work, and his housekeeper, a small, shrewish woman of fifty, +was an excellent cook. At the breakfast table he would impart to Edwin +the more salacious paragraphs of the morning paper, which he always +opened at the page that contained the records of the divorce-court. He +took no notice of politics. “They can do what they like as long as they +don’t legislate about _us_.” And though Edwin felt sincerely that the +sooner his kind were legislated for, the better, he was thankful that his +employer was not a political bore or bigot. + +After breakfast Dr. Harris always smoked a clay pipe in his carpet +slippers, a present from a patient who, for some unimaginable reason, had +been grateful. Then they would walk down to 563 Lower Sparkdale together +in the fresh morning air, and the combination of gentle exercise with +deeper breathing would impel the little man to make Edwin the confidant +of his ambitions. + +“Twelve thousand pounds,” he would say, “that’s all I want. Twelve +thousand pounds. Five hundred a year. Then I shall find a quiet little +place in the country and have a rest. Keep bees and poultry: that’s what +I shall do, and smoke a pipe in the garden in the evening when the poor +devil that buys my practice is going down to the surgery to rake in the +shillings.” + +In these moments he would reflect on the beginning of his career. “I +took a good degree, you know. You wouldn’t think it to look at me now, +would you? No . . . I had bad luck, and a bad wife, which is the worst +sort of luck. She lost me my practice, and so I grew sick of medicine. +I couldn’t be bothered with the social side of it. Money was what I +wanted: money and quiet. And so I took a dose of medicine: fifteen years +at a shilling a bottle, with advice thrown in, and then a quiet life. +That was all I wanted. And I’ve very nearly got it. Another year or two +will make me secure. Security . . . that’s what I wanted. Well, here we +are. . . .” + +So the morning’s work began, and no morning, as far as Edwin could see, +was different from any other. He was thankful when the clock struck ten, +and Dr. Harris ruthlessly locked his surgery door. Then, fortunately, he +was obliged to take the next tram to the hospital; for if he had +lingered, as he was sometimes forced to do on Sundays, Dr. Harris would +have lit his pipe and proceeded to regale him with anecdotes of medical +experiences that always related to sex, on which he dwelt with a slow, +deliberate satisfaction, like a dog that nuzzles a piece of garbage. + +The aspects of medical science that related to sex were the only ones in +which he was really interested. He possessed an expensive and eclectic +library of books on these subjects, to which he was always adding others +that he bought from the colporteurs of medical pornography who are +continually pestering the members of his profession. These he would pore +over at night, when Edwin was providentially engaged in reading for his +final. “Medicine is an extremely interesting profession from that point +of view,” he would say, and indeed the dispenser soon discovered that +this aspect of the medical profession supplied Dr. Harris with a great +number of his patients. In the squalid underways of the city he had +established a reputation for skill and discretion in the treatment of +contagious disease, and the unfortunate victims who came to Lower +Sparkdale from more reputable suburbs were ready to pay through the nose +for his advice. + +One night, hearing behind his curtain the overtures of one of these cases +that he knew so well, he suddenly became aware of a tone that was +familiar in the patient’s voice. Listening more closely he could have +sworn it was the voice of Griffin. Evidently it was a person of some +consequence, for Dr. Harris devoted as much as five minutes to his +examination. + +“I suppose you wouldn’t like a prescription?” + +“No, you’d better make it up for me,” said the voice that resembled that +of Griffin. + +“Certainly . . . delighted.” + +Dr. Harris breathed heavily, as he always did when writing a +prescription, and then passed the slip of paper behind the curtain to +Edwin. Edwin, looking at once for the name at the head of the +prescription, was disappointed. The patient had preferred to remain +anonymous. He dispensed the medicine, and when Dr. Harris had said +good-bye to the patient he could not resist the temptation of looking +from behind the curtain to verify his suspicions. He could only see the +back of the departing patient, but the suspicion filled him with a queer +sensation of awe. + +It showed him a new aspect of medicine that had never occurred to him in +hospital life, but would, no doubt, be present often enough in private +practice. Griffin was a person well known to Edwin and his friends, a +person about whose adventures and their consequences he would easily and +naturally have spoken. If he had retailed the incident to Maskew and +W.G. in the Dousita, it would have been the occasion of a little pity and +probably some irreverent mirth. But he saw at once that he could do +nothing of the sort. He had become, for the first time in his life, the +keeper of a professional secret. For the rest of the world, however +interested, Griffin and Griffin’s disease must not exist. + +Edwin felt the weight of a new responsibility, reflecting that in his +future life he would in all probability become possessed of many such +secrets and that there might be occasions on which his sense of duty +would be divided between the traditional discretion of Hippocrates and +the instincts of humanity. He invented a hypothetical case for his own +confusion. Supposing he had a sister to whom Griffin was engaged: +supposing that they were going to be married in a week after this +uncomfortable knowledge had come into his possession, endangering the +whole of her future happiness and perhaps her life: what, in that case, +should be his attitude towards the question of professional secrecy? +What would he do? Would he be justified in telling her what he knew? +Hippocrates said “No”; but Hippocrates’ refusal narrowed the field of +possibilities to confronting Griffin with his own shame and threatening +him with . . . what? Not with exposure—for that Hippocrates forbade. +Obviously with death. And that would be murder. . . . + +Balancing the relative heinousness of murder and perjury, Edwin began to +laugh at himself, and while he did this a curious reminiscence came into +his mind: the picture of a small boy, who resembled him in very little +but had been himself, lying in the hedge side of Murderer’s Cross Road, +on the downs above St. Luke’s, reflecting on the same problem of the +justification of homicide and saying to himself as he brooded on his +wrongs: “I can quite easily understand a chap wanting to murder a chap.” +And this picture tempting him further, he relapsed into a dream of those +strange, remote days tinged with extremes of happiness and misery, and +both of them unreal. . . . + +He thought no more of Griffin. + + + +CHAPTER IX +EASY ROW + + +I + + +FOR a whole year Edwin inhabited the room above the lock-up surgery in +Lower Sparkdale. It was a happy year, for into it was crowded a great +wealth of experience and elevating discovery to which the mechanical +drudgery of Dr. Harris’s dispensing room acted as ballast. In his +medical studies he began to feel for the first time the fruits of his +earlier labours: to realise that all medicine was little more than an +intelligent application to life of the theoretical subjects that he had +mastered without reasoning. From the very first day of his experience in +the dissecting room there was nothing in all that he had learnt that had +not its direct bearing on his present practice; and the reflection that +he possessed all this essential knowledge ready for use was exhilarating +in itself. Again, the fact that he was now standing on his feet, +actually earning his own living, gave him a greater happiness than he had +ever known in his days of dependence; it made him accept the routine of +Lower Sparkdale as a penance, cheering him with the thought that so much +sacrifice was really necessary before he should be master of himself. + +He was lonely; but this seemed inevitable, for no person in his senses +could be expected to grind along in a steam-tram to Lower Sparkdale for +the sake of his company; and the final year was too full of strenuous +studies for all of them to allow of much indulgence in the joys of +friendship. Matthew Boyce made a few heroic attempts. He even spent +several evenings in Harris’s dispensary, finding the shilling doctor’s +clinical and commercial methods something of a joke. They were no joke +to Edwin: he had recognised long ago that they were no more than Harris’s +solution of the problem of living. The doctor saw nothing unworthy in +them. He did his best, within his limited knowledge, for his patients. +He was kind, and even, on occasion, generous. If there were fault to be +found it must be with the State that allowed such ignorant men to deal +with precious human bodies, and not with him. When the first humour of +the experience was exhausted Boyce came to the surgery no more. Little +by little Edwin’s insulation became more complete, and in the end he +relapsed into the degree of loneliness that he had known in his early +days at St. Luke’s. + +Given the opportunity, he almost enjoyed it. There was something remote +and secret about this little room in the corner house above the grinding +trams, and when the surgery emptied at night and he went upstairs to work +he would find himself suddenly overwhelmed with a feeling of thankfulness +for the fact that it was so peculiarly his: that his own books and +pictures and clothes had made it individual and different from any other +room in the whole of the city. And when the town slept, and he sat on +reading into the early hours of the morning, the lonely chamber was like +a lighthouse set in seas of night, and dreams of the misty lands beyond +Severn, of Mendip couched in darkness, or of the sleeping wolds by +Overton, would beat at his lighted window like seabirds in the night. + +At first the sacrifices that his poverty demanded had seemed no more than +part of a new and exciting game. It was some months before he realised +that, literally, he could not afford the indulgence of a single pleasure +that cost money. If he were to free himself from the bondage of Dr. +Harris’s dispensary it was absolutely necessary that he should save +enough money to pay his examination fees. He began to find a new delight +in carefully hoarded shillings, and this practice threw him into a +curious sympathy with his employer. Each of them, on a different scale, +was committed to a present sacrifice for the sake of future freedom; and +this reflection reconciled him in some degree to the inconveniences that +Dr. Harris’s miserly ways inflicted on him. + +It was galling, none the less, to find that he could mot afford to buy a +single new book, to hire a piano, or to hear any music except the free +recitals by which the municipal organist convinced the citizens of North +Bromwich that they were getting something for their money, in debauches +of sound that reminded them how much the organ had cost. Sometimes, to +Edwin’s joy, he played the fugues of the Well-tempered Clavier, and on +their wide streams he would be carried from springs of mountain +sweetness, by weir and cataract to solemn tidal waters and lose himself +at last in seas of absolute music. Time after time he thanked God for +Bach, and walked home to his garret like a man who has gazed upon the +splendour of a full sea and carries its tumult in his mind far inland. + +Through all these experiences Edwin was so possessed by the one idea of +holding on until his final exam. was over that he scarcely missed the +society of his friends. He knew that his friendship with Boyce was +founded too deeply in common experience ever to be shaken by his own +changed circumstances: it might lapse, but it could never be broken. He +always felt that the future held more for them than the past had ever +given; but his other friends, Maskew and Martin in particular, seemed to +have been translated to another place of existence. In the wards and in +the lecture theatres he would meet them; but elsewhere they had nothing +in common with his way of existence. + +Even W.G. seemed gradually to be slipping away from him—an unreasonable +state, for Edwin, after all, was now for the first time sharing something +of the big man’s early experience. For several months they had scarcely +spoken, and then, one day, nearly ran into each other’s arms in Sackville +Row, and almost mechanically wandered off to the Dousita together. In +the shades of the smoking-room nothing had changed. When they sank into +the cushions of their favourite corner Miss Wheeler approached them with +an exact replica of the smile with which, four years before, she had +engaged the heart of Maskew; and when she took their order, she stood on +one leg in exactly the same position, leaning, with a hint of tiredness +that was not surprising in a young woman who habitually breathed tobacco +smoke in place of oxygen, with her hand on the curtain at the side of +their settee. + +“I never see Mr. Maskew now,” she said with a sigh. “I can’t think +whatever ’as happened to all you boys, I’m sure.” + +She brought them coffee, and W.G., who had scarcely spoken, but whose +knitted brows testified to the pressure of some urgent problem, said:— + +“Well, how do you like it?” + +“What do you mean?” + +“Being on your own.” + +“Oh, it’s all right,” said Edwin. + +“I never thought you’d stick it,” W.G. confessed. “I didn’t think you +had it in you. You see, in your case there was never the least necessity +for it.” + +“There was, you know—” + +“I could have understood it if you’d had a regular bust-up. I should +certainly have stayed at home if the governor hadn’t booted me out. You +never had anything of that kind.” + +“No . . . not exactly. But the position was the same. I had a sort of . . . +of emotional cold-douche. I was awfully sensitive about my mother. +My father and I were all wrong. We’d really nothing in common. And it’s +turned out all right. That’s the main thing.” + +“You’re a quixotic ass, my son. No . . . that’s not the word, but it’s +the same sort of thing. It was really damned foolish of you.” + +“It’s jolly sound to stand on your own feet. You know where you are for +the first time. It was only uncomfortable because he was really awfully +decent. He is now: but he hasn’t the faintest glimmering of my point of +view.” + +“They rarely have,” said W.G. gloomily. “Still, you haven’t made such an +ass of yourself as I have.” + +“Something new?” + +“Yes . . . I’m married.” + +“Good God!” + +“It isn’t as bad as that,” W.G. chuckled. “I thought it would come as a +bit of a shock to you.” + +“But why on earth—?” + +“Well, you see she was awfully unhappy at home. Brute of a father. And +we simply got tired of waiting. That’s all. You must come and see us. +She always remembered your clerking in her ward. We’re living in +furnished rooms in Alvaston. It’s an amazing experience, you know, +marriage. Quite different from anything else of the kind.” In view of +W.G.’s experience in these matters Edwin was ready to take this for +granted. + +“I should think it is a damned funny thing,” he said. + +They parted. There was something almost pathetic to Edwin in W.G.’s hot +handclasp. He felt that W.G. was up against something far bigger than +anything that had happened to him before: a strange, momentous adventure, +yet one that was thrilling and, in a way, enviable. Once again he found +himself admiring the big man’s desperate daring. W.G. with a wife, and +probably, in a few years, children! . . . Assuredly they were all +growing old. + + +II + + +In all that summer Edwin scarcely saw a patch of living green except the +leprous plane-trees that sickened in the hospital square. The current of +his life flowed slowly through the culverts of grimy brick that led from +Lower Sparkdale to the Infirmary. He became part of the stream of dusty +humanity that set citywards and back again with the regularity of a tide. +In December he came to the end of his penance. The final examination was +fixed for the beginning of January, and before he could sit for it, he +was compelled to take a course of practical midwifery, twenty cases in +all, which compelled his residence for a couple of weeks in the +neighbourhood of the Prince’s Hospital, the institution to which this +department was attached. Matthew Boyce and he had decided a year before +that they would do this work together, and though the unusual strain of +the fortnight in Easy Row would be a doubtful preliminary to the effort +of the final examination, the two friends had always looked forward to +the experience. + +The authorities of the Prince’s Hospital, lacking obstetrical wards, had +made this course the opportunity for establishing an Out-patient +Department that could deal with ten cases a week at the nominal charge of +five shillings each. The students worked in pairs, and though they could +never be sure of attending their cases together, the resident staff of +the hospital, and, if necessary, a consultant physician, were always +available in case of an emergency. Edwin and Boyce were housed in one of +the faded Georgian buildings that faced the hospital. Its lower stories, +like those of all its neighbours, were devoted to theatrical lodgings; +but a special night-bell, polished by the moist hands of forty anxious +husbands every month, communicated with the upper room in which the +resident students attempted to sleep. The house was as well known to all +the poorer people in the neighbouring warrens as were the faces pale with +sleeplessness of the students who issued from it, carrying the black bags +that were symbolical of their labours, a source of mysterious speculation +to the children of the district, and of amusement to the “professionals” +who inhabited the front rooms. + +On a Monday morning in December the landlady received Edwin and Boyce and +installed them in a small room at the back of the ground-floor infested +with portraits of smiling young ladies in tights, inscribed, with the +most dashing signatures imaginable, to herself. Mrs. Meadows was +evidently very proud of these decorations and called attention to the +most blatant pair of legs by polishing the glass of their frame with her +apron. + +“I hope you gentlemen will be comfortable,” she said. “Not that I doubt +it. I don’t have many complaints.” The statement was a challenge, and +implied that if there should be any complaints the lodgers might look to +themselves. + +“It’s a nice fresh room,” she said, throwing open a French window that +disclosed a small patch of black earth that had once been covered with +grass but was now untenanted by any living organisms but cats and +groundsel. + +“I like them to keep the window open. It takes away the smell of the +gentlemen’s disinfectant. Not but what it’s clean, I dare say.” + +Edwin and Boyce would have assented in any case if it were only to +release the composite lodging-house smell that penetrated the room from +the adjoining “domestic offices,” and Mrs. Meadows’s kitchen where, it +would be imagined, turnip-tops simmered day and night upon a gas-ring. + +“Then there’s a pianoforte,” she said, hesitating at the dusty portiere. +“I find that professionals like a pianoforte. It’s cheery like.” + +In a little while it became apparent that the professionals liked a +pianoforte, in every one of the thirty odd houses within earshot, even if +they could not play one. From the hour of midday, when they rose, until +six o’clock, when they betook themselves to their various theatres, the +pianos of Easy Row were never silent. + +“It’s no good trying to do any work in this place,” said Edwin. + +“There won’t be any time, anyway,” said Boyce. “You wait till the fun +begins.” + +They lunched together on steak-and-kidney pudding and turnip-tops with a +brand of bottled beer in which Mrs. Meadows showed an admirable taste, +and in the early afternoon the fun began. + +From the beginning, Fate had decreed a complication by deciding that Mrs. +Hadley, back of number four, court sixteen, Granby Street, and Mrs. +Higgins over number fifty-four Rea Barn Lane, should conspire to increase +the population of North Bromwich at the same moment. Mr. Hadley and Mr. +Higgins achieved a dead heat, arriving on the doorstep together in a +dripping perspiration with messages of an equal urgency. + +“This is rather rotten,” said Boyce. “Which of these ladies will you +take?” + +“I’ll have Mrs. Higgins,” said Edwin. “I suppose the bag’s all right?” + +The bag was right enough, though it contained very little that could do +any harm, and smelt abominably of Lysol. Mr. Higgins, still out of +breath, with beads of sweat sweeping an alluvium of metal dust into the +furrows of his cheeks, carried the bag for Edwin. For all his +exhaustion, Mr. Higgins wanted to run, and Edwin, walking with long +strides beside him, was in danger of losing his dignity by being swept +into the same degree of panic. The reflection that this would betray his +inexperience held him back. + +“The nurse said very urgent, doctor,” Mr. Higgins panted. + +“Yes . . . yes. You mustn’t excite yourself. It’ll be all right.” + +“I suppose,” said Mr. Higgins doubtfully, “you’re well up in these sort +of cases, doctor? I expect you’ve seen a lot of them?” + +Edwin wished he had been able to grow a moustache for the occasion. + +“Hundreds,” he said. + +Mr. Higgins gave a sigh of relief. “That’s a good thing. That’s a very +good thing. You see, I’m nairvous, doctor. I lost my fairst over it, +and I don’t want to lose this one. Very young she is.” + +“Is this her first?” + +“Yes, doctor.” + +Another bit of bad luck! + +Through a maze of gritty streets they hurried, reaching, at last, a house +beside a corner “public” which a cluster of women, gossiping in their +aprons on the doorstep, proclaimed as the site of this momentous birth. +One of them snatched the black bag from Mr. Higgins. “You get away, +’Iggins, and ’ave a pint of beer quiet like. This baint no place for an +’usband. This way, doctor. Here she is, poor lamb.” + +She pushed her way up the stairs, breathing heavily. Her bunchy skirts +filled the staircase, which was no wider than a loft-ladder and very +dark. + +“’Ere ’e is,” she cried triumphantly, as she pushed open a matchboard +door. “’Ere ’e is. ’Ere’s the doctor. Now you won’t be long, my lover. +’E’ll ’elp you. You’ll ’elp ’er, won’t you, doctor?” + +She deposited the talismanic bag triumphantly on the foot of the bed; +then she winked at Edwin: “I’ll go and keep ’Iggins out of the way,” she +said. + +“I’m that glad you’ve come, doctor,” said the nurse. She was a little +shrivelled woman, with a nervous smile and her hair packed into a black +net with a wide mesh that made her whole bead sombre and forbidding. Her +lips twitched when she smiled, and Edwin, who had been counting on the +moral support of her experience, saw at once that she was even more +anxious than himself. He was soon to know that the women who acted as +professional midwives in the North Bromwich slums were usually widows +left without means, who adopted this profession with no other +qualification than a certain wealth of subjective experience, on which +they were careful to insist. The claim “I’ve had eight of them myself, +so _I_ ought to know,” did not atone for the fact that they didn’t +actually know anything at all. Mrs. Brown, the lady to whose mercies the +trustful Mr. Higgins had committed his second, was a timid specimen of +the class. Beneath her protestations of experience her soul quaked with +terror, and a hazy conviction that if anything went wrong, she, the +unregistered, would probably be committed for manslaughter, reduced her +to a state of dazed incompetence in which she heard without hearing +Edwin’s none too confident directions. She went downstairs tremulously +to bring hot water, and Edwin was left alone with his patient. + +“It won’t be long, doctor, will it?” she said. + +“Of course not . . . of course not,” said Edwin. He felt very much of a +fraud, for he hadn’t the least idea how long it would be. The whole +picture was moving: the patient, a girl of twenty-four or five, her +honey-coloured hair drawn back tightly from a face that was blotched +already with tears, but not ill-looking: the humility of the little +bedroom with its hired furniture and certain humble attempts at +ornamentation: pink ribbon bows upon the curtains, a ridiculous china +ornament on the mantelpiece, and brass knobs at the foot of the bedstead, +so polished that they had already become loose. No doubt Mrs. Higgins +the second had been in respectable suburban service, and these worthy +efforts were the signs of an attempt to introduce into Rea Barn Lane the +amenities of Alvaston. She lay quietly on the bed, gazing at nothing +while Edwin unpacked his bag. He did not look at her, but became +suddenly conscious that her body had given a kind of jump and that her +hands were desperately clutching a towel that Mrs. Brown had knotted to +the rail at the bottom of the bed. Then he heard the joints of the +bedstead creak. “It’s all right. Cheer up. . . . It won’t be long,” he +said. + +Mrs. Brown emerged panting from the stairway with hot water. “That’s +right, my lover, that’s right. . . . That’s another one less. Now, let +the doctor have a look at you.” + +A strange business. . . . It was a moment that might have been +difficult; but Edwin soon realised that the seriousness of the occasion, +the fact that this young creature’s life was veritably in his hands, made +modesty seem a thing of no account. In the eyes of this woman Edwin was +not a young man but an agency of relief from pain. In the body that pain +dominated there could be no room for blushes. Edwin, trying to summon +all his hardly learned theory to his aid in practice, was suddenly +impressed with the obligations that this confidence imposed on him. He +remembered the terms of the Hippocratic oath. Yea . . a goodly heritage! + +“Is it all right, doctor?” said the anxious voice of Mrs. Brown. + +“Yes, it’s all right.” + +“Thank the Lord for that! You hear what the doctor says, my lover—” + +“But it will be a long time yet.” + +“Oh, don’t say that, doctor, don’t say that,” Mrs. Higgins wailed. “You +aren’t going to leave me?” + +“It’s no good staying here now,” he said, as gently as he could. “It’s +really all right. It’s only a matter of time.” + +“Can’t you help her a bit, doctor?” + +Of course he couldn’t. A business of that kind would mean calling in the +house-surgeon from the Prince’s. He was determined not to be driven into +a panic, though this would have been easy enough, when he was convinced +that the case was taking a normal though inevitably lengthy course. + +“I expect you’ll want me again some time this evening,” he said. + +Mrs. Brown showed him downstairs. “You’re _sure_ it is all right, aren’t +you, doctor?” she said. + +“Perfectly all right. You know what a first case is.” + +“I’d ought to,” said Mrs. Brown proudly. “I’ve had eight myself.” + +He trudged back to Easy Row, where the professionals’ pianos, tuned in +quarter-tones, were already combining to show their catholicity in +musical taste. Boyce was drowsing in an easy-chair with the Greek +Anthology open in his lap. + +“Well, how’s your Mrs. Higgins?” he asked lazily. + +“Oh, she’s all right. A _primip_. Is Mrs. Hadley through her little +troubles?” + +“B.B.A. Born before arrival. A soft job. Saves a lot of trouble.” + +“My good lady will haul us out in the middle of the night, damn her!” +said Edwin. A conventional mode of expression, for he didn’t in the +least feel like damning Mrs. Higgins. In his mind he still carried the +picture of her plain hair and blotched face: he could hear the sound of +that sudden shudder and the noise of the bedstead creaking. + +The evening passed quietly. They tried to read, but found the feeling of +suspense made that impossible. No message came from Mrs. Higgins, and as +they were almost certain to be called out in the night, they went to bed +early. While they were undressing, Boyce humming softly the Liebestod +from Tristan, the bell in their bedroom rang. + +“Mrs. Higgins,” said Edwin. “I’d better go and see.” + +He groped his way downstairs. In the front room a party of music-hall +artistes were making a noisy supper. Before he could reach the door the +bell rang again, and when he opened it, a big man whose breath smelt of +liquor, lurched into the hall. + +“Are you the doctor?” + +“Yes.” + +“You’re to come at once to thirty-four Greville Street. It’s the missus. +The nurse says it’s urgent.” + +The nurse always said it was urgent. Boyce came downstairs grumbling. + +“We’d better go together.” + +“What about my friend, Mrs. Higgins?” + +“Oh, damn Mrs. Higgins!” said Boyce. + +It was a clear and frosty night, in which all points of light, whether of +starshine, or street-lamps, or of blue sparks crackling from the tramway +cables, shone brightly. The Greville Street husband lurched along beside +them, just sufficiently awake to show them the way through a maze of +rectangular byways to a street that lay upon the outer edge of the +district that the hospital covered. The chill clarity of the air +dispelled sleep. It was even pleasant to be walking there, for at this +time of the night the town was so empty that they might almost have been +walking over a country road. + +“Here it is,” said the husband thickly. + +Boyce and Edwin entered together. The front room of the house was +crowded with people who should have been in bed. They sat clustered +about a table on which stood a number of bottles from one of which the +messenger had evidently extracted his peculiar perfume. In the corner +chair, next to the window, an old woman in a lace cap had fallen asleep. +Opposite her a very dirty old man toasted his shins in front of the fire. +A strapping girl with dark, untidy hair, and an almost aggressive +physical beauty was holding forth shrilly to a group of three women who +had wandered in to drink and gossip from a neighbouring court. + +“Here they are,” said the husband sullenly, “two on ’em.” + +“My God! . . . Two of them? Is that all?” said the dark girl, examining +and, as it seemed, approving. + +Upstairs they found a midwife of another but equally characteristic type: +a fat woman whose attention was divided between the patient in bed and +the cheerful company in the front room. On the surface she was a little +patronising, an attitude that the two students’ inexperience made it +difficult for them to resent. “I know what you doctors want,” she said, +standing with her sleeves rolled up over her red forearms. “Plenty of +hot water, that’s what you want. I’ve got some disinfectant too. I’ve +often been with the ’ospital doctors. Now we shan’t be long.” + +She bustled downstairs, looking into the front room for a drink on her +way to the kitchen. Boyce, confident in the completion of his first +case, took the lead in questioning the patient, a slightly older version +of the dark sanguine girl they had seen below. Her whole attitude +towards the business, though less pathetic than that of the unforgotten +Mrs. Higgins, was equally moving. It implied such a cheerful and +courageous acceptance of life and this most uncomfortable of its +experiences. Her amazing vitality pervaded the room. It could be seen +in her masterful smile, in the grip of her red fingers on the knotted +towel, in the deep suffusion of her face. A jolly woman, built in the +mould of a fighter, who would neither take quarter nor give it. When +Boyce had examined her she smiled, disclosing a fine set of teeth, and +solemnly winked. + +“Well, doctor, what about it?” + +“Listen to ’er,” said the midwife, chuckling. “That’s the way to take +it!” + +“Well, it’s all right, you know, but it won’t be just yet awhile.” + +“My God . . . I didn’t pay the ’ospital five bob for you to tell me that. +Look ’ere, doctor, my elder sister ’ad a horrible time with her first. +’Ad to ’ave it took off ’er. Be a sport, doctor, and give us a smell of +chloroform. Come on, now! There’s two on you. . . . ’Ard-’earted +devils all you doctors are. Bain’t they, Mrs. Perkins?” She smiled at +the midwife, and then, suddenly, her face changed and she clutched at the +knotted towel. “Oh, my!” she said, and Edwin saw the veins in her neck +swell, and heard her clench her teeth. + +“That’s the way, dearie. That’s the way,” said Mrs. Perkins, gritting +her own teeth in sympathy and smoothing back the hair from the patient’s +brow. + +Edwin and Boyce were debating as to whether it were worth while staying +when a messenger from the hospital arrived from below to say that Mrs. +Hadley, Boyce’s patient of the afternoon, was “took worse,” and so Edwin +was left alone once more in the squalor of the patient’s room. He sat +waiting in a chair that was supposed to be easy, listening to the +conversation of the woman and her nurse. Most of it was family history +of a scandalous kind, and the manner of its expression was extremely +frank. In the course of his hospital work he had never before realised +the extraordinary contradictions of the code by which the talk of the +working-class is governed. In its mixture of delicacies and blatancies +it amazed him. Both the women were fluent gossips, and the conversation +never ceased, except in those moments of acute and sudden tension when +the patient’s hands clutched at her towel and the midwife mopped her +brow. Then, when the upstairs room was silent, a murmur of laughter and +loud voices would come up the stairs from below. In this family, at any +rate, the occasion of a birth did not lack celebration. Even the patient +was curious about what was happening downstairs. “What’s our Susan +doing?” she said from time to time. + +An interminable business. As the night wore on it grew very chilly, and +Edwin shivered in his chair. The case hung fire unaccountably, and in +this, the first of many such cold vigils, he fell into a strange mood, +often to be repeated, in which the sublime influences of night and +solitude combined to purge his reflections of pettiness and showed him +what an unimaginable mystery his own life was. The patient fell into an +uneasy doze. The midwife nodded in her chair, snatching up her head with +a conscious jerk whenever it lolled over her fat bosom. The smelly +oil-lamp on the mantelpiece gave an occasional sputter when a drop of +water was sucked up into the wick. In the room below the excited talk +had petered out and only a sound of soft snoring was heard, like the +breathing of cows in a byre. + +Edwin thought of many things. It seemed to him that his mind burned +clear as frosty starlight lighting forgotten memories of his childhood. +He thought of his own mother. He wondered if she had lain like the woman +on the bed on the night when he was born. He wondered if it had been in +the least like this, and whether another doctor, whose name he did not +even know, had sat by the fireplace in the little room at Halesby waiting +and seeing his own life stretched out before him in this light of +perilous clarity. He thought of St. Luke’s—of a thousand small things +that had lain submerged for years and now appeared unbidden. The +strangeness of his own experience, the elements of linked circumstance +that had combined to twist his life into its present state and make him +what he was. He thought of his father, with an unusual degree of +charity, realising that this man too was no more than a slave of the same +blind influences driven hither and thither in spite of his innate +goodwill. Edwin was ashamed to think that he had been angry with him. +In his present mood it seemed to him an unreasonable thing that one +should be angry with any human creature. Pity . . . yes, and love—but +never anger. So, like a devotee in a Tibetan lamasery, he saw his fellow +creatures, his father, himself, the midwife, and the woman on the bed, +bound helpless to the revolving wheel which is the earth. And the earth +seemed very small beneath the stars. . . . + +At two o’clock in the morning the handsome girl from downstairs, who was +the patient’s sister, came softly into the room and asked the midwife if +she would like a cup of tea. The patient blinked at het with red eyes. + +“How is it going, Sally?” said the sister. + +“Oh, it’s all right. I suppose it’s got to be worse before it’s better,” +she said, with a laugh. “Ask the doctor if he’ll have some tea too.” + +Edwin accepted gratefully. It was harsh stuff that had been standing on +the hob downstairs for some hours already. Mrs. Perkins was easily +persuaded into doctoring hers with a tablespoonful of brandy from the +bottle that is a regular constituent of the working class _layette_. The +sister sat at the foot of the bed and stared lazily at Edwin. + +“You look tired, doctor,” she said. + +Edwin admitted that he had had a biggish day. “You ought to get a bit of +sleep,” said the dark girl. “Sorry there bain’t no spare beds in the +house; but you can turn in with me if you like.” + +She looked so daringly provocative that Edwin had a horrible suspicion +that she meant it; but it was evidently the sort of joke that Greville +Street understood, for the patient on the bed cried, “Ethel, you are a +cough-drop, you’ll make the doctor blush,” and Mrs. Perkins rocked with +laughter until she spilt her tea. + +“Well, why should you have all the fun, Sally? It isn’t every day we get +a nice young man in the house.” + +“_Fun_ . . .,” said the patient wryly. “You’ll know all about this sort +of fun some day.” + +“Not just yet, thank you,” said Ethel. “I can look after myself better +than that.” + +She went downstairs again. Edwin was beginning to feel a little unhappy +about the case. To his inexperience the long delay seemed abnormal, and +his imagination presented to him a series of textbook disasters. While +he stood doubting whether he should give himself away by sending to the +hospital for the house-surgeon, he was startled by a sudden cry. Now, at +any rate, there was no doubt about it. At this rate, he thought, it +could not be long. But it took three hours: three hours of desperate +struggle in which he could give no help, though the thing was so fierce +that he found his sympathies snatched up into it: so that he held his +breath and clenched his hands and felt his own temples bursting with +effort. There had been no experience like it. As he sat at the bedside +with the patient’s fingers clasped about his wrist, he had the feeling +that this woman, who had joked with him half an hour before with the dry, +courageous cynicism that colours the philosophy of her class, was not an +individual human soul any longer; not a woman at all, but a mass of +straining, tortured muscle animated by the first force of life. So it +had been since the first woman cried out in the night under the tangles +of Caucasus: so it would always be: the most sublime and terrible of all +physical experiences, a state of sheer physical possession, more powerful +than any spiritual ecstasy imaginable. + +At five o’clock the baby was born—a boy, and Mrs. Perkins, standing by +with a skein of twisted thread in her hand, danced with nervousness. +Edwin’s hands also trembled; but his heart was lightened with a sudden +relief, as though the labour had been his and his also the +accomplishment. A palpably ridiculous state of mind . . . but it took +him like that. + +The dark girl put her head in at the door. She was very pale now. Had +the whole household shared in these physical throes? + +“Is it all right?” she said. + +“Yes . . . it’s a boy. A beautiful boy.” + +“Hallo, Eth,” said a quiet voice from the bed. “Go and tell Jim.” + +It was the first word the patient had spoken. + +A moment later she opened her eyes and stared in a dazed way at Edwin. +She smiled. She was a woman again—an extraordinarily chastened woman—and +somehow strangely beautiful. “Thank you, doctor,” she said. “You ’elped +me ever so. Did I be’ave very bad, Mrs. Perkins?” + +“Bad? You be’aved fine,” said Mrs. Perkins, wrapping the baby in a +blanket and putting it in the fender. + +The patient gave a deep sigh and seemed to relapse into her thoughts. +From time to time she would say a couple of words in a weak-contented +voice. + +“’As Eth told Jim?” she asked several times, and then: “What’ll mother +think?” + +“You be quiet, my lover,” said the midwife. “Don’t you disturb yourself +with talking.” + +At last she said suddenly: “I’m better now,” and asked if she might see +the baby. Mrs. Perkins unwrapped the blanket from a red and frowning +forehead and showed it to her. She touched its cheek with her finger and +smiled miraculously. The action seemed to bring her submerged +personality to the surface again. + +“Ugly little b—,” she said, with a happy laugh. “Looks as if ’e’d been +on the booze.” + +“I shan’t forget the way you ’elped me, doctor,” she said again, when +Edwin left the house. Although it was still dark, the workmen’s trams +had begun to run, and lights appeared in the lower windows of public +houses where hot soup was on sale. When he entered the bedroom of their +lodging, Edwin found, and envied, Boyce sleeping stertorously with the +blankets pulled over his head and an overcoat on his feet. Three hours +later, when the landlady came to call them, he woke, and explained to +Edwin the excitements of his own night: how, in the middle of it, Edwin’s +own Mrs. Higgins had called him out (“decent little woman,” said Boyce), +and how, from sixteen Granby Street, he had been called to a case at the +other end of the district in a common lodging-house kept by a Pole. + +“No hot water . . . no soap . . . nothing but a bucket that they’d used +for scrubbing the floors. Not even a bed! Just a straw mattress with a +couple of grey blankets on it. Two other children and a man in the room. +And crawling! I’ve stripped and had a rub down with a towel, but I feel +as if they were all over me now. You couldn’t see them on the grey +blankets, you know.” + +“Sounds dismal. Had they a capable woman? My Mrs. Perkins wasn’t up to +much.” + +“Midwife? My dear chap, they didn’t run to luxuries like that. It is a +bit thick, isn’t it? when a modern surgeon-accoucheur is reduced to +washing the baby with his own soap. As a matter of fact, it was an +extraordinarily interesting performance. The thing felt as if it would +break. But seriously, you know, this sort of thing teaches you a bit +about twentieth century housing.” + +“Yes, it’s pretty bad,” said Edwin. “There’s one thing about it: working +all night like this gives you a terrific appetite.” + + +III + + +For a few days the extreme novelty of their adventure sustained them, but +after five nights of broken or obliterated sleep, the presence of the +night-bell at their bedside stood for a symbol of perpetual unrest. +Their days were spent in visiting patients whom they had attended. All +examination work was made impossible by the fatigue that follows want of +sleep, and the fact that they were committed to a kind of enforced +idleness made their sojourn in Easy Row almost as much a holiday as the +great summer days at Overton. + +Both of them found that they could not even read for pleasure; and so the +undisturbed hours of the day were passed in talk and in music. Mrs. +Meadows’s piano had suffered under the fingers and thumbs of countless +guests; but Edwin and Boyce shared the cost of a tuner and worked +together through the Wagner scores and the subtler treasures that lay +hidden in the songs of Hugo Wolf. They had few visitors, for this +community of taste had already begun to isolate them from their student +friends; but Boyce’s father, the poet, often came to have tea with them +and to share their music, a man as versatile and sanguine as Meredith’s +Roy Richmond, and yet so versed in every variety of knowledge and so +reverent of beauty that Edwin felt there was no such company in the +world: one who took all beauty and knowledge for his province. + +One afternoon a message came to the house in Easy Row from the hospital, +and as Mrs. Meadows was engaged in some obscure adjustment of her toilet, +Edwin went to the door to receive it. He took the message, and was +returning when another figure appeared on the path. It was that of a +young girl of his own age, or, perhaps, a little older, and she hurried +forward when she saw that he was closing the door. He waited. + +“You weren’t going to shut me out, were you?” she said. She smiled, and +Edwin saw that her eyes were of a warm hazel such as sunshine reveals in +peaty river water. Before them Edwin found himself blushing. + +“No, indeed,” he said. “Do you want Mrs. Meadows? I’ll go and tell +her.” + +“Mrs. Meadows? This is thirty-seven, isn’t it?” + +“Yes . . . thirty-seven.” + +“I’ve come to see my friend, Miss Latham. She’s lodging here.” + +“I’m so sorry. Of course. I expect she’s in the front room.” + +“Thank you.” She spoke very demurely. He stood aside to let her pass +and with her a faint fragrance of white rose. + +By this time Miss Latham herself had emerged, a blowsy woman who was +taking a small part in the Christmas pantomime at the theatre, and had +introduced herself to the friends through Mrs. Meadows a few days before. + +“Why, Rosie, my dear, isn’t this just sweet of you? Fancy finding you on +the step flirting with Doctor . . . Dr. Ingleby! That’s right, isn’t +it?” + +“Oh, what a shame, Hetty! We weren’t, were we?” Ingenuously she turned +her eyes on Edwin again. Were they hazel? Perhaps they were almost +amber. A matter of light . . . + +“No . . . I’m afraid we weren’t. She didn’t give us time.” + +“Two doctors in the house! Think of that!” said Miss Hetty Latham, whose +conversation habitually ran from one note of exclamation to another. +“Imagine how safe we feel, Rosie!” + +And Rosie surveyed Edwin seriously. + +“Aren’t you awfully young?” + +“I suppose I am rather. I’m not qualified yet. But I expect to be next +week.” + +“Then you must be awfully clever too—” + +“What on earth are we all doing talking here in the passage? Come along +in and have a cup of tea,” said Miss Latham boisterously. + +“As you two are such great friends already, I suppose it’s waste of time +introducing you.” + +“Really—” Edwin protested. + +“Very well, then. Dr. Ingleby: Miss Rosie Beaucaire. I never get the +order right. You can take it or leave it. May he come to tea with us, +Rosie?” + +“Of course he may.” + +“Come along then, both of you . . .” + + + +CHAPTER X +WHITE ROSES + + +I + + +IT was the first of many amazing adventures, to which Matthew Boyce +supplied a calculated and cynical commentary, watching Edwin as though he +were the subject of a physiological experiment—as indeed he was. But +lack of sympathy in one quarter was scarcely likely to worry Edwin when +he had found it so overwhelmingly in another. In a few days Miss Latham, +the most tactful of duennas, had withdrawn from the scene. On the first +night of their acquaintance Edwin had taken the hazel-eyed Miss Beaucaire +back to her lodgings in Prince Albert’s Place at the back of the theatre, +where the pantomime was in rehearsal. All the way through the squalid, +lamp-lit streets they had talked of things that were entrancing, simply +because they had to do with her. Edwin thought that no companionship in +all his life had been so natural and so easy; and this was not +surprising, for the young woman, in addition to physical charms that were +armoury enough in themselves, had developed the faculty commonly acquired +by ladies of her profession, of devoting herself entirely to the +companion of the moment and giving the impression that she had never +known, and would never want to know, any other person in the world. +Rosie was only twenty-four, but had given at least the last third of her +life to studying male of the species of which Edwin was a peculiarly +ingenuous example. At the door of her lodgings she had conjured an +atmosphere of mysterious intimacy. Speaking in a voice that was low and +of a thrilling tenderness, she had said:— + +“I mustn’t ask you to come in to-day. It’s a dreadful shame; but mother +has one of her headaches, and the noise might disturb her. You +understand, don’t you?” + +Edwin, with a vision of an elderly and delicate version of Rosie herself +lying on a sofa with a handkerchief dipped in eau-de-cologne over her +eyes, assented. He thought it a very beautiful consideration on Rosie’s +part. A small black and tan terrier came dancing into the hall with a +friendly yelp. + +“Be quiet, Imp . . . oh, _do_ be quiet! Isn’t he a duck?” she said. +“Now, I must really go.” She held out her hand. A moment before she had +taken off her glove, and Edwin, who had scarcely ever touched the hand of +a woman before, thought that her fingers were the softest and most +delicate things on earth. + +“You’ll come and have tea with us, won’t you? I should like you to meet +mother.” + +“Of course, I’d like to. When?” + +“Oh . . . quite soon. Any day this week. Promise me you won’t forget . . .” +As if he could ever forget! Her exquisite humility quite bowled +him over. When she had closed the door behind her he walked away dazed +with an unfamiliar emotion that made the mean street, with its uniform +row of mid-Victorian houses on one side, and on the other the blank wall +of the theatre and huge, sooty warehouses, seem a holy place. The +Halesby Road, with its streaming traffic, shared the same +transfiguration. The speed and strength of the horses enthralled him; +the faces of men and women walking homeward from their work in the city +seemed triumphantly happy; the smooth wood-pavement, polished by the +rolling of innumerable wheels, shone like a street in heaven. It seemed +to Edwin as if the whole world had somehow been uplifted by a secret +knowledge of his own experience. A night of wonder. . . . + +“Well, what is the young woman’s name?” asked Boyce, when he returned to +Easy Row. + +“Beaucaire. She’s principal girl in the pantomime at the Queen’s.” + +“H’m. . . . Attractive little piece. But she can’t be up to much if +she’s a pal of the Latham woman’s. I’ve seen her there several times.” + +“Oh, that means nothing,” Edwin explained. “I don’t think she’s at all +keen on her. They acted together somewhere years ago. You can’t drop +people when they’ve been kind to you. I don’t think she’s at all keen on +her. She’s quite all right. Lives with her mother in Prince Albert’s +Place.” + +“Pretty rotten sort of street. Got a bad name, you know. I believe, as +a matter of fact, it’s considered rather the thing to lug an official +mother about with you.” + +“You don’t mean—” Edwin began, going very white. + +“Of course I don’t. I don’t know anything about her. Only, for God’s +sake, take care of yourself. A young woman of that kind generally has a +fair share of experience, and you . . . well, you _haven’t_ exactly. +Besides, it’s just as well to remember that the final’s coming off in ten +days.” + +The less said about the final the better. + +“She isn’t a chorus girl, you know. If you’d met her I think you’d admit +that she’s a lady. She told me that her mother—” + +Boyce chuckled. + +“As a matter of fact,” said Edwin, clinching the argument, “her father +was a country parson in low circumstances.” + +“I understand they usually are,” said Boyce with a yawn. + +Their night was complicated by two new cases. Next morning they appeared +at breakfast with slightly ruffled tempers. They sat at opposite ends of +the table, Edwin reading, without understanding, one of Oldham’s caustic +critiques on a symphony concert the night before, his friend glued to his +beloved anthology. + +“What did you say her name was?” said Boyce, apropos of nothing. “Rosie, +wasn’t it?” + +Edwin grunted. + +“Have you ever sampled the _Sortes Virgilianae_? I sometimes try that +trick with the anthology. There are plenty of generalisations, so it +often comes off rather well. How’s this for last night?” + +“H’m—” + +“Are you listening?” + +“Yes, fire away.” + +Boyce quoted:— + + Ή τὰ ῥόδα, ῥοδόεσσαν ἔχες χαῤίν, ἀλλὶ τί πωλἔς + σαντήν, ἢ τἃ ῥόδα, ἠὲ συναμφοτερα; + +“Rather neat, isn’t it? While I was hanging about that case in Craven +Street, I made a translation for you. Tell me what you think of it. + + ‘You of the roses, rosy-fair, + Sweet maiden, tell me whether + You or the roses are your ware, + Or both of them together.’” + +“Damned rotten, anyway,” said Edwin. “Maiden’s the wrong word . . .” + +It comforted him, none the less, to find that Rosie did not revisit Miss +Latham, though this lady pointedly rallied him on the doorstep, +suggesting that his intimacy with Miss Beaucaire had reached a stage to +which he had not yet attained but aspired devoutly. The work at Easy +Row, that had slackened for a few days, came on with a rush; and though +the image of this delicate creature now filled his nightly vigils, being +even more precious for the squalid surroundings in which it came to him, +he found it impossible to visit the lodgings in Prince Albert’s Place, to +which his thoughts with tantalising regularity returned. + +The flood of work held until their fortnight was out, leaving them both +washed-out and irritable. To speak frankly, the last few days of their +comradeship had not been a success. Although Edwin made it clear that he +didn’t wish to discuss the affair of Rosie with Boyce, the incident of +the Greek epigram rankled. He found it impossible to take the matter +lightly, feeling that it was necessary to convince himself at all costs +that he wasn’t making a fool of himself, and finding it difficult to do +so. + +On the Monday next before the final examination he found himself a free +man. It was a questionable liberty, for its enjoyment really depended on +the result of this ordeal. He had definitely severed his connection with +Dr. Harris, intending to devote all his spare time at Easy Row and the +week after to preparations for the exam. A big gamble. . . . Ten pounds +and a few shillings was all he possessed in the world, except a +problematical degree in medicine which, in another seven days, might make +him certain of four guineas a week as long as he chose to work. The +margin seemed so small and the chance so desperate that he burned the +last of his boats, selling his microscope to a pawnbroker for twelve +pounds. Twenty-three pounds. . . . One could do a lot with twenty-three +pounds . . . supposing nothing went wrong. + +He found a cheap bed-sitting-room in a quiet street at the back of the +University buildings. Here, and in the museums, he would be able to put +in a week of intensive cramming. He found that he couldn’t do it. He +had reckoned without the unreasonable quantity of Rosie. The first night +on which he settled down to read in his new lodging the thought of her +would not let him rest. It was ridiculous. What he wanted was a hard +walk. He would go up to Alvaston and rout Boyce out of his study for a +tramp in the moonlight towards Southfield Beeches. He would apologise to +Boyce for his bearishness during the last few days. Hadn’t they assured +each other on one of their ambrosial evenings at Overton more than a year +ago, that the friendship of two men was a more precious and lasting +experience than anything that the love of a woman could give? The whole +thing was just the result of physical staleness: a symptom of the +monotonous fatigue of the last year. He was going to get rid of it at +all costs. He turned out the gas and went downstairs. + +It was a discouraging night. A soft winter drizzle had set in from the +West, and in the jaded Halesby Road nebulous street lamps were reflected +in a layer of black slime that covered the wood-pavement. The shop +windows were misted with rain, and the few people who had ventured out +into the street trod carefully as though they were afraid of slipping. A +brutal night if ever there was one. Plodding up the street with the rain +in his face he found that he was passing the end of Prince Albert’s +Place. He passed it by twenty paces, and then, almost against his will, +turned round again. It was no good. There she was, for certain, within +forty yards of him. If he were to walk along the road on the opposite +side under the blank walls of the warehouses, he would be able to see the +very room that held her exquisiteness. He did so. There was a light in +the front room of the lower story, but the blinds were down, and he could +not see any one inside. He crossed the road boldly and stood for a +moment on the doorstep. It gave him a peculiar stab of happiness to feel +so near her. He railed against the combination of shyness and convention +that held him; for if he were to do the thing that was reasonable and +downright, he would have walked straight into the house and told her the +thousand things that choked his heart—he would have kissed her soft hands +and gazed into her shy, adorable eyes. Yes, he would have kissed her +eyes too. No doubt it would rather have taken the mother’s breath away. +Probably Rosie had never given him another thought since he left her on +the doorstep. That was the funny part of it. He laughed at himself, and +the sound of his laugh must somehow have penetrated the hall, for the +black and tan terrier barked shrilly. “Really, I’m off my head, you +know,” he said to himself, and wandered off again into the wet streets, +walking, until the small hours, those unimaginable slums in which his +labours of the last fortnight had lain. “God . . . it’s ridiculous!” he +thought, “but a man can’t help falling in love.” It seemed to him that +the phantom of Dorothy Powys regarded him seriously. + + +II + + +Next afternoon he presented himself at Prince Albert’s Place. A landlady +who might well have been Mrs. Meadows’s sister took in his card, and +after a little buzz of conversation that might have been explained in a +dozen sinister ways, he was admitted to the little room, whose lighted +windows he had surveyed the night before. Rosie came forward to meet +him. Once again, trembling, he took her hand. He even fancied—divine +flattery!—that she blushed. + +“This is my friend Dr. Ingleby, mother,” she said. + +“Very pleased to meet you, I’m sure,” said Mrs. Beaucaire. “Won’t you +come and sit over here?” + +In the shadow of Mrs. Beaucaire Edwin took his seat. She was a large +woman with a husky voice and a big, dissipated face that had once been +handsome. If she had any place in the scheme of things it was surely as +a foil to the fragile grace of her daughter. Rosie, with an occasional +sideways glance, was busy talking to a little man with a blue shaven chin +and an immense mobile mouth, who looked like a bookie. + +“I suppose you know Mr. Flood?” said Mrs. Beaucaire. + +Edwin confessed that he did not. + +“_The_ Mr. Flood, you know. Bertie, this is Mr. Ingleby. . . . I beg +your pardon, _Dr._ Ingleby,” and the great comedian shook hands with +Edwin and hoped he was well. + +The atmosphere of the lodgings was very easy and familiar. Bertie Flood, +the Mirth-maker of Three Continents, as the newspapers described him, +devoted himself in an easy paternal manner to Rosie. It became apparent +to Edwin, overshadowed by the bulk and impressiveness of Mrs. Beaucaire, +that whenever Mr. Flood could make an opportunity of handling Rosie, he +did so, and also that Rosie did not in any way resent the process. It +even seemed to him that she invited Mr. Flood’s attentions. + +“We’re very unconventional people, you know, Dr. Ingleby—quite Bohemian,” +said Mrs. Beaucaire in a thick voice. + +Edwin agreed that the relation was delightful. It was only by an effort +of concentration that he could hear what the mother was saying. All the +time his eyes were on Rosie, so divinely fragile in her white muslin +blouse. He shuddered when Bertie Flood touched her. Nothing but the +delightful innocence of the girl could have induced her to suffer the +presence of this satyr. And yet it seemed to him that she was doing all +that she could to please him. . . . + +“Yes, my poor husband: the vicar I always call him—habit, you know—had a +small parish in the North of England. I have a son in the church too. +Both he and Rosie really take after the father.” + +“Yes. . . . Exactly,” said Edwin. In that moment Rosie had smiled at +him, and the smile was enough. God, what a woman! + +“The vicar came from a very old family. In the North it is recognised, +but in a place like North Bromwich it is very difficult for us to meet +the right sort of people. I have to be very careful for Rosie’s sake. +The child is so trusting. I was so glad, you know, when she told me that +she had met you at Miss Latham’s. One feels so safe with a doctor. +You’ll be able to look after her a bit . . . see that she don’t get too +tired. Pantomime is very tiring, you know. I myself suffer agonies from +indigestion. What with that and my headaches, I’m afraid I’m a poor +companion for her. As I say, both the children take after the dear +vicar. Rosie isn’t a bit like me.” + +“No,” said Edwin, still dazed by the memory of her smile; but, as he +spoke, his eyes met those of Mrs. Beaucaire, and he saw to his amazement +that they were really the eyes of Rosie, that her discoloured nose had +once been of the same shape as her daughter’s, that the sagging, sensual +mouth was in fact a degraded version of Rosie’s too. It was a +revelation, blasphemous but prophetic. He would not consider it. He +dared not look at her. + +A moment later Bertie Flood left them. Tea wasn’t much in his line, he +said, and his complexion confirmed the assertion. Mrs. Beaucaire saw him +to the door. Edwin and Rosie were alone. + +It was a wonderful minute. He felt that she could never seem more +beautiful, more delicate, more exquisite than at this moment standing in +her pale loveliness against the grimy lodging-house wallpaper, with her +hands clasped before her. + +“I had to come,” he said. + +“I had been expecting you. I’m awfully glad you found time.” + +Found time! . . . He wanted to tell her of his strange adventure of the +night before: how he had stood in the dripping rain beneath her window, +hungry for the sight of her, unsatisfied. She stood as though she would +be glad to listen; but there was no time. Mrs. Beaucaire, after a noisy +and pointed demonstration in the hall, re-entered. It seemed that there +was nothing left for him but to take his departure. + +“Surely you’re not going so soon?” she said. + +And he stayed. It was all delightfully intimate and domestic. These +people seemed to possess the rare faculty of putting a visitor as shy as +Edwin at his ease. Mrs. Beaucaire did most of the talking, enlarging on +Rosie’s devotion to the parson brother, regretting that circumstance, and +possibly the unreasonable prejudice of country people against theatrical +connections, had deprived him of the family living: and Rosie listened +quietly, more compelling in her demure silences than Mrs. Beaucaire at +her most impressive. + +Once or twice in the afternoon that lady tactfully left them, returning, +each time with a renewed vigour and a scent that suggested the +combination of eau-de-cologne and brandy. These solitary moments were +very precious to Edwin. Neither of them spoke more than a few words, but +the air between them seemed charged with emotion. It was six o’clock +when he left Prince Albert’s Place. + +“You won’t forget us, will you?” said Mrs. Beaucaire with enthusiasm. +“It will be so nice for Rosie to have some one to take her to rehearsal. +I don’t like her mixing with the boys in the company. It isn’t the +thing. And we don’t happen to have any really nice friends in the +Midlands. In the North it would have been quite different.” + +A delirious week slipped by. In spite of every resolution Edwin had +found it impossible to work. His new lodging was not inspiring; but this +was only one of the excuses that he invented to salve his conscience. He +knew the real reason for this divine, unreasonable restlessness. Even if +it were to wreck his chances in the final examination it could not be +avoided, and there was no reason why it should be excused. He knew that +he was in love, and before this unquestionable miracle he abased himself. + +Mrs. Beaucaire, now satisfied that she could indulge a “headache” and +take to her bed as often as she chose, did not question his presence at +Prince Albert’s Place: she was even ready on occasion to treat it with a +mild facetiousness. Rosie, who lapped up adoration as naturally as a +kitten takes to milk, treated it as a matter of course. Edwin rather +wished that she wouldn’t take as a matter of course the most wonderful +thing in the world. There was a passivity in her acquiescence that +filled him with a fear that she was used to this sort of thing or even a +little bored by it. She mopped up his devotions with an ease that would +have been disconcerting if he had not always been bemused by her beauty. +Surely it was enough that she should be beautiful! + +In the morning—Mrs. Beaucaire always had a headache of another kind next +day—Edwin would escort Rosie to her rehearsal at the theatre. He became +familiar with the frowsty box in which the lame stage-doorkeeper sat like +an obscene spider guarding the baize-covered board on which the company’s +letters were kept. The man came to know him and would pass him in +through the swinging doors with a peculiarly evil leer. Sometimes, at +the stage door they would become involved in a mass of patchouli-scented +chorus, and Edwin would thrill at the dignity and refinement with which +Rosie, in her white fox furs, would slip through this vulgar tumult. + +So to the stage with its vast cobwebbed walls, its huge echoes and the +mysterious darkness of the flies, where looped ropes and grimy festoons +of forgotten scenery hung still as seaweed in a deep sea. There, in the +sour and characteristic odour of an empty stage, Edwin would wait for her +in a little alcove of the whitewashed wall in which iron cleats were +piled, and the unmeaning murmur of the rehearsal would come to him +mingled with the shrill voice of the producer, who ended every sentence +with the words “my dear,” or “old boy,” and the noise of the carpenter +hammering wood in the flies. His original acquaintance, Miss Latham, +discreetly avoided him, but the comedian, Bertie Flood, seemed inclined +to be familiar. One morning he dragged Edwin off to his dressing room +for a smoke. He sat with his legs on either side of a chair, his +fawn-coloured bowler on the back of his head, looking more than ever like +a bookie. + +“Well, old boy,” he said, “how goes it? How’s the little Beaucaire?” + +“She’s all right, as far as I know,” said Edwin, who was inclined to +resent the description. + +“Ma had any headaches lately? I know what ma’s headaches will end in. +Cirrhosis of the liver. You’re a doctor, aren’t you? Well, I know all +about that. Had it myself. Just realised in time that it didn’t pay. +Now I never touch anything but gin. Do you want a word of advice?” + +Edwin thanked him. + +“May seem funny from a chap that gets two hundred a week for making a +damn fool of himself.” + +“Not at all,” said Edwin politely. + +“Well, if you’ll take my advice, you’ll go easy in that direction. Treat +it as a business proposition. Ma’s a bad old woman . . . only don’t tell +her I said so. You see I’m a friend of the family. Dear little girl, +Rosie, too. _Verbus Satienti_—I always let ’em think I was at +Oxford—Good for business.” + +It was rather disturbing; for though it was no news to Edwin that Mrs. +Beaucaire’s headaches were euphemistic, the fact had done no more than +contribute to the ideal qualities with which he had invested her +daughter. There was something romantic as well as pitiful in the idea of +Rosie’s contrasting innocence: the rose that has its roots in foulness is +not less a rose. It had even seemed to him that the complete collapse of +Mrs. Beaucaire might throw Rosie into his arms: a situation that would be +full of romantic and tender possibilities; and the girl’s inimitably +virginal air was enough to convince him that Bertie Flood’s other +suggestions were no more than the natural products of a mind degraded by +the atmosphere of the music-hall. He was convinced too that he had no +cause for jealousy. Ever since he had first visited her, Rosie had never +spent more than a few hours of daylight out of his sight. + +On the last day of the week before the examination his confidence +suffered something of a shock. It was a raw winter morning, but he had +set his heart on taking her into his own hill-country, and she, with her +usual sweet submission, but without a hint of enthusiasm, had consented. +He had planned to avoid the Halesby side of the range and to approach it +from the southern escarpment. Early in the morning he paid a visit to +Parkinson’s, the florist’s, in the Arcade, where he bought a bunch of +pale, exotic roses: white roses, that should match her own sweetness and +fragility. Once she had expressed a general liking for flowers, and +since then it had been his delight to give them to her. She mopped up +his flowers and his passion with the same dreamy passivity. + +From the corner of the Place he saw a weedy, black-coated figure in front +of Number Ten; and as he approached, the figure entered and the door +closed behind him. Edwin wondered vaguely if it might be the parson +brother. The landlady opened the door in a flurry. It almost seemed as +if she wanted to conceal something. + +“I don’t think Miss Beaucaire can see you for a bit,” she said. “Won’t +you call later in the morning?” + +He told her that he would wait, as they had an appointment, and a train +to catch. + +“Then will you kindly wait in my room. You mustn’t take any notice of +the state it’s in,” she said, still on the defensive. + +The state of the landlady’s room was not inspiriting. On a dirty table +cloth lay the remains of last night’s supper. On the window sill stood a +chevaux de frise of empty brandy bottles that Edwin couldn’t help +associating with Mrs. Beaucaire. The arm-chairs, covered with dirty +chintz overalls that suggested a layer of more ancient dirt beneath, were +not inviting. He preferred to stand. The house was as quiet and +secretive as usual; but from the next room he heard an irritating rumour +of voices. One of the voices, he could have sworn, was Rosie’s. A +little later he heard a laugh, and the suspicion became a disquieting +certainty, for the laugh was one that he knew well—with a difference. It +was as if Mrs. Beaucaire had laughed with Rosie’s voice. He found it +difficult to restrain himself from bursting into the room and settling +the matter once and for all. Again the laugh—and then a long silence. +He heard steps in the passage, a whispered conversation with the +landlady, and then Rosie came in to him, flushed, and with her fair hair +disordered. He could not speak. He only gave her the roses. + +“Thank you, Eddie,” she said, scarcely noticing them. Her lips were +parted and her eyes shone with excitement. She had never seemed to him +more beautiful, but there was something frightening in her beauty. + +“Whatever is the matter with you?” she said. “Why do you look so +serious?” + +“Who was your visitor?” + +“Oh, that’s it, is it? You silly boy! You surely don’t mean to say +you’re jealous?” + +“Please tell me—” + +“It was only a priest. I had to make my confession.” + +“A priest? I thought your people belonged to the Church of England.” + +“That doesn’t prevent me from being a Catholic. It’s much better for +professional girls to be Catholics. They look after you when you’re on +the road.” + +He could not say any more about it. It seemed to him that her eyes were +anxious as though she were not quite sure how much he had heard. + +“You believe me, don’t you?” She spoke in a frightened whisper. + +“Of course I do. We’ve just time for our train. You are coming, aren’t +you?” + +She said: “Of course I am,” and ran upstairs singing to put her hat on. + +The roses lay neglected on the sideboard where she had placed them. In +five minutes she returned, thoroughly dressed for her new role of country +girl with brogued shoes and a short skirt of Harris tweed. + +“I’m ready,” she said gaily. + +It was a wonderful day. They walked together under dull skies that made +the berries in the hedgerows and the waning fires of autumn glow more +brightly, and even ministered to the girl’s own beauty. The cool air and +the walking made her cheeks glow with a colour that was natural and +therefore unusual. Edwin was so entranced with her companionship that he +forgot his anxiousness of the morning; so lost in the amazing beauty of +her hazel eyes and her cheek’s soft contour that he did not notice that +she was limping. Halfway to the summit of the hills she stopped, gave a +little sigh, and sat down on the bank of a hedge. + +“I’m awfully sorry, Eddie. My foot hurts. I think this shoe’s too +tight.” + +“They look simply splendid.” + +“I know. I only bought them yesterday—just specially for to-day.” + +“But it’s ridiculous to go for a long walk in new shoes!” + +“Do you mind if I take them off for a minute?” + +“Of course not. Let me undo the laces.” + +He knelt at her feet. It was a wonderful and thrilling experience to +loosen the laces, to feel her small feet in their smooth silk stockings. +His hands trembled. + +“I wish you wouldn’t touch my feet. I’m awfully sorry: it’s one of the +things I can’t bear. You don’t mind, do you?” + +“You mustn’t blame me. They’re so beautiful.” + +She smiled. Her modesty delighted him. + +Sitting there together, so miraculously alone, he began to talk about his +future. “I shan’t see you for a whole week. It will be unbearable. But +when the exam. is over and I’m qualified it will be such a relief. I +shall feel able to say the things that I want to say to you.” + +For a long time she was silent. Then she said: “What are you expecting +to do?” + +“I think I shall go in for one of the services. What do you think of the +Indian Medical? It would be wonderful to see India. I’ve always thought +that I should like to know something of the world. I think it’s a good +life. Women generally love it. What do you think about it?” + +“I should think it would be rather nice. But wouldn’t it be awfully hot? +I’ve known one or two boys in the Indian Army. There’s lots of dancing +and that sort of thing, isn’t there?” + +He laughed. Dancing wasn’t his strong point, as Professor Beagle could +have told her, and in any case India didn’t mean dancing to him. She did +not seem at all anxious to pursue the subject. + +“I think we could walk back to the hotel now,” she said. “I’m simply +starving.” They walked down the hill together, almost in silence. When +they reached the hotel, she disappeared in the company of the barmaid, +leaving Edwin to wait for her in the coffee-room. He almost resented her +absence. He felt that he couldn’t spare her for a moment. Waiting at +the table he picked up a week-old copy of the _North Bromwich Courier_. +Gazing idly at the front page, he caught sight of his own name. It was +the announcement of a wedding. + + INGLEBY: FELLOWS. On the tenth of December, at the Parish Church, + Halesby, John Ingleby to Julia, elder daughter of the late Joseph + Fellows, of Mawne, Staffs. + +He was overwhelmed with a sudden indescribable emotion that was neither +jealousy, anger, nor shame, but curiously near to all three. He sat +bewildered, with the paper in front of him. Rosie returned to find him +blankly staring. + +“Why, what’s the matter with you? You look as if you’d seen a ghost.” + +“Yes. . . . I think I have. It’s nothing, really. Nothing at all.” + +He drank more than he need have done of a villainous wine that was +labelled _Château Margaux_, but had probably been pressed on the hot +hill-sides of Oran. In the train, on the way home, he felt flushed and +sleepy, but, all the time, divinely conscious of the warmth and softness +of Rosie sitting beside him. They were alone in the first-class +carriage. “I’m sleepy too,” she said. He drew her gently to his side, +and she rested, content, with her head on his shoulder. In the wonder of +this he forgot the newspaper and its staggering contents. As they neared +North Bromwich she stood up in front of the mirror to arrange her hair, +and Edwin, pulling himself together, saw that his blue coat was floured +with a fine bloom of powder. + +She still found it difficult to walk, and so they drove in a hansom to +Prince Albert’s Place, very grimy and sinister in the dusk. + +“You needn’t ring,” she said, taking out a latchkey and showing him into +the narrow hall. “Let’s be very quiet, so as not to disturb mother.” + +“I don’t think I’ll come in,” he said. He knew that he must make an end +somewhere. + +“Not even to be thanked? I’ve enjoyed myself most awfully.” + +She stood before him in the gloom of the hall as though she were waiting +for something. It felt as if the dark space between them must break into +flame. Their lips met. + +“Good God! . . . how wonderful you are!” he said. + +“Next week,” she whispered. + + +III + + +Edwin had arranged to spend the following day with the Boyces at their +house in Alvaston. He found it difficult to contain himself, for the +delicious memory of their parting the night before swamped his efforts at +conversation with the persistency of waves that follow one another in a +rising tide. It seemed to him impossible that his state should not be +evident to the whole household, and particularly to Matthew, who knew him +so well. + +In the afternoon, when they sat smoking together in Boyce’s study at the +top of the house, he felt that he was on the brink of a confession. The +only thing that restrained him from it was the memory of the epigram and +of his friend’s translation. He felt in his bones that Boyce would not +be sympathetic and though his infatuation suggested that he wouldn’t much +care whether Boyce were sympathetic, or suspicious, an intuitive dread of +suspicion and its possible effects on his own reason made him hold his +tongue. It was in the nature of Boyce, who didn’t happen, for the +moment, to be in love, to be critical, to sweep away Rosie’s perfections +in a generalisation: and the appeal of a generalisation to the mind of +youth is so strong that Edwin was afraid to hear it. Somewhere in his +submerged reason he admitted that Boyce’s judgment on the matter would +probably be sound, and reason was the last tribunal in the world before +which he wished this exceptional case to be presented. An unsatisfactory +day. For the first time in their lives, the relations of the two friends +were indefinitely strained. + +He left Alvaston early in the evening. On his way to his lodging he +passed the gloomy entrance to Prince Albert’s Place. It would have been +easy, so easy, to call at Number Ten, but he had determined, once and for +all, that the examination week should be free from distractions, and +pride in his own strength of mind held him to his course, though he +realised, almost gladly, that even if he were master of his feet he could +not control his thoughts. He wondered if he would dream of her . . . + +Next day the rigours of the final examination overtook him. This was the +supreme ordeal in which every moment of his professional life from the +day when he first entered the dissecting room to the night of the last +midwifery case, would stand the test of scrutiny. He was not exactly +afraid of it. He knew that his knowledge and technical skill were at +least above the average of his year, and felt that with ordinary luck he +would be among the first four of a field of twelve. The year was not one +of exceptional brilliance, and comparisons were therefore in his favour. + +On the first day, in the _viva-voce_ examination on surgery, he did, for +one moment, lose his head, but when once he had pulled himself together +and accustomed himself to the conditions of the test, he settled down +into a state of fatalistic equanimity, taking the rough with the smooth +and deciding that, on the whole, he was not likely to make a hopeless +fool of himself. + +On the first night he went to bed early, but on the second, feeling that +his mind would be clearer for some diversion, he went to a music-hall +with W.G. and his wife. Drinking beer in the bar with his friend, he +suddenly heard his name called, and felt a tap on his shoulder. He +turned to find himself in front of a face that was curiously familiar, +and in a moment found that he was shaking hands with Widdup, a small and +rather chastened Widdup, who spoke to him with the slow, precise voice +that he had known at St. Luke’s. + +“I thought it was you, Ingleby,” he said. “I wondered if I should run +across you.” + +Avoiding a hair-raising display on the slack wire, they stood talking. +Widdup, it appeared, had been destined for an engineering career in North +Bromwich, when his mathematical genius had won him a scholarship at +Cambridge. + +“A pity, in a way, for I should have seen more of you. I suppose that +sort of thing always happens to school friendships.” At present he was +visiting a firm of iron-founders on business. They talked together of +old times: of the day when Edwin, greatly daring, had seen the Birches +run: of the languid Selby, now head-master of a small public-school in +Norfolk, and of old fat Leeming. Between the conscious effort of +remembering St. Luke’s and the unbidden image of Rosie, Edwin’s head was +in a whirl. + +“And old Griffin,” said Widdup. “That’s another funny thing. I ran slap +into him in the lounge of the Grand Midland to-night. Up to the same old +games, you know. Yes . . . he had a girl with him. Rather an attractive +little piece: something to do with the pantomime, he told me. What was +her name? The old brute introduced me, too! Yes . . . I think I’ve got +it. Beaucaire . . . Rosie Beaucaire. Rather a rosy prospect for old +Griff, I should imagine. Why, what the devil’s the matter with you?” + +“I’m all right, thanks,” said Edwin. “It’s this exam., you know. Let’s +have another drink.” He called for whisky and soda. + +“Chin-chin,” said Widdup. + +Edwin polished off a couple of drinks and then told Widdup that he must +rejoin his friend, leaving him staggered at his abrupt departure. He +didn’t rejoin W.G. He walked straight out of the theatre and off up the +Halesby Road. He had determined to go straight to Rosie’s lodgings and +thrash the matter out; but by the time he reached Prince Albert’s Place +he had thought better of it. + +It was the most natural thing in the world, he reflected, that Griffin +should know the Beaucaires, for Griffin was constantly in touch with +theatrical people. It was even natural that Griffin, knowing her, should +take Rosie to the Grand Midland. It was the obvious thing to do if you +had money to spend, as Griffin had. It would be just like the irony of +fate, he reflected, if Griffin should afflict him with unhappiness in +this case as he had done in so many others. He remembered the bitter +sufferings of those early days at St. Luke’s that Widdup had so clearly +recalled. He remembered Dorothy Powys and the dance at Mawne: his +suspicions, his agonised resentment. Even more darkly there came to him +the memory of a voice in Dr. Harris’s surgery, a conviction, never yet +established, that Griffin had no right to know any woman. This +reflection, he knew, implied a doubt of Rosie’s innocence: an imputation +that he could not possibly admit. And yet . . . and yet . . . He +remembered the warning that Bertie Flood had given him in his dressing +room. He remembered the visitor in the black coat four days before. His +mind was in hell. + +In this purgatory of doubt and horror, he lived for the rest of the week. +In the daytime the progress of the examination engrossed him, but at +night he always found himself hanging about the darkness of Prince +Albert’s Place, hoping against hope, that his suspicions were unfounded, +not daring to put them to the test, lest they should be confirmed. + +On Friday night, when the last of his medical ordeals was over, he went +straight to Number Ten. It was a wonderful moment. Now, with a clear +conscience he might see her again; now, once more, he could know the +ecstasy of her kisses and forget the ungenerous nightmare in which he had +lived through the later stages of the exam. He approached the dirty +doorway with his heart beating wildly. At first his ring was unanswered, +but a little later the landlady came to the door with a red, suspicious +face, opening it jealously, as though she feared to let him in. + +He inquired for Miss Beaucaire. Miss Beaucaire was out. Did the woman +know when she was expected to return? She hadn’t the least idea. Was +Mrs. Beaucaire in, then? Mrs. Beaucaire was in, but invisible. Mrs. +Beaucaire had one of her headaches. Edwin suggested that he should wait +in their room. Impossible. Mrs. Beaucaire was lying down there. He +hung upon the doorstep as if he were waiting at the gates of paradise. +At last the landlady took it upon herself to close the door. + +She must have thought he was mad. Perhaps he was mad. . . . + +For an hour or more he waited in the rain. It occurred to him that at +least the woman was speaking the truth, for there was no light in either +of the front rooms. The Grand Midland. . . . It was there that Widdup +had seen them. He walked to Sackville Row at a great pace and straight +into the hotel, where waiters and elderly commercial gentlemen stared at +his wet clothes and his haggard face. He went into each of the +dining-rooms and down the stairs to the Turkish lounge. Nowhere was +Rosie or Griffin to be seen. A search of this kind was ridiculous, but +every moment that the agony was extended made him more desperately +anxious. + +He walked back in the drizzle to Prince Albert’s Place and paced the +pavement under the black walls of the warehouses. The road was deserted. +There was no sound in it at all but the dripping of water from some +neglected spout. He walked up and down in the shadow, and as he walked +he became conscious of something like a personality in the faces of the +long row of lodging-houses, something sinister, as though their shuttered +windows concealed a wealth of obscene experience like the eyes of ancient +street-walkers. The souls of those squat Victorian houses were languidly +interested in him. Another victim. . . . That was what he must seem to +them. And still the windows of Number Ten were unlighted. + +He heard the clock in the Art Gallery chime eleven: a leisurely, placid +chime muffled by gusty rain. Perhaps the woman had lied to him. +Perhaps, at that very moment Rosie was sleeping peacefully in the +unlighted upper story. He was overwrought with the strain of the +examination on the top of this devastating passion. He had better go +home. + +He turned to go, and at that very moment he saw two figures approaching +from the Halesby Road. The street lamp, at the corner, threw their +shadows on the shining pavement. One of them was Rosie—he would have +known her anywhere—and the other, beyond doubt, was Griffin. He was +seized with the same blind passion that had swept over him in the big +schoolroom at St. Luke’s ten years before, an impulse to murder that he +could only control by digging his finger nails into his hands. + +He stood there trembling in the shadow of the blank wall, huddling close +to it for support and for protection. They passed him, and he heard +Rosie’s quiet laugh. Her laugh was one of the things about her that he +had loved most. They stopped at the door, and Rosie took out her +latchkey. It was almost a repetition of the scene in which he had shared +a week before. Now, perhaps, she would kiss him. He felt that if he saw +her kissing Griffin he could have killed them both. Murderer’s Cross +Road. . . . A hundred thoughts came swirling through his brain. They +entered, and closed the door behind them. Griffin: the old Griffin: the +human beast of St. Luke’s. The new Griffin: the gross North Bromwich +womaniser: the Griffin of Dr. Harris’s surgery. . . . Edwin saw himself +upon the edge of a ghastly, unthinkable tragedy. He must prevent it. At +all costs. At the cost of life if needs be. + +He crept quickly across the road. The houses watched him. The window of +the lower room bloomed suddenly with a yellow light. He stood with his +hands clutching the window-sill, listening. Once again he heard Rosie’s +laugh, and a rumour of deeper speech that he knew to be the voice of +Griffin. The shadow of Griffin’s shoulders swept the window, swelling +gigantically as it passed. The light was turned down, but not +extinguished. Rosie’s laugh again. He could have killed her for that +laugh, for it mocked him. The faint shadow of the man’s shoulders +retreated. He guessed that they were standing at the door. The door of +the room closed softly. Now there was no sound except the heavy +breathing that one hears in the neighbourhood of a pigsty at night. Was +Griffin still there? + +Another beam of light fell on the shining street. Some one had lighted +the gas in the room upstairs. Was Griffin still below? Panic seized +him. He must know. At all costs he must know. Dr. Harris’s surgery. . . . +If he had to break in the front door he must know. As he reached it +he tripped over an iron boot-scraper. The step barked his shin. Of +course the door was locked, but—wonder of wonders—Rosie had left the +latchkey outside. He opened the door softly and went on tip-toe into the +hall. In the room on the right he still heard the grunting noise. Thank +God, Griffin was still there! At least he could tell him that he knew! + +He opened the door. In the half-light he could see that the room was +empty except for Mrs. Beaucaire, who lay stretched on the sofa, snoring +heavily with her vile mouth open. On the table stood an empty brandy +bottle. The place stank of brandy. + +Now he knew the worst. He stumbled upstairs in the dark and knocked +frantically at the door of the front bedroom. Rosie answered: “Who is +it?” + +“It’s I. For God’s sake, let me in.” + +“Who the devil is it?” said the voice of Dr. Harris’s consulting-room. + +Rosie answered him in excited whispers. + +“You can’t come in, Eddie,” she said. “How on earth did you get into the +house? Please go away. I can’t see you. I can’t, really.” + +“I’m coming in, I tell you. If you don’t open the door, I’ll smash it. +I mean what I say.” + +“Ingleby—?” the voice muttered. “What the devil has Ingleby to do with +you? All right. I’ll go. I’ll chuck the fellow downstairs.” + +“Oh, don’t . . . please don’t. . . . Let him go quietly.” + +Griffin unlocked the door. He stood facing Edwin in his shirt-sleeves. +Rosie, still dressed, clutched at the mantelpiece. The vein in the +middle of Griffin’s forehead bulged with anger. His short neck was +flushed. + +“What the hell—” he began—and then they closed. Edwin’s heel ripped up +the corner of the carpet as they swayed together. Suddenly Griffin’s +grip slackened. His face blanched, and in a moment Edwin was letting +down a sheer weight upon the bed. + +“What’s the matter?” Rosie screamed, and flung herself beside him. +“What’s the matter?” + +“Good God! . . . He’s gone.” + +“No . . . No—” she cried. + +Edwin tore open Griffin’s shirt, listening for an impulse that was not +there. + +“He’s gone,” he said, panting. “He’s dead. . . . Heart. . . . He +always had a rocky heart. He’s dead.” + +The awful word seemed to pull Rosie together. They stared at each other +blankly with wide eyes. “Are you sure?” she whispered. + +“Yes. . . . Of course—” + +She rose to her feet, speaking in a voice that was quite new to him. + +“Eddie . . . for God’s sake, go . . . now! . . . quickly!” + +“I can’t go.” + +“Go quickly, I tell you. Don’t be a damned little fool. You don’t want +to be mixed up in this. Eddie, for God’s sake. . . . It’s ‘natural +causes,’ Eddie.” + +He blundered down the dark stairs and out into the street. He could not +walk. He cowered under the warehouse wall opposite, gazing, as though +fascinated, at the yellow square of window. The discreet Victorian +houses surveyed him as if the horror that the yellow blind concealed were +an ordinary occurrence in their dingy lives. They were used to death. +And death did not change them. A rubber-tyred hansom rolled smoothly up +the Halesby Road, past the mouth of the Place. At the corner, under the +gas-lamp, Edwin saw the figure of a policeman with rain shining on his +cape. The sight recalled him to a sense of awful possibilities. For the +moment he dared not move. He flattened himself against the warehouse +walls and did not realise that he was standing directly under the +dripping waterspout. In the western sky rose the baleful glare of an +uncowled furnace. The policeman strolled away, and Edwin, cautiously +emerging, set off through the rain up the Halesby Road towards the hills. +He felt that he needed their solitude and darkness. + + +IV + + +Next day, a haggard and desolate figure, he appeared in the cloak-room of +the University where the examination results were displayed. In a dream +he realised that he was now a Bachelor of Medicine, but in the +realisation there was none of the joy that he had anticipated. He stood +before the board bewildered, until W.G. came up behind him and wrung his +hand. + +“You look as if you’d been making a night of it, my boy,” he said. “Come +and have some coffee at the Dousita.” + +W.G. was on the top of himself. “It was a pretty near thing. The +external examiner in Medicine gave me hell; but it’s all right. God! . . . +it’s difficult to believe, isn’t it? What are you going to do?” + +“I don’t know. A voyage, I should think.” + +He hadn’t thought of it before. + +“That’s not a bad idea. Bit of a rest cure, eh? That’s the only +disadvantage, I don’t mind telling you, of being married. I couldn’t +leave the missus.” + +W.G. babbled on happily. “Did you see the evening paper?” he said. “I +see that fellow Griffin’s done for. I always said he’d come to a nasty, +sticky end. Some woman or other. . . . I remember your saying that he +couldn’t play footer because of his heart. Ah, well . . . that’s one +swine the less, poor devil!” + +When W.G. left him, Edwin called for a timetable and looked out the +trains to Liverpool. There was one that started in half an hour. He +caught it, and next morning presented himself at a shipping office in +Water Street. + +The medical superintendent received him. + +“You want a ship? Well, you know, you look very young. When were you +qualified?” + +“Yesterday,” Edwin confessed. + +“Very young. Still, you won’t be stale. You don’t _drink_, by any +chance?” + +“I’m practically a total abstainer.” The man scrutinised Edwin’s haggard +eyes. + +“H’m. . . . Well, as it happens, one of our men has failed us. I’ll +give you a ship, the _Macao_, if you can sail to-morrow. Rather short +notice, eh?” + +“I think I can do it. What about equipment?” + +“Oh, we don’t go in for brass-bound uniforms on our ships. Ten pounds a +month and bonus. What?” + +“Where is she going to?” + +“China. You may call at Japan for coal with luck. See the world, you +know. That’s what most of you fellows are after. You’ll have to go +aboard to-night. Birkenhead Docks.” + +“I’ll he there.” + +And with trembling hands he signed his contract. + +In a wintry evening he crossed the Mersey ferry. A salt wind from the +west boomed up the channel. Edwin, in the bows, felt his face drenched +with spray. “It’s clean,” he thought. “It will make me cleaner. That’s +what I need. I don’t believe I shall ever feel anything again, until I’m +washed clean. I’m old . . . old and numb. I’ve lost my sense of +enjoyment. I wonder if it will ever come back to me!” + +As he stood there in the salt breeze, some words of Traherne, his +mother’s countryman, came into his mind: + + “You shall never enjoy this world aright till the sea itself floweth + in your veins, till you are clothed with the heavens and crowned with + the stars.” + +Perhaps they were true. He wondered. + + + + +***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE YOUNG PHYSICIAN*** + + +******* This file should be named 49331-0.txt or 49331-0.zip ******* + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/4/9/3/3/49331 + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will +be renamed. + +Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright +law 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. Special rules, set forth in the General Terms of Use part +of this license, apply to copying and distributing Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works to protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm +concept and trademark. Project Gutenberg is a registered trademark, +and may not be used if you charge for the eBooks, unless you receive +specific permission. 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