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diff --git a/49331-h/49331-h.htm b/49331-h/49331-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..2bdee99 --- /dev/null +++ b/49331-h/49331-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,15990 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html + PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en"> +<head> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=US-ASCII" /> +<title>The Young Physician, by Francis Brett Young</title> + <style type="text/css"> +/*<![CDATA[ XML blockout */ +<!-- + P { margin-top: .75em; + margin-bottom: .75em; + } + P.gutsumm { margin-left: 5%;} + P.poetry {margin-left: 3%; } + .GutSmall { font-size: 0.7em; } + H1, H2 { + text-align: center; + margin-top: 2em; + margin-bottom: 2em; + } + H3, H4, H5 { + text-align: center; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-bottom: 1em; + } + BODY{margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; + } + table { border-collapse: collapse; } +table {margin-left:auto; margin-right:auto;} + td { vertical-align: top; border: 1px solid black;} + td p { margin: 0.2em; } + .blkquot {margin-left: 4em; margin-right: 4em;} /* block indent */ + + .smcap {font-variant: small-caps;} + + .pagenum {position: absolute; + left: 92%; + font-size: small; + text-align: right; + font-weight: normal; + color: gray; + } + img { border: none; } + img.dc { float: left; width: 50px; height: 50px; } + p.gutindent { margin-left: 2em; } + div.gapspace { height: 0.8em; } + div.gapline { height: 0.8em; width: 100%; border-top: 1px solid;} + div.gapmediumline { height: 0.3em; width: 40%; margin-left:30%; + border-top: 1px solid; } + div.gapmediumdoubleline { height: 0.3em; width: 40%; margin-left:30%; + border-top: 1px solid; border-bottom: 1px solid;} + div.gapshortdoubleline { height: 0.3em; width: 20%; + margin-left: 40%; border-top: 1px solid; + border-bottom: 1px solid; } + div.gapdoubleline { height: 0.3em; width: 50%; + margin-left: 25%; border-top: 1px solid; + border-bottom: 1px solid;} + div.gapshortline { height: 0.3em; width: 20%; margin-left:40%; + border-top: 1px solid; } + .citation {vertical-align: super; + font-size: .5em; + text-decoration: none;} + img.floatleft { float: left; + margin-right: 1em; + margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.5em; } + img.floatright { float: right; + margin-left: 1em; margin-top: 0.5em; + margin-bottom: 0.5em; } + img.clearcenter {display: block; + margin-left: auto; + margin-right: auto; margin-top: 0.5em; + margin-bottom: 0.5em} + --> + /* XML end ]]>*/ + </style> +</head> +<body> +<pre> + +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: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII) + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE YOUNG PHYSICIAN*** +</pre> +<p>This ebook was transcribed by Les Bowler.</p> +<table> +<tr> +<td><p style="text-align: center"><i>BY THE SAME AUTHOR</i>.</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>THE CRESCENT MOON</p> +<p>THE IRON AGE</p> +<p>THE DARK TOWER</p> +<p>DEEP SEA</p> +<p>UNDERGROWTH<br /> + (with E. Brett +Young)</p> +<p>MARCHING ON TANGA</p> +<p>POEMS 1916–1918.</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p style="text-align: center">E. P. <span +class="smcap">Dutton</span> & <span +class="smcap">Company</span><br /> +<span class="smcap">New York</span></p> +</td> +</tr> +</table> + +<div class="gapspace"> </div> +<h1>THE<br /> +YOUNG PHYSICIAN</h1> + +<div class="gapspace"> </div> +<p style="text-align: center"><span class="GutSmall">BY</span><br +/> +FRANCIS BRETT YOUNG<br /> +<span class="GutSmall">AUTHOR OF “MARCHING ON TANGA,” +ETC.</span></p> + +<div class="gapspace"> </div> +<p style="text-align: center"> +<a href="images/logo.jpg"> +<img alt= +"E. P. Dutton logo" +title= +"E. P. Dutton logo" + src="images/logo.jpg" /> +</a></p> + +<div class="gapspace"> </div> +<p style="text-align: center">NEW YORK<br /> +E. P. DUTTON & COMPANY<br /> +881 FIFTH AVENUE</p> + +<div class="gapspace"> </div> +<p style="text-align: center"><a name="pageiv"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. iv</span>Copyright, 1920,<br /> +By E. P. DUTTON & COMPANY</p> + +<div class="gapshortline"> </div> +<p style="text-align: center"><i>All Rights Reserved</i></p> + +<div class="gapshortline"> </div> +<table> +<tr> +<td><p><i>First printing</i></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><i>March</i>, 1920</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p><i>Second printing</i></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><i>March</i>, 1920</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p><i>Third printing</i></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><i>September</i>, 1920</p> +</td> +</tr> +</table> + +<div class="gapspace"> </div> +<p style="text-align: center">Printed in the United States of +America</p> + +<div class="gapspace"> </div> +<p style="text-align: center"><a name="pagev"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. v</span><span class="smcap">To</span></p> +<p style="text-align: center"><span class="smcap">Thomas Brett +Young</span>, M.D.</p> +<p style="text-align: center">WITH THE LOVE AND ADMIRATION<br /> +OF HIS SON</p> + +<div class="gapspace"> </div> +<h2><a name="pagevii"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +vii</span>CONTENTS</h2> +<table> +<tr> +<td colspan="3"><p style="text-align: center">BOOK I</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p><span class="GutSmall">CHAPTER</span></p> +</td> +<td><p> </p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span +class="GutSmall">PAGE</span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p style="text-align: right">I.</p> +</td> +<td><p>MURDERER’S CROSS</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page1">1</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p style="text-align: right">II.</p> +</td> +<td><p>GOLDEN MEDIOCRITY</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page16">16</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p style="text-align: right">III.</p> +</td> +<td><p>THE GREEN TREES</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page27">27</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p style="text-align: right">IV.</p> +</td> +<td><p>MIDSUMMER</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page42">42</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p style="text-align: right">V.</p> +</td> +<td><p>AIRS AND GRACES</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page57">57</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p style="text-align: right">VI.</p> +</td> +<td><p>THUNDER WEATHER</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page69">69</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p style="text-align: right">VII.</p> +</td> +<td><p>IMPURITY</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page86">86</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p style="text-align: right">VIII.</p> +</td> +<td><p>HOMEWARDS</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page107">107</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p style="text-align: right">IX.</p> +</td> +<td><p>THE DARK HOUSE</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page124">124</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p style="text-align: right">X.</p> +</td> +<td><p>THRENODY</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page153">153</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p style="text-align: right">XI.</p> +</td> +<td><p>THE THRESHOLD</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page184">184</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p style="text-align: right">XII.</p> +</td> +<td><p>THE HILLS</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page211">211</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td colspan="3"><p style="text-align: center">BOOK II.</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p style="text-align: right">I.</p> +</td> +<td><p>THE CITY OF IRON</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page249">249</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p style="text-align: right">II.</p> +</td> +<td><p>MORTALITY BEHOLD</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page272">272</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p style="text-align: right">III.</p> +</td> +<td><p>CARNIVAL</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page296">296</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><a name="pageviii"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. viii</span>IV.</p> +</td> +<td><p>SCIENCE</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page324">324</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p style="text-align: right">V.</p> +</td> +<td><p>ROMANCE</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page346">346</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p style="text-align: right">VI.</p> +</td> +<td><p>THE DRESSER</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page372">372</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p style="text-align: right">VII.</p> +</td> +<td><p>THE CLERK</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page403">403</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p style="text-align: right">VIII.</p> +</td> +<td><p>LOWER SPARKDALE</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page435">435</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p style="text-align: right">IX.</p> +</td> +<td><p>EASY ROW</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page460">460</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p style="text-align: right">X.</p> +</td> +<td><p>WHITE ROSES</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page487">487</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +</table> +<h2><a name="pageix"></a><span class="pagenum">p. ix</span>BOOK +I</h2> +<blockquote><p><a name="pagex"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +x</span><i>The green trees</i>, <i>when I saw them first through +one of the gates</i>, <i>transported and ravished me</i>; +<i>their sweetness and unusual beauty made my heart to leap and +almost mad with ecstasy</i>,—<i>they were such strange and +wonderful things</i>. <i>The skies were mine</i>, <i>and so +were the sun and moon and stars</i>,—<i>and all the world +was mine</i>,—<i>and I the only spectator and enjoyer of +it</i>.</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><span class="smcap">Thomas +Traherne</span>.</p> +</blockquote> +<h3><a name="page1"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 1</span>CHAPTER +I<br /> +MURDERER’S CROSS</h3> +<h4>I</h4> +<p><span class="smcap">Above</span> 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 <a name="page2"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +2</span>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>“Poor lamb,” said the most motherly of the +seven. “Wouldn’t ’e like a +lift?”</p> +<p>“Gowing the hopposite way, mem,” said the +guard. “One of them College lads.”</p> +<p>“’Ot ’e looks!” said the lady. +“Going to rine kets and dorgs, too.”</p> +<p>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:—</p> +<p>“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 name="page3"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 3</span>a weak heart, and it might kill +him. I suppose that would be murder. . . .”</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>“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.”</p> +<p>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 <a name="page4"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 4</span>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. . . .</p> +<h4>II</h4> +<p>It was nearly three years since Edwin had first seen Griffin, +oddly enough on the very first day of <a name="page5"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 5</span>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</p> +<p style="text-align: center">E. INGLEBY<br /> +115</p> +<p>in black lettering on the lid.</p> +<p>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 <a name="page6"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 6</span>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.</p> +<p>Mr. Selby looked up from his bath-list.</p> +<p>“Well, Griffin, and what is your pleasure?”</p> +<p>“Letter from father, sir.”</p> +<p>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 <a name="page7"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 7</span>he opened it. “H’m . +. . No games? You don’t look particularly ill, +Griffin.”</p> +<p>“Doctor said I was growing too fast, sir . . . something +about my heart.” Griffin’s manners were +irreproachable.</p> +<p>Mr. Selby smiled.</p> +<p>“Very well, Griffin, very well. I will speak to +the head-master about you. And who is this miserable +weed?”</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>“Ingleby, sir,” he said.</p> +<p>“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?”</p> +<p>Griffin murmured “No, sir.”</p> +<p>“Then you can conduct this Ingleby to D dormitory, +Griffin.”</p> +<p>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 <a +name="page8"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 8</span>held a double +row of wash-hand basins and soap-dishes.</p> +<p>“There you are,” said Griffin, in a very off-hand +way. “You’d better bag a bed.”</p> +<p>“Which one is mine, please?” Edwin asked. +His head was aching so furiously that he could have lain down on +the floor.</p> +<p>“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.”</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>“Here, get away. You can’t come here. +I don’t want any new kids near me. Keep him to +yourself, Griffin.”</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>“Here’s Layton,” whispered some one.</p> +<p>“What’s this?” he asked. “A new +boy?—What’s your name?”</p> +<p>“Ingleby.”</p> +<p>“What’s the matter?”</p> +<p>“They won’t let me find a bed.”</p> +<p>“Come along down this end, then.” He moved +majestically to the end of the dormitory nearest <a +name="page9"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 9</span>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.</p> +<p>Layton’s lips curled. “Dirty little +skunk,” he said as he hurried away.</p> +<p>A slipper, cleverly aimed from the other end of the room, +caught Ingleby full on his burning cheek. The pain seemed +to blind him.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>To begin with, he had very few of the attributes <a +name="page10"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 10</span>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.</p> +<p>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 +<a name="page11"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +11</span>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.</p> +<p>And since he failed in every endeavour to attain normality, +whether by devotion to games or by <a name="page12"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 12</span>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.</p> +<p>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 <a name="page13"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 13</span>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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 <i>ten-bell</i> +rang, and the rush for early school began. He <a +name="page14"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 14</span>grew to love +the winter terms because the darkness lasted longer.</p> +<p>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—<i>Waverley</i> and <i>Nigel</i>, 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.</p> +<p>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:—</p> +<blockquote><p style="text-align: center">INGLEBY, CHEMIST, +HALESBY.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>“Oho,” he said.</p> +<p>At breakfast, after a propitiatory but futile helping of jam +from Edwin’s pot, he broke the glad news to Griffin.</p> +<p><a name="page15"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +15</span>“Ingleby’s father’s a chemist, +Griff.”</p> +<p>“Then that’s why he’s such a skunk, +Duggy. Is it true, Ingleby?”</p> +<p>“Yes. He’s a chemist.”</p> +<p>“Then he isn’t a gentleman.”</p> +<p>“Of course he’s a gentleman.”</p> +<p>“Not if he’s in trade. They oughtn’t +to have sent you to school here. It’s a bally +shame.”</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>“Who’s that letter from? . . . +Girl?” said Griffin rudely.</p> +<p>“A lady.”</p> +<p>“What!”</p> +<p>“My mother.”</p> +<p>“Christ! Your mother isn’t a lady, or she +wouldn’t have married a chemist . . . or be your +mother.”</p> +<p>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.</p> +<h3><a name="page16"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +16</span>CHAPTER II<br /> +GOLDEN MEDIOCRITY</h3> +<h4>I</h4> +<p><span class="smcap">Of</span> 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.</p> +<p>“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. +. . .”</p> +<p>And so, as the terms slipped by, St. Luke’s ceased to be +a purgatory. Edwin contracted certain timid <a +name="page17"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +17</span>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.</p> +<p>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 <a +name="page18"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +18</span>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.</p> +<p>“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.”</p> +<p>Edwin thought it was “fine.”</p> +<p>“Better than the <i>Story of the Heavens</i>?” +asked <a name="page19"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 19</span>Mr. +Heal. “Come, come, Ingleby . . . surely +not?”</p> +<p>“Rather, sir,” said Edwin.</p> +<p>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. . . .</p> +<p>He told Widdup what he remembered of the passage that Heal had +read.</p> +<p>“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.”</p> +<p>Above the gable of the swimming bath that wonderful star +throbbed white.</p> +<h4>II</h4> +<p>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 <a name="page20"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +20</span>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>“I don’t believe a bit of it,” he said with +tears in his eyes.</p> +<p>“You silly kid,” said Widdup. +“Everybody knows it’s true.”</p> +<p><a name="page21"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +21</span>“I don’t believe my father would do a thing +like that,” cried Edwin.</p> +<p>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. . . .</p> +<h4>III</h4> +<p>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 <i>The Fortunes of Nigel</i> +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.</p> +<p><a name="page22"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +22</span>“Have any of you read <i>Nigel</i>?” Mr. +Leeming asked the class.</p> +<p>“I have, sir,” said Edwin shyly.</p> +<p>“I have already gathered so, Ingleby. Has anybody +else read it?”</p> +<p>Silence. “I think I shall ask the head master to +set it to the Middle School as a holiday task,” said Mr. +Leeming.</p> +<p>Thus narrowly did Edwin escape the disaster of having Scott +spoiled for him.</p> +<p>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 <i>Illustrated London News</i>, with their pictures of the +Franco-Prussian War, Irish evictions, the launching of the +<i>Great Eastern</i>, 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 <i>Lives of the Poets</i>, 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</p> +<p class="poetry">“O smite thy breast and drop a +tear—<br /> +For know thy Shenstone’s dust lies here.”</p> +<p><a name="page23"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 23</span>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>“Poetry, Ingleby?”</p> +<p>“Yes, sir.”</p> +<p>“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?”</p> +<p>Mr. Leeming introduced Ingleby to the great Victorian, for he +himself was an ardent believer in all the Galahad nonsense, and +was astonished at <a name="page24"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +24</span>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. “<i>From +fornication</i> . . . that’s a bad thing,” he would +mutter.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>Edwin glowed. “Oh, sir, Launcelot—or +Bors.”</p> +<p>“But what about Sir Percivale? ‘Sir +Percivale whom Arthur and his knighthood called “The +Pure,”’” he quoted in the Oxford variety of +Cockney.</p> +<p>“I don’t know, sir,” stammered Edwin. +“They seem somehow made differently from me.”</p> +<p>“Arthur,” said Mr. Leeming impressively, +“has a great and wonderful prototype whom we should all try +to imitate no matter how distantly.”</p> +<p>Edwin, who had read the dedication, wondered why Mr. Leeming +lowered his voice like that in speaking of the Prince +Consort.</p> +<p>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 <a +name="page25"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +25</span>flushed. “Lord Byron,” he had said, +“was not a good man. Have you read +<i>Hiawatha</i>?” And he reached down Longfellow . . +. Longfellow in green boards decorated with a geometrical design +in gold, and irritating to the touch.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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 <a name="page26"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 26</span>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.</p> +<p>“Would you like to learn Hebrew, Ingleby?” he +said.</p> +<p>Edwin would have liked to learn Hebrew—but not out of +school hours. He hesitated.</p> +<p>“I thought you might some day wish to take Holy Orders, +and I should be glad to teach you.”</p> +<p>“I will ask my father, sir,” said Edwin +modestly. That was one of the penalties of having +interesting eyes.</p> +<h3><a name="page27"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +27</span>CHAPTER III<br /> +THE GREEN TREES . . .</h3> +<h4>I</h4> +<p><span class="smcap">The</span> 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.</p> +<p>“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 <a +name="page28"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 28</span>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>“What a colour you’ve got, boy,” said his +father. And it struck him also that she was smaller than +she used to be.</p> +<p>“Isn’t mother rather thin?” he asked his +father. Mr. Ingleby smiled, and in his grave, shy way <a +name="page29"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 29</span>put out his +hand to touch hers as it lay on the table.</p> +<p>“You silly boy,” said his mother.</p> +<p>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.”</p> +<p>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 <a +name="page30"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 30</span>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.”</p> +<p><a name="page31"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +31</span>“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.”</p> +<p>She smiled and kissed him.</p> +<p>“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.”</p> +<p>“I’m sure it wasn’t lovelier than yours, +darling,” said Edwin.</p> +<p>“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 <a +name="page32"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 32</span>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.”</p> +<p>“I should be, too,” said Edwin.</p> +<p>“Would you?” she smiled.</p> +<p>“Yes. . . . You’ve made me hate Aunt Laura +already.”</p> +<p>“You mustn’t feel like that, Eddie. +She’s young, and she’s been spoilt. It +isn’t all her fault, probably.”</p> +<p>“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.</p> +<h4>II</h4> +<p>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 <a name="page33"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +33</span>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>“Oh, I should love to be there, Edwin,” she would +say.</p> +<p>“Can’t we walk there some day, dearest?”</p> +<p>“It’s such a terrible drag up. We should +both be dreadfully tired.”</p> +<p>“Oh, I wish we could, mother; I do wish we +could.”</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>“Come along, Eddie,” she said, “I’m +going up to Uffdown.”</p> +<p>“Oh, mother,” he cried. “Isn’t +it too far? I should like to carry you!”</p> +<p>And half-doubting, but fearfully eager for adventure, they set +off together. As they climbed upward it seemed that the air +grew sweeter every <a name="page34"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +34</span>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.</p> +<p>“Oh, mother,” Edwin panted, “what an awful +lick you go! Hadn’t we better sit down a +bit?”</p> +<p>“And catch cold! You careless boy. +We’ll get to the top soon now.”</p> +<p>“But you mustn’t tire yourself.”</p> +<p>She laughed at him.</p> +<p>“Oh, this air is wonderful,” she said. +“Just as if it had come straight out of the blue, all +washed and clean.”</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>“Eddie,” she asked, half joking, “where does +the west wind come from?”</p> +<p>Edwin was willing to instruct.</p> +<p>“Oh, I don’t know, dearest—from Wales and +the sea, I suppose.”</p> +<p>“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 +name="page35"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 35</span>a level ridge +that drops suddenly in the west. You don’t know what +that is, Eddie, do you?”</p> +<p>“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.”</p> +<p>“But you must look at that. It’s the +mountain, Eddie, close to where I was born.”</p> +<p>“Felindre?” he asked.</p> +<p>“Yes.”</p> +<p>“But I never knew that you could see it from here. +You never told me.”</p> +<p>“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.”</p> +<p>“Still, it’s rather wonderful to be looking +into—into another country. It is Wales, isn’t +it?”</p> +<p>“Yes—part of it’s in Wales. Felindre +is in England.”</p> +<p>Edwin pondered for a moment.</p> +<p>“I’m rather glad I’m not half-Welsh, +anyway,” he said. “But I wish I’d been +there.”</p> +<p>“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.”</p> +<p>He was a little alarmed at the wistfulness in her voice.</p> +<p>“Mother—what do you mean?” he cried.</p> +<p>“Nothing, Eddie, nothing. It was another +life.”</p> +<p>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 <a name="page36"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 36</span>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.</p> +<p>“Dearest, I know that story,” he said. +“Oh, go on, it’s wonderful. . . .”</p> +<p>“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.”</p> +<p>“Oh, no, I’m sure you haven’t. . . +.”</p> +<p>“Look, the cloud is blotting out my mountain now,” +she said. “It is time we were going.” The +counties were asleep already.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>“Oh, look, mother,” Edwin cried.</p> +<p>“They’re puddling the iron at the great Mawne +furnaces. Stand still a moment, we might almost hear their +roar.”</p> +<p>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.</p> +<h4><a name="page37"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +37</span>III</h4> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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 <a +name="page38"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 38</span>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.</p> +<p>“Hallo, boy,” he said. “You were late +for tea, you two!”</p> +<p>“Oh, we had a lovely walk—right on to +Uffdown.”</p> +<p>“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.”</p> +<p>Mr. Ingleby yawned and Edwin started to weigh powders.</p> +<p>“Father, what is Dragon’s Blood?”</p> +<p>“It isn’t the blood of dragons, Edwin. . . +.” Mr. Ingleby smiled under his glasses.</p> +<p>“Oh, father, don’t rot.”</p> +<p>“Dragon’s Blood is a resin. It’s +prepared from <i>Dracæna Draco</i>, and it’s used for +mahogany varnishes.”</p> +<p>“O-oh.”</p> +<p>“I’m sorry to disappoint you, Edwin.”</p> +<p>Silence for five minutes.</p> +<p>“Father . . . Keats was a chemist.”</p> +<p>“Keats?” Mr. Ingleby pronounced the word in +the same tone as he would have used if he had been saying +“Keatings, madam?”</p> +<p><a name="page39"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +39</span>“The poet.”</p> +<p>“Oh—Keats. Yes, of course he was. He +was consumptive, too. Died in Italy.”</p> +<p>“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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>“I’m not really a bit overdone,” she +protested, kissing his forehead.</p> +<p>“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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>“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 <a +name="page40"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 40</span>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.</p> +<h4>IV</h4> +<p>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.</p> +<p>“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.”</p> +<p>“Come close to me, by the fire, child,” he +said.</p> +<p>“No . . . I want some music, I think.”</p> +<p>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 +<i>Sonata Appassionata</i> 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 <i>Sonata</i> 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 <a +name="page41"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 41</span>taunting of +that image, and so she snuffed the candles and sat in the +dark.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<h3><a name="page42"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +42</span>CHAPTER IV<br /> +MIDSUMMER</h3> +<h4>I</h4> +<p><span class="smcap">Edwin</span> 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 <a name="page43"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 43</span>there. “<i>The white lie +of a blameless life</i>.” 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.</p> +<p>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. . . .”</p> +<p>“It’s awfully hilly country at home,” said +Edwin.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>“What did you say?” said Widdup. +“I’m awfully sorry, old chap. I didn’t +catch it. Douglas shouted to me. . . .”</p> +<p>“I don’t know . . .” said Edwin. +“Oh, yes . . . hills. I said there are some ripping +hills at home. One called Uffdown.”</p> +<p><a name="page44"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +44</span>“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.”</p> +<p>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:—</p> +<p class="poetry">“Rank by rank again we stand<br /> +From the four winds gathered hither,<br /> +Loud the hallowed walls demand<br /> +Whence we come and how and whither . . .”</p> +<p>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.</p> +<h4>II</h4> +<p>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 +<a name="page45"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 45</span>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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 <a +name="page46"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +46</span>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.</p> +<p>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 . . .</p> +<p>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 <a +name="page47"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 47</span>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<h4><a name="page48"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +48</span>III</h4> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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 <a name="page49"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 49</span>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. . . .</p> +<p>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 <a name="page50"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 50</span>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 <i>Tales of Mystery and +Imagination</i>: “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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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 <a name="page51"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 51</span>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.</p> +<p><a name="page52"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +52</span>“They’re off!” he said. +“My God, don’t I envy old Griff!”</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>“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.”</p> +<p>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—<a name="page53"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 53</span>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.</p> +<p>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?</p> +<p>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 <a +name="page54"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 54</span>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. +. . .</p> +<p>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.”</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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. <a +name="page55"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 55</span>Now, in the +same way, and wholly for his own satisfaction, he determined to +go to the Birches.</p> +<p>That night, walking up and down the Quad, he opened the +subject to Widdup. He said,—</p> +<p>“Do you know I drew Airs and Graces in the house +sweep? Griffin offered me a quid for the ticket.”</p> +<p>“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.”</p> +<p>“Well, so am I,” said Ingleby. Widdup +laughed, and that annoyed him.</p> +<p>“What do you think of it?”</p> +<p>“I think you’re a damned fool,” said +Widdup.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p><a name="page56"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 56</span>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>“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. . . .”</p> +<p>“I’ll be back just after three,” said +Edwin. “You’ll be here to give me a hand +over?”</p> +<p>“All right,” said Widdup. “You are a +bloody fool, you know.”</p> +<h3><a name="page57"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +57</span>CHAPTER V<br /> +AIRS AND GRACES</h3> +<p><span class="smcap">He</span> 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.</p> +<p>Beyond the line of fencing, even standing in midstream of that +determined crowd, he felt himself curiously unprotected. He +did a curious thing. He <a name="page58"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 58</span>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!</p> +<p>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,—</p> +<p>“You look ’ot, young man.”</p> +<p>It <i>was</i> hot, Edwin panted.</p> +<p>“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.</p> +<p>“You won’t?” said the fat man. +“You’re <a name="page59"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +59</span>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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 <a name="page60"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +60</span>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. . . .”</p> +<p>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.”</p> +<p>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 <a +name="page61"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 61</span>plates, +seemed determined to enjoy themselves in spite of the heat and +the smell of their neighbours under the white-hot sky.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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 <i>must</i> find words for it, for it would be such +fun <a name="page62"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +62</span>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. . . .</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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 <a +name="page63"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 63</span>moment they +were nearly silent. “They’re off!” said +the little man. . . .</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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 <a name="page64"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +64</span>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.”</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>In a little hollow littered with tins and other <a +name="page65"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 65</span>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.</p> +<p>At the corner, looking horribly scared, Widdup was +waiting.</p> +<p>“Thank goodness you’ve come,” he said. +Then he suddenly went white.</p> +<p>“What’s the matter?” cried Edwin.</p> +<p><a name="page66"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +66</span>“Oh, Lord, it’s the Head.”</p> +<p>The voice of the head-master came next,—“Hallo, +what are you doing here? Let me see—Widdup, +isn’t it?”</p> +<p>“Yes, sir.”</p> +<p>A mortar-board topped the palings. +“Ingleby—What’s this? What’s +this? What are you doing there?”</p> +<p>A moment of brilliant inspiration.</p> +<p>“Widdup and I were fooling, sir, and he chucked my cap +over the fence. May I get it, sir?”</p> +<p>“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.”</p> +<p>Edwin saw that he was in a good humour; saw, in the same +flash, the too-literal Widdup, white with fear.</p> +<p>“I’m sorry, sir,” he said . . . +“awfully sorry.”</p> +<p>“Mph. . . . What were you two doing +here?”</p> +<p>“I wanted to get some poplar leaves for my puss-moth +caterpillars.” Silence—then, rather +lamely,—“They’re in the fourth stage, +sir.”</p> +<p>“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,—</p> +<p><a name="page67"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +67</span>“Let me see, Ingleby, you’re in the Lower +Fifth?”</p> +<p>“Yes, sir.”</p> +<p>“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.</p> +<p>“Well, you are a prize liar,” said Widdup, +“and the old man believed every word of it.”</p> +<p>“I know,” said Edwin. “That’s +the rotten part of it. . . .”</p> +<p>“What on earth do you mean?”</p> +<p>“Oh, I don’t know. . . .” He knew +perfectly well what he meant.</p> +<p>“Who won?”</p> +<p>“Airs and Graces.”</p> +<p>“Then you’ve won the sweep.”</p> +<p>“Yes.”</p> +<p>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 <a +name="page68"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 68</span>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.</p> +<p>“Well, you have a nerve,” he said. “I +wonder what you’ll do next. . . .”</p> +<p>“Oh, stow it,” said Edwin. “I’ve +finished with that sort of thing. I’m not cut out for +a blood.”</p> +<p>“I can’t think how you did it.”</p> +<p>“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. . .”</p> +<h3><a name="page69"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +69</span>CHAPTER VI<br /> +THUNDER WEATHER</h3> +<h4>I</h4> +<p><span class="smcap">That</span> 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.</p> +<p>“I wish you hadn’t told them that,” he said +to Widdup.</p> +<p>“Why not?” said Widdup. “That was the +best part of it.”</p> +<p>“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.”</p> +<p>“Get out,” said Widdup. “If you want +to know the truth it’s only another example of your rotten +cockiness.”</p> +<p>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 <a +name="page70"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 70</span>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>“Widdup says you went to see the Birches run.”</p> +<p>“Does he?” said Edwin.</p> +<p><a name="page71"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +71</span>“Now, none of your fooling, Ingleby. +You’re a damned little liar. You never put your nose +near the races.”</p> +<p>“Well, it doesn’t matter to you anyway.”</p> +<p>“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.”</p> +<p>“All right, then. I did go to the +races.”</p> +<p>“The swine! . . . Get a towel, +Duggie.”</p> +<p>“Well . . . you asked me. . .”</p> +<p>“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?”</p> +<p>“I don’t know what his colours were.”</p> +<p>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.”</p> +<p>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 <a +name="page72"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 72</span>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?”</p> +<p>“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.</p> +<p>“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.</p> +<p>“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—”</p> +<p>He was asleep.</p> +<h4>II</h4> +<p>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 <a +name="page73"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 73</span>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.</p> +<p>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?”</p> +<p>“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 <a +name="page74"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 74</span>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.”</p> +<p>“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?”</p> +<p>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.”</p> +<p>“Yes,” he said. “I can see the window +you mean.”</p> +<p>She sighed. “I’m so glad, Eddie. I did +want to show it you.”</p> +<p>“But why were you in such a hurry?”</p> +<p>“It was my last chance of showing it to you.”</p> +<p>“Whatever do you mean, darling?”</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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 <a name="page75"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 75</span>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.</p> +<blockquote><p>“<i>My Darling Boy</i> (she +wrote),—<i>Did you really make fifteen</i>? <i>You +must be getting on</i>. <i>Aunt Laura has just been in to +tea</i>, <i>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>. <i>I have some very interesting news for +you</i>. <i>The other afternoon Mrs. Willis of Mawne came +in to see me</i>. <i>She and Lilian are going to +Switzerland for a month this summer</i>, <i>and now she suggests +that I should join them there</i>. <i>It won’t be +just yet</i>, <i>and I think—no</i>, <i>I’m +sure</i>—<i>that I should be back again before your +holidays</i>. <i>Father wants me to go</i>. <i>I +haven’t been very well</i>, <i>and the doctor says +he’s sure it would do me good</i>. <i>All my life +I’ve wanted to see Switzerland</i>. <i>I’m most +awfully excited about it</i>, <i>Eddie</i>, <i>and father says he +can spare me</i>. <i>Won’t it be wonderful</i>? +<i>They are going about the end of June</i>. <i>I +won’t forget that postal order</i>, <i>but I’m rather +poor myself just at present</i>. <i>Eddie</i>, <i>do you +keep my letters</i>? <i>I think I should like you +to</i>. <i>The double stocks which father planted in the +long bed are just coming out</i>.</p> +<p style="text-align: center">“<i>Good-bye</i>, <i>my +darling</i>,</p> +<p style="text-align: right">“<i>Your loving</i><br /> +“<i>Mother</i>.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p><a name="page76"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 76</span>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.</p> +<p>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 <a +name="page77"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 77</span>and ornate, +and not a patch on his mother. Nobody was a patch on his +mother . . .</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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 <a +name="page78"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 78</span>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.</p> +<p>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 <a +name="page79"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 79</span>the +Second’s reign. Unfortunately, he was a thoroughly +bad man, and his court . . .”</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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 <a name="page80"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 80</span>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.”</p> +<h4><a name="page81"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +81</span>III</h4> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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 <a name="page82"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 82</span>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.</p> +<p>“Frazer’s got it,” said somebody. +“One . . . two . . . three . . . four . . . five . . . six +. . . Poor old Frazer!”</p> +<p>“Six from the Head isn’t equal to three from +Cleaver. You should see Cleaver’s biceps in the +gym.”</p> +<p>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: <span +class="smcap">Prepare To Meet Thy God</span>. 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 <a name="page83"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 83</span>that awaited him? +“That’s why he’s keeping me till last,” +he thought.</p> +<p>“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?</p> +<p>“Ah . . . Ingleby.”</p> +<p>“Yes, sir.”</p> +<p>“I hope your entomological zeal isn’t going to +take you up to the racecourse, Ingleby. How are the +puss-caterpillars getting on?”</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>“Eh? . . . What’s the matter with +you? You aren’t faint, are you? You’d +better sit down.” Edwin trembled into a chair.</p> +<p>“Now, are you all right?”</p> +<p>“Yes, sir.”</p> +<p>“I sent for you, Ingleby, because I have been having a +talk with Mr. Leeming.”</p> +<p>What in the world had old fat Leeming to do with it? +Edwin wished he would get it over.</p> +<p><a name="page84"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +84</span>“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?”</p> +<p>“Yes, sir.”</p> +<p>Why wouldn’t he get to the point?</p> +<p>“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?”</p> +<p>“Yes, sir.”</p> +<p>“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. . . .”</p> +<p>“No, sir.”</p> +<p>“No . . .? But Mr. Leeming told me he had talked +the matter over with you?”</p> +<p>“He mentioned it, sir . . . but I didn’t say +anything. I . . . don’t think I do want to, +sir.”</p> +<p>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 <a +name="page85"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 85</span>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?”</p> +<p>“I should like to read History, sir.”</p> +<p>“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.”</p> +<h3><a name="page86"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +86</span>CHAPTER VII<br /> +IMPURITY</h3> +<h4>I</h4> +<p><span class="smcap">The</span> “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.</p> +<p>This waistcoat, on week-days of broadcloth and <a +name="page87"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 87</span>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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 <a name="page88"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 88</span>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.</p> +<p>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.”</p> +<p>“I don’t think you understand me, sir,” Mr. +Leeming began. . . .</p> +<p>“Oh, don’t I?” said the Head. The word +Impurity formed voicelessly on Mr. Leeming’s lips.</p> +<p><a name="page89"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +89</span>“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. . . +.”</p> +<p>“I can see you, Leeming,” drawled Selby, “in +the rôle of <i>agent provocateur</i>.” The +common-room exploded.</p> +<p>“What is wanted in the public schoolmaster is a higher +sense of seriousness,” Leeming spluttered. “You +have no sense of suspicion.”</p> +<p>“What is more wanted in the public schools,” said +Cleaver, “is a suspicion of sense—common +sense.”</p> +<p>“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.”</p> +<p>“That’s what they pay a hundred and fifty a year +for,” said Cleaver.</p> +<p>“Of which we don’t see any too much . . .” +Selby growled.</p> +<p>“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 <a +name="page90"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 90</span>there’s +only one way. . . . You can’t drive boys. +You’ve got to understand their hearts.”</p> +<p>“You’ve got to understand their bodies,” +said Cleaver.</p> +<p>Mr. Leeming flushed. “I think you are merely +disgusting, Cleaver.”</p> +<p>“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.”</p> +<p>“The games would go to pot,” said Cleaver. +From his point of view there was no more to be said.</p> +<p>“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. . . .”</p> +<p>“It’s the essence of the system . . . +responsibility,” said Selby.</p> +<p>“It gives them what Shaw said about something else: the +maximum of inclination with the maximum of +opportunity.”</p> +<p>“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.</p> +<p>“That kind of man,” said Mr. Leeming, “is at +the root of the whole business.”</p> +<p><a name="page91"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 91</span>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. . . .”</p> +<p>“My dear Downton,” said Leeming flushing, “I +shall be obliged if you won’t—er—pursue the +subject. You make it painful. . . .”</p> +<p>“Very well,” said Downton gathering up the skirts +of his gown.</p> +<p>“Thank you.” Leeming left the room. +Selby smiled lazily.</p> +<p>“If only,” he said, “if only our friend +Leeming had ever enjoyed the advantage of a really bad +woman’s society.”</p> +<h4>II</h4> +<p>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 <a +name="page92"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +92</span>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p><a name="page93"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +93</span>“Ah, Ingleby,” he said. “Is that +you?”</p> +<p>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?”</p> +<p>“The M.C.C., sir.”</p> +<p>“Ah, yes . . . the Marylebone Cricket Club. Are +you fond of cricket, Ingleby?”</p> +<p>“Of course I am, sir.”</p> +<p>“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?”</p> +<p>Widdup was very well, if a little impatient</p> +<p>“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?”</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>“Well, Ingleby, what are you reading in these +days?”</p> +<p>“Well hit, sir; oh, well hit. . . . Make it +five. I beg your pardon, sir. . . I don’t think +I’m reading anything in particular.”</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>“He’s a funny old swine,” said Douglas.</p> +<p>“I used to think he was rather decent,” said +Edwin. “Horribly ‘pi’ you +know.”</p> +<p>“I don’t trust him,” said Douglas. +“I always feel <a name="page94"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 94</span>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. . . .”</p> +<p>“I don’t, really,” Edwin confessed.</p> +<p>“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.”</p> +<p>“He could float . . .” said the practical +Widdup.</p> +<p>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 <a name="page95"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 95</span>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.</p> +<p>“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 <i>Nunc Dimittis</i>, 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.</p> +<p>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?”</p> +<p>“Of course I’m going, I told you.”</p> +<p>“You’ve fixed it up with her?”</p> +<p>“Yes, she’s up to any sport. Why don’t +you come with us?”</p> +<p>“Two’s company. . . .”</p> +<p>“Go on with you. . . . You can easily pick up +another. You’re not a sportsman, Duggie.”</p> +<p>“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.”</p> +<p><a name="page96"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +96</span>“Ingleby?” Griffin scoffed. +“I bet you he’d funk it.”</p> +<p>“Funk what?” said Edwin.</p> +<p>“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.”</p> +<p>“Don’t talk so loud, you ass,” said +Douglas. “Well, will you come?”</p> +<p>“No, I won’t,” said Edwin.</p> +<p>“You said you went to the Birches.”</p> +<p>“I did go to the Birches.”</p> +<p>“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!”</p> +<p>Edwin said nothing. “He’s got more sense +than you have, anyway, Griff,” said Douglas.</p> +<p>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 <a name="page97"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +97</span>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.</p> +<h4><a name="page98"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +98</span>III</h4> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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 <a +name="page99"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 99</span>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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 <a +name="page100"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 100</span>concerns in +the face of the common enemy. Douglas was flown with +insolence.</p> +<p>“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!”</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>“You silly ass,” said Douglas. “Of +course they can’t fetch him back. He’s done +them brown.”</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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 <a +name="page101"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 101</span>walked into +a taproom full of School House bloods on Sunday morning. +Indeed, these were strenuous days.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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, <a +name="page102"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 102</span>and he knew +better than to drink it; but the heady vintage that he brewed +from sonorous words knocked him over every time.</p> +<p>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—<i>lettres de cachet</i> 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.”</p> +<p>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 <a +name="page103"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 103</span>Mr. Leeming +could only have increased the suspicion. Plainly, he was +done for.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>Next morning, in the middle of early school, the <a +name="page104"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 104</span>sergeant +entered with a message for Mr. Cleaver, and waited while the +master read it.</p> +<p>“Ingleby,” he said at last, “Mr. Selby wants +to speak to you. You had better go at once.”</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>“Ingleby, I sent for you urgently . .”</p> +<p>“Yes, sir.”</p> +<p>“It probably came as a shock to you . . . or perhaps you +were prepared?”</p> +<p>“No, sir.”</p> +<p>“Then you must pull yourself together. You +can’t guess what it is?”</p> +<p>“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.</p> +<p><a name="page105"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +105</span>“Oh, sir . . . my mother . . .”</p> +<p>“Yes. . . It’s your mother, Ingleby. +I’m sorry to be the bearer of bad news. Very sorry. . +. .”</p> +<p>“Tell me, sir. She’s dead. Oh . . . +she’s dead . . . ?”</p> +<p>Mr. Selby unfolded the telegram although he already knew its +contents.</p> +<p>“No. It’s not so bad as that. But +she’s ill . . . very ill . . .”</p> +<p>“I knew. . . . The minute you spoke I knew, sir. . +. .”</p> +<p>“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!’</p> +<p>“Yes, sir. . . .”</p> +<p>“Have you any money?” Mr. Selby almost +smiled to see him so eager to go.</p> +<p>“No, sir. . . . Only about eightpence.”</p> +<p>“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.</p> +<p>“Thank you, sir . . . but it’s awful, it’s +awful. . . .”</p> +<p>“Of course, of course. . . .”</p> +<p>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 <a name="page106"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +106</span>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.</p> +<h3><a name="page107"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +107</span>CHAPTER VIII<br /> +HOMEWARDS</h3> +<p><span class="smcap">In</span> 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.”</p> +<p>He had to think of something else; for by the <a +name="page108"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 108</span>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. . . .</p> +<p>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 <a name="page109"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +109</span>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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 <a +name="page110"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 110</span>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.</p> +<p>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 <a name="page111"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 111</span>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.</p> +<p>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 <a +name="page112"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 112</span>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.”</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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, <a name="page113"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +113</span>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.</p> +<p>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?</p> +<p>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 <a name="page114"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +114</span>enjoying this astounding and unforeseen +adventure. “If I <i>do</i> feel like that,” he +thought, “it can’t be exactly wrong.” And +that comforted him.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>Once again the resorts of elegance were left behind. The +hansom, heaving heavily, was checked <a name="page115"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 115</span>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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 <a +name="page116"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 116</span>creature, +but a woman of middle age with a comfortable face and a +methodical appetite.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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 <a name="page117"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +117</span>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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 <a +name="page118"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 118</span>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.”</p> +<p>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.”</p> +<p>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 <a name="page119"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 119</span>train was carrying him towards +it. The tragedy had to be faced.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>The woman in black, hearing the sobs, raised her veil and +looked at him.</p> +<p>“What is it, my dear?” she said.</p> +<p>“Oh, nothing . . . nothing.”</p> +<p>“Folks don’t cry about nothing. . . .”</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>“It’s . . . it’s my mother,” he +said.</p> +<p>“There now. . . . Is it really? That’s +bad for ’ee. When did she pass away?”</p> +<p>“She isn’t dead. I . . . I hope she +isn’t. But she’s awfully ill.”</p> +<p>“Don’t cry now, boy. While there’s +life there’s hope. I always tells them +that.”</p> +<p>“Who do you tell that to?”</p> +<p>The black woman laughed. “Who do I tell that +to? Ha . . . that’s a good ’un. Why, +dearie, my patients, of course.”</p> +<p>“I don’t understand. . . . What sort of +patients?”</p> +<p><a name="page120"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +120</span>“Well, Mr. Inquisitive, if you must know, +I’m a monthly nurse.”</p> +<p>Still Edwin did not understand. He +asked,—“Do many of them die?”</p> +<p>“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?”</p> +<p>Edwin thought. “Yes.”</p> +<p>“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.”</p> +<p>“I think,” said Edwin, “it was +diabetes.”</p> +<p>“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.”</p> +<p>“But don’t they ever get better?” Edwin +asked in agony. “I expect they do sometimes, +don’t they?”</p> +<p>“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.”</p> +<p>“I couldn’t forget her. Oh, I wish +you’d never told me,” said Edwin, sobbing once +more.</p> +<p><a name="page121"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +121</span>“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.”</p> +<p>“I won’t take what God gives me,” he +cried. “I won’t. I can’t bear to +lose her.”</p> +<p>“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.”</p> +<p>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: “<i>This +rack is provided for light articles only it must not be used for +heavy luggage</i>.” He wondered inconsequently, +whether the stop, which was missing, should come before or after +the word “only.”</p> +<p>“You must cheer up, dearie,” said the black woman +soothingly. “While there’s life . . +.”</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>“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 <a name="page122"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 122</span>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.</p> +<p>“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. . . +.”</p> +<p>“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.”</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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 <a +name="page123"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 123</span>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.</p> +<p>“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.”</p> +<p>He could easily have done so.</p> +<h3><a name="page124"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +124</span>CHAPTER IX<br /> +THE DARK HOUSE</h3> +<h4>I</h4> +<p><span class="smcap">Aunt Laura</span> 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,</p> +<p>“How is she?”</p> +<p>And above the roar of the station he heard an <a +name="page125"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 125</span>uncertain +voice answer. “She’s very ill, Eddie . . . very +ill indeed.”</p> +<p>“Not dead? . . . she’s not dead?”</p> +<p>“No, no. We must all be brave, Eddie.”</p> +<p>“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. . . .</p> +<p>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 <a +name="page126"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 126</span>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>“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.</p> +<p>“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.”</p> +<p>Edwin flamed with jealousy. What was Aunt <a +name="page127"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 127</span>Laura doing +in the house? She, above all people, had no right to be +there.</p> +<p>“But I could sleep on the sofa in the +drawing-room,” he said.</p> +<p>“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.”</p> +<p>“But I can’t, I can’t be so far away. +I ought to be here. She would like me to be +here.”</p> +<p>“Eddie, dear . . . do be a good boy. Here comes +your father.”</p> +<p>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. . +. .”</p> +<p>“Oh, father. . . .”</p> +<p>“We must all be brave, Eddie.” Again that +terrible smile.</p> +<p>“Father, may I go and see her . . .?”</p> +<p>“The doctor says that nobody had better see her +to-night.”</p> +<p>“Yes, Eddie, we must obey the doctor’s orders, +dear,” said Aunt Laura.</p> +<p>“But you’ve seen her . . . you saw her this +morning, didn’t you?”</p> +<p>“That was different,” said Aunt Laura. +“I was up all night with her.”</p> +<p>“It isn’t different, is it, father? Aunt +Laura’s nothing to her. . . .”</p> +<p><a name="page128"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +128</span>“Eddie, Eddie. . . .” Aunt Laura +protested.</p> +<p>“Father, if she asked for me she ought to see me. . +.”</p> +<p>“She’s so ill, Eddie. I’m afraid she +wouldn’t know you.”</p> +<p>“Oh, I’m sure she would. . . .”</p> +<p>“Edwin, you mustn’t worry your father; +there’s a good boy.”</p> +<p>“Oh, Aunt Laura . . .” Then fiercely, +“She’s any mother. . . .”</p> +<p>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?”</p> +<p>“Yes. . . . The doctor says it isn’t really +sleep, it’s coma.”</p> +<p>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.”</p> +<p>“I think I’ll go and lie down for an hour,” +said his father.</p> +<p>“Yes, do, John,” said Aunt Laura +encouragingly. “You need it. I’ll go +upstairs myself to be handy if the nurse wants +anything.”</p> +<p>This was the first that Edwin had heard of a nurse. The +idea inspired him with awe. His father sighed and turned to +go.</p> +<p>“Father . . . can’t I go up, only for a +minute?”</p> +<p>Aunt Laura, who had taken upon herself the role of protectress +and manager of the distressed household, intervened,</p> +<p>“Eddie, you mustn’t worry your father. +We’re <a name="page129"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +129</span>all in trouble, and you mustn’t be a +nuisance.” His father went, without speaking.</p> +<p>“Well, when can I see her?” Edwin demanded.</p> +<p>“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.”</p> +<p>“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. . . .”</p> +<p>“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 <a +name="page130"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 130</span>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.”</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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 <a +name="page131"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 131</span>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.</p> +<h4>II</h4> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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 +<a name="page132"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 132</span>his +mother had told him how wonderful they were. Everything +reminded him of her. . . .</p> +<p>He passed through the door in the wall and entered another +world.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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 +<a name="page133"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 133</span>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.</p> +<p>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 <i>Alice in Wonderland</i>, taking tea with her +companion, a decorous lady of the same age named Miss +Beecock.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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. <a name="page134"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 134</span>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.”</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>“Sweet . . . swee . . . t,” said Mrs. Barrow with +pursed lips.</p> +<p>“Sweet . . . sweet,” echoed Miss Beecock, with a +little laugh.</p> +<p>“I think I will take my crochet on to the lawn,” +said Mrs. Barrow.</p> +<p>“If you have your shawl, and the grass is not too +damp,” Miss Beecock reminded her.</p> +<p>“There was a heavy dew last week,” said Mrs. <a +name="page135"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +135</span>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.”</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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 +<a name="page136"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 136</span>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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, <a name="page137"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 137</span>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. . . .”</p> +<p>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. . . +.</p> +<p>When he reached the garden with his Shenstone, the light was +failing.</p> +<p>“You were a long time, Edwin,” said Mrs. +Barrow.</p> +<p>“Yes, wasn’t he?” echoed Miss Beecock. +“I’m afraid it is time Mrs. Barrow was going +in.”</p> +<p>Quietly, and with a leisure that seemed to presume an endless +placidity of existence, the old ladies folded their work, sighed, +and recrossed the <a name="page138"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +138</span>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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 <a +name="page139"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 139</span>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.”</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>“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.”</p> +<p>At this point Miss Beecock entered the room, her attire +modified in the same degree as that of Mrs. Barrow.</p> +<p>“Ah . . .” she said with a little laugh. +“Here you are. I must ask Annie for your +breakfast.”</p> +<p>“He’d like a nice brown egg, lightly boiled, and +some buttered toast,” said Mrs. Barrow temptingly.</p> +<p>“Yes, of course he would,” said Miss Beecock.</p> +<p>“I think if you don’t mind,” said Edwin, +“I’d like to go home. It’s so +late.”</p> +<p><a name="page140"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +140</span>“Oh, you needn’t mind us,” chimed the +two old ladies.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>“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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<h4><a name="page141"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +141</span>III</h4> +<p>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.</p> +<p>“She’s gone,” he said, “in the +night?”</p> +<p>“Yes. . . . In the night. She passed away +quite quietly. It’s a dreadful blow for us, Edwin, we +must be brave. . . .”</p> +<p>He hadn’t time for sentiments of that kind. +“She was alive when I came yesterday. And you +wouldn’t let me see her. <i>You</i>, of all people. . +. . She hated you. She told me so. She always +hated you . . . and she’d hate you for this more than +anything.”</p> +<p>“Edwin,” she cried, “don’t say these +terrible things!’</p> +<p>“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.”</p> +<p>“Edwin . . . you don’t know what you’re +saying. You’re cruel.”</p> +<p>“Cruel. . . . I like that. Cruel. +<i>You</i> talk about cruelty. . . .”</p> +<p>“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. <a +name="page142"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 142</span>She +deserved it. Nothing of that kind could soften his +indignant heart.</p> +<p>“Where’s father?” he asked at last.</p> +<p>“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.</p> +<p>“All right,” said Edwin, and left her.</p> +<p>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 <a +name="page143"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 143</span>thought, +was what his mother would have wished.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>“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.”</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>“We . . . we were like children together,” said +his father.</p> +<p><a name="page144"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 144</span>Again +they stood for a little while in silence. At last Edwin, +still gripping his father’s arm, said,—“Father, +may I see her?”</p> +<p>“Of course, dear. . . .”</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>Edwin spoke in a whisper,—</p> +<p>“Should I kiss her?”</p> +<p>His father nodded and turned away.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<h4><a name="page145"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +145</span>IV</h4> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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 <a name="page146"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 146</span>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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 <a name="page147"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 147</span>extraordinary mixture of love and +admiration for this shallow, diffuse creature whom he had found +himself hating.</p> +<p>“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. . . .”</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>The voice of Aunt Laura, most studiously kind, <a +name="page148"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 148</span>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>“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 <a +name="page149"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 149</span>with a +jerk. “Come along, Edwin, jump out, there’s a +good boy,” said Aunt Laura. “You’ll walk +with your father.”</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p><a name="page150"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 150</span>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. . . .</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>“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 <a name="page151"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 151</span>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.</p> +<p>“Edwin,” she said, “I want to speak to +you.”</p> +<p>“Do you?” said Edwin. “Well . . . go +on.”</p> +<p>“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.”</p> +<p>“What on earth do you mean?”</p> +<p>“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?”</p> +<p>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.”</p> +<p>“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.”</p> +<p>“Feeling,” said Edwin. “What do you +know about feeling?”</p> +<p>“Steady, Edwin, steady,” from Uncle Albert.</p> +<p>“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.”</p> +<p>“Edwin!”</p> +<p><a name="page152"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +152</span>“It’s true. . . . She couldn’t +stick your sort of grief at any price.”</p> +<p>“On the very day of her burial. . . .”</p> +<p>“She’s not buried. It wasn’t she you +buried. Oh, I’m sick of you. . . .”</p> +<p>“Edwin . . .” said Uncle Albert, who felt that +something in the way of protection was demanded of him. +“Really now . . .”</p> +<p>“Oh, I don’t mean you, uncle,” said +Edwin.</p> +<p>“You cruel boy,” Aunt Laura sobbed.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<h3><a name="page153"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +153</span>CHAPTER X<br /> +THRENODY</h3> +<h4>I</h4> +<p><span class="smcap">From</span> 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.</p> +<p>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 +<a name="page154"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 154</span>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>“Bless you,” she would have said, “the +man’s so wrapped up in himself that he’s miles away +from <a name="page155"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +155</span>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. . . .”</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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 <a name="page156"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +156</span>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.”</p> +<p>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 <a name="page157"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +157</span>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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. . . .</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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 <a name="page158"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 158</span>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. . . +.”</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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 name="page159"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 159</span>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.”</p> +<p>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?”</p> +<p>“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.”</p> +<p>“Where is it going to?”</p> +<p>“North Bromwich.”</p> +<p>“And where does it come from?”</p> +<p>“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.”</p> +<p>“Is it anywhere near a place called Felindre? I +think it must be.”</p> +<p>“Right, my son. The pipe-line goes through +Felindre. Sixty or eighty mile from here.”</p> +<p>“My people come from Felindre . . .”</p> +<p><a name="page160"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +160</span>“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. . . +.”</p> +<p>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. . . .</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>She was a curious mixture of shyness and friendliness, and her +serious eyes examined Edwin <a name="page161"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 161</span>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.</p> +<p>“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.</p> +<p>“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.</p> +<h4><a name="page162"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +162</span>II</h4> +<p>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.</p> +<p>“Well, here he is at last,” said Aunt Laura. +“We’ve been talking about you, Edwin.”</p> +<p>Edwin had guessed as much.</p> +<p>“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.</p> +<p>“I expect you’re hungry, Edwin,” she said. . +. .</p> +<p>“No. . . . I’m not hungry, thanks. +What is it?”</p> +<p>“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. . . .”</p> +<p>“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 <a +name="page163"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 163</span>time you +were getting back to St. Luke’s. We thought you had +better go on Monday.”</p> +<p>“Monday?” It was now Saturday.</p> +<p>“Yes. . . . Monday. It is fortunate that +your uncle has to go into North Bromwich on business that day. . +.”</p> +<p>“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.</p> +<p>Edwin burned with sudden and quite unreasonable +indignation.</p> +<p>“And you agreed to this, father?”</p> +<p>“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. . . +.”</p> +<p>“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 . . +.”</p> +<p>“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?”</p> +<p>“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 +. . .”</p> +<p>“We weren’t considering your feelings so much as +your good,” said Aunt Laura complacently.</p> +<p>“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 <a name="page164"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +164</span>touch with all the work the form was doing. I +shouldn’t be able to pick it up. It’s rotten . +. . rotten . . .”</p> +<p>“Edwin, you will distress your father . . .”</p> +<p>“Oh, Aunt Laura, do let father speak for +himself.”</p> +<p>Immense volumes of yellow smoke signalled Uncle Albert’s +distress.</p> +<p>“Father . . .”</p> +<p>“It’s difficult, Edwin . . .”</p> +<p>“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 . . .”</p> +<p>“Edwin . . .” warningly, from Aunt Laura.</p> +<p>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.”</p> +<p>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 <a name="page165"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +165</span>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.</p> +<p>“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.”</p> +<p>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 <a name="page166"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 166</span>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.</p> +<p>“No doubt Edwin did not understand. You know more +about the people in the town than we do, Laura.”</p> +<p>“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.</p> +<p>“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.”</p> +<p>“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.”.</p> +<p>On a matter of fact, and one outside controversy, Uncle Albert +felt that he was safe in giving his support.</p> +<p>“I quite understand that,” said Mr. Ingleby, +“but it’s a simple matter. Edwin can come with +me.”</p> +<p>“Oh, father, how wonderful!”</p> +<p>“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 <a name="page167"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +167</span>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.</p> +<p>“If we are going on Monday I had better think of +packing,” he said. “Shall I need to take many +things, father?”</p> +<p>“Oh, don’t worry your father, Edwin,” said +Aunt Laura.</p> +<h4>III</h4> +<p>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 <a name="page168"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 168</span>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>“Are you sure you have all the prayer-books, +Albert?” she asked anxiously.</p> +<p><a name="page169"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 169</span>Uncle +Albert regretfully knocked out his pipe. “Yes, my +dear,” he said.</p> +<p>“Don’t scatter those ashes all over the fireplace, +Albert. The least you can do is to keep the room tidy on +Sunday.”</p> +<p>“Yes, my dear.”</p> +<p>“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.”</p> +<p>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. . . .”</p> +<p>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 +<a name="page170"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 170</span>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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 <a +name="page171"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 171</span>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>“<i>When the wicked man turneth away from his wickedness +and doeth that which is lawful and right</i>. . . .” +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 <a name="page172"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 172</span>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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 <a +name="page173"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 173</span>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. . . .</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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 +<a name="page174"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 174</span>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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 <a name="page175"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +175</span>enough for the son of the opulent Walter Willis, he +must surely be good enough for the son of an ordinary Halesby +tradesman.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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 <a name="page176"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +176</span>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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 <a +name="page177"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 177</span>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.</p> +<p>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 . . . +“<i>And now to God the father</i>. . . .” The +organist launched into his latest achievement: the Gavotte from +Mignon.</p> +<p>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 <a +name="page178"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 178</span>dinner, +for, as Edwin had noticed, the liturgy of the Church of England +has some value as an <i>apéritif</i>. 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.</p> +<p>“Oh, I don’t know, my dear. . . . It +wasn’t my turn, you know.”</p> +<p>“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.”</p> +<p>“I don’t think I should do that,” said Uncle +Albert, with some alarm.</p> +<p>She laughed gently. “Don’t be an old +juggins,” she said.</p> +<p>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. . . .</p> +<h4>IV</h4> +<p>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.</p> +<p>Even at this hour of the day the Sabbath atmosphere imposed +itself on the countryside. The road that they followed was +long and straight <a name="page179"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +179</span>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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 <a name="page180"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +180</span>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.</p> +<p>“It’s a funny thing, father,” Edwin said, +“but I don’t even know where we are going to-morrow. +. . .”</p> +<p>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.”</p> +<p>“Somerset . . .? I didn’t even know it was +Somerset.”</p> +<p>“No. . . . Well, as I say, it was another +world.”</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>“But what part of Somerset?”</p> +<p>“The eastern end.”</p> +<p>That was a pity. The farther west the better.</p> +<p>“I suppose it’s rather a flat county?”</p> +<p>“A great part of it. Did you ever hear of +Mendip?</p> +<p class="poetry">“‘The rugged miners poured to +war<br /> +From Mendip’s sunless caves.’”</p> +<p><a name="page181"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +181</span>“Yes, of course. . . .”</p> +<p>“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.”</p> +<p>“And what was the name of the village?”</p> +<p>“I don’t suppose you will ever have heard +it. It was called Highberrow.”</p> +<p>“Highberrow . . . no. It’s a jolly +name.”</p> +<p>“I don’t think it ever struck me in that +light.”</p> +<p>“Highberrow . . . is it right in the hills?”</p> +<p>“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.”</p> +<p>“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 . . .”</p> +<p>“Yes . . . I suppose it was. I scarcely +remember. Look right down in that deep pool. +That’s a trout.”</p> +<p>“A trout. . . . Where? Do show me . . +.”</p> +<p>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 <a +name="page182"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 182</span>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.</p> +<p>“Are there many trout in Mendip?” he asked.</p> +<p>“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.”</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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 <a +name="page183"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 183</span>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.</p> +<p>“But there are practically no trout in the Alph,” +said Coleridge.</p> +<h3><a name="page184"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +184</span>CHAPTER XI<br /> +THE THRESHOLD</h3> +<h4>I</h4> +<p><span class="smcap">The</span> 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.”</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>The windows of this room looked down obliquely <a +name="page185"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 185</span>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.</p> +<p>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. <i>Here begins +the sea that ends not till the world’s end</i>.</p> +<p>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 <a name="page186"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 186</span>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>“Where are we going?” Edwin asked.</p> +<p>“You’ll see in a minute,” said Mr. +Ingleby. And, in a minute, Edwin saw.</p> +<p>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 <a name="page187"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 187</span>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>“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 <a name="page188"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 188</span>man +who made this church must have devoted his life to it.”</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>“The muniment room. Why?”</p> +<p>“Because it was in the muniment room that Chatterton +pretended that he found the Rowley manuscripts.”</p> +<p>“Chatterton? Ah, yes. . . . Thomas +Chatterton, the poet.”</p> +<p>“Yes.”</p> +<p>“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.”</p> +<p>This gleam of professional interest tickled Edwin. +Keats: Beatings. Chatterton: Arsenious Oxide.</p> +<p>“They found Arsenic on his lips. He made no <a +name="page189"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 189</span>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.”</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>“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.”</p> +<p>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. <a name="page190"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 190</span>Ingleby could tell her very little, +but the landlady was able to supply him with a lot of gossip from +the Mendip villages.</p> +<p>“We heard that you were married,” she said.</p> +<p>“Yes,” replied Mr. Ingleby. “But +I’ve just had a great blow. I’ve lost my +wife.”</p> +<p>“Dear, dear . . . that’s very sad for +’ee.”</p> +<p>“Yes. . . . I shall never get over it.”</p> +<p>“And this is your eldest? My word, how time +flies!”</p> +<p>“Yes. . . . He’s the only one.”</p> +<p>“To look at him at first you wouldn’t say there +was much of an Ingleby in him.”</p> +<p>“No. He takes after his mother’s +family.”</p> +<p>“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.”</p> +<p>“I haven’t seen him for twenty years myself. +We’re cycling to Wringford to-morrow. We shall put up +with him.”</p> +<p>“Well, remember me to him. He was always a great +favourite of dad’s.”</p> +<p>“Will’s a good fellow.”</p> +<p>“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. . . .”</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p><a name="page191"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +191</span>“They tell me,” she went on in her soft +West-country voice, “that he’ve apprenticed that boy +Joe to Hares, the shoeing-smith.”</p> +<p>“I didn’t know that,” said Mr. Ingleby.</p> +<p>“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.”</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>“Father, what was that woman talking about? What +did she mean when she said that Uncle Will was a +gardener?”</p> +<p>“What did she mean?” Mr. Ingleby +laughed. “Why she meant what she said. He +<i>is</i> a gardener. He’s never been anything +else.”</p> +<p>“But, father . . . it’s impossible.”</p> +<p>“It isn’t impossible, boy. It’s the +truth. Didn’t you know? Didn’t mother +ever tell you?”</p> +<p>“No. . . . I don’t think she ever spoke of +him. I . . . I can’t understand it.”</p> +<p><a name="page192"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +192</span>“You sound as if it had come as a shock to you, +Eddie.”</p> +<p>“No . . . yes . . . I suppose it did.”</p> +<p>“You didn’t imagine that you’d find your +ancestry in Debrett, Eddie?”</p> +<p>“No . . . but that’s different. It’s . +. . it’s sort of bowled me over.”</p> +<p>Mr. Ingleby laughed. It seemed that he was really amused +at Edwin’s consternation.</p> +<p>“I suppose it’s natural for a schoolboy to be a +bit snobbish,” he said.</p> +<p>“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.”</p> +<p>“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.”</p> +<p>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.</p> +<h4>II</h4> +<p>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 <a name="page193"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 193</span>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.</p> +<p>“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?”</p> +<p>“No.” Edwin had been born too late in the +century.</p> +<p>“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.”</p> +<p><a name="page194"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +194</span>“He was a miner . . . ?”</p> +<p>“Yes. . . . A miner amongst other things. He +was a dowser too.”</p> +<p>“A dowser? What is that?”</p> +<p>“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.</p> +<p>“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.</p> +<p>“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 <a name="page195"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 195</span>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.</p> +<p>“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.</p> +<p>“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 <a +name="page196"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 196</span>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.”</p> +<p>“I can’t believe it, you know, father. +It’s so unlike you . . . and mother.”</p> +<p>“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. . . .</p> +<p>“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, <a name="page197"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +197</span>being the youngest, had to stay at home and nurse +her. It was in that way that I met Dr. Marshall. . . .</p> +<p>“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.</p> +<p>“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 <a name="page198"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 198</span>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.”</p> +<p>“Yes . . . he was worth having,” Edwin agreed.</p> +<p>“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.</p> +<p>“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 <a name="page199"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 199</span>salvation for himself. It was +a good plan, for it made the responsibility definite. . . .</p> +<p>“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.</p> +<p>“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 <a name="page200"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 200</span>forgetting that you don’t know +the legend and have never seen the gorge. . . .</p> +<p>“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. . . .</p> +<p>“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 <i>Religio Medici</i> by Sir Thomas +Browne.”</p> +<p>“I know it,” said Edwin.</p> +<p><a name="page201"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +201</span>“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.</p> +<p>“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 <a name="page202"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 202</span>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.</p> +<p>“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.</p> +<p>“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 +<i>are</i> 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 <a name="page203"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 203</span>young, and there’s plenty of +time ahead of you.’</p> +<p>“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.</p> +<p>“‘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, <a name="page204"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 204</span>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.</p> +<p>“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.</p> +<p>“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. . .’</p> +<p><a name="page205"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +205</span>“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. . .’</p> +<p>“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.</p> +<p>“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.</p> +<p>“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 <a name="page206"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +206</span>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.</p> +<p>“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.</p> +<p>“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.</p> +<p>“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 <a +name="page207"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 207</span>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.</p> +<p>“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 <i>Self Help</i>, written by a +man named Smiles.</p> +<p>“So when you hear of a self-made man it may mot mean +much; but a self-educated man, I can <a name="page208"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 208</span>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.”</p> +<p>“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.”</p> +<p>“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.”</p> +<p>They said good-night, and Edwin kissed his <a +name="page209"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 209</span>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>“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 <a +name="page210"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +210</span>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.</p> +<p>The cathedral clock slowly chimed two. Edwin turned over +and fell asleep in a mood of strange, exalted happiness.</p> +<h3><a name="page211"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +211</span>CHAPTER XII<br /> +THE HILLS</h3> +<h4>I</h4> +<p><span class="smcap">Under</span> 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.</p> +<p>“Good-maarnin’,” they said, and the very +dialect was friendly.</p> +<p>“We’re over the worst of the road,” said Mr. +Ingleby. “In a minute or two we shall see the +hills.”</p> +<p>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. <a name="page212"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +212</span>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.</p> +<p>“Now that we are in Somerset we should drink the wine of +the country.”</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>“Yes, it’s good cider,” said Mr. Ingleby, +tasting. “Where does it come from?” he asked +the landlord, who brought it.</p> +<p>“It do be a tidy drop o’ zidur,” said the +man. “It do come from Mr. Atwell’s varm into +Burrowdown.”</p> +<p>“In” with the accusative, thought Edwin.</p> +<p>“Is old Aaron Atwell still living?” asked his +father.</p> +<p>The landlord laughed. The gentleman must have been away +a long time from these parts. Mr. Atwell had been dead +these fifteen years.</p> +<p>“The cider’s the same,” said Mr. +Ingleby.</p> +<p>“’Tis a marvellous archard, sure +’nuff,” said the landlord. “And last year +was a wunnerful year for apples. ’Tis all +accardin’ . . .”</p> +<p><a name="page213"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 213</span>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.</p> +<p>“Take the next turn to the right,” shouted Mr. +Ingleby to Edwin, riding ahead.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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 <a name="page214"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 214</span>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.</p> +<p>“Why, John,” she said. “It do be a +treat to see you.”</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>“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.</p> +<p>“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 <a name="page215"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 215</span>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.</p> +<p>“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.”</p> +<p>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.”</p> +<p>“Do you think so?” said Mr. Ingleby.</p> +<p><a name="page216"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +216</span>“Joe’s a great boy, too,” said Aunt +Sarah Jane lovingly.</p> +<p>It was clear enough who was the idol of this household.</p> +<p>“There now, your dinner will be spoiling. Take the +boy upstairs, John.”</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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 <a name="page217"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +217</span>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.</p> +<p>“When are we going to Highberrow, father?”</p> +<p>“And this was to be a restful holiday,” Mr. +Ingleby laughed. “Why, now, if you like.”</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>“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.”</p> +<p>“Oh, we won’t be long,” said Mr. +Ingleby.</p> +<p>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 <a name="page218"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +218</span>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.</p> +<p>“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. . . .”</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>“This is the place that I told you about,” he +said.</p> +<p>“The place where my grandfather went out at night and +blasted the rock?”</p> +<p>“Yes.”</p> +<p><a name="page219"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 219</span>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>“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. . . .”</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p><a name="page220"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +220</span>“This was your grandfather’s house, +Eddie. It was here that I was born.”</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>“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.”</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>“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. . . +.”</p> +<p>In the whole of the lane the school was the only whole +building.</p> +<p>“If you come to the edge of the Batch you will see the +valley bottom where I spent my childhood with your +great-grandmother.”</p> +<p><a name="page221"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 221</span>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.</p> +<p>From the chimney a trail of smoke dwindled up against the grey +hill-side.</p> +<p>“I should like to see inside it,” said Edwin.</p> +<p>“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.”</p> +<p>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. . . .</p> +<p>They passed the windy farm once more. A man, in muddy +gaiters, was driving cows into the yard. <a +name="page222"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 222</span>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.</p> +<p>“Who do you think he is?” Edwin asked.</p> +<p>“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. . . .”</p> +<p>“Won’t you stop and speak to him?”</p> +<p>“Why should we?”</p> +<p>“But he would be awfully pleased to see you and know who +you are. . . .”</p> +<p>“I don’t expect he would.”</p> +<p>A moment later Mr. Ingleby said,</p> +<p>“Now, the ruins of this cottage ought to interest you, +Edwin.”</p> +<p>“Why? Is it one of ours?”</p> +<p>“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 <a +name="page223"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 223</span>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.”</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>“You don’t know me, Isaac?” said Mr. +Ingleby.</p> +<p>“Noa. . . . I can’t say I do know +’ee.”</p> +<p>“I’m John Ingleby.”</p> +<p>“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.”</p> +<p>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 <a +name="page224"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 224</span>fine show +of geraniums in the window. Isaac followed Mr. +Ingleby’s eyes towards these flowers.</p> +<p>“Purty, ban’t they?” he said with +pride. “Your brother Will sent mother +they.”</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>“Here’s cousin John come to see ’ee, +mother,” said Isaac, bending over her.</p> +<p>“John? What John?” said the old lady.</p> +<p>It struck Edwin at once that her speech was purer and more +delicate than that of her son.</p> +<p>“John Ingleby, Aunt Lydia,” said Edwin’s +father.</p> +<p>“You need not raise your voice, my dear,” she +said. “My sight and my hearing are wonderful, thank +God.”</p> +<p>“Then you remember me, Aunt Lydia?”</p> +<p>“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 <a +name="page225"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 225</span>done great +things in the world. You’re a doctor, like poor Dr. +Marshall.”</p> +<p>“No . . . I’m not a doctor. I’m in +business. I’m a chemist.”</p> +<p>“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.” . . .</p> +<p>“Yes, this is Edwin.”</p> +<p>“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.”</p> +<p>Edwin went to her, and she kissed him. Her face was so +cold and smooth that she might almost have been dead.</p> +<p>“And how is your dear wife, John?”</p> +<p>“I’ve had a terrible blow, Aunt Lydia. +I’ve lost her.”</p> +<p>“Ah . . . that was bad for you, and bad for the boy, +too.”</p> +<p>“I shall never get over it.” Mr. +Ingleby’s voice trembled.</p> +<p>“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.”</p> +<p>“Never, Aunt Lydia . . . never. . .”</p> +<p>“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 <a +name="page226"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 226</span>when the +time comes you’ll remember what I said.”</p> +<p>“No, Aunt Lydia . . . never.”</p> +<p>“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.”</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>“Now, mother, that’s enough, my dear,” he +said.</p> +<p>“Kiss me, John,” she said. And Mr. Ingleby +kissed her.</p> +<p>“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.”</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>“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.</p> +<p><a name="page227"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 227</span>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>At last Edwin said,—</p> +<p>“I think Aunt Lydia has a very beautiful face. She +looks like some old grand lady.”</p> +<p>“She is very like your grandfather,” said his <a +name="page228"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +228</span>father. “She must be over ninety. It +is a great age.”</p> +<p>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.</p> +<h4>II</h4> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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 <a name="page229"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 229</span>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.</p> +<p>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 <a name="page230"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +230</span>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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, <a name="page231"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +231</span>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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 name="page232"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +232</span>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.</p> +<p>Just before he left St. Luke’s he had been reading +Darwin’s <i>Origin of Species</i>, 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.</p> +<p>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 <a name="page233"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 233</span>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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 <a name="page234"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +234</span>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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 <a name="page235"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 235</span>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.</p> +<p>“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.”</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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 <a name="page236"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 236</span>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>“And I suppose grandfather lived there till he +died,” said Edwin.</p> +<p>“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?”</p> +<p><a name="page237"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +237</span>“Noa . . . he were never happy.”</p> +<p>“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.”</p> +<p>“I should like to have seen him dowsing,” said +Edwin. “I haven’t even seen the twigs that they +use.”</p> +<p>“Why, that would have been easy enough. Only the +other day I throwed out a lot that belonged to your +grandfather.”</p> +<p>Edwin blushed at this sacrilege. “And could Uncle +Will find water with a twig?” he asked.</p> +<p>“Not I,” laughed his uncle. “But they +do say it runs in families. Have you ever tried, +John?”</p> +<p>“I tried when I was a boy,” said Mr. Ingleby, +“but nothing happened.”</p> +<p>“I expect our Joe could,” said Aunt Sarah Jane, +with infinite faith in her offspring.</p> +<p>“No, mother, I’ve tried it,” said Joe, from +the lamplit corner where he was wrestling with the science of +sanitary inspection.</p> +<p>“I wonder if I could . . .” said Edwin.</p> +<p>“Well, you shall have a try,” laughed his +uncle.</p> +<p>“At this time o’ night?” said Aunt Sarah +Jane, scandalised.</p> +<p>“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.”</p> +<p>“You’m mad, the two of you,” said his aunt +with a sigh.</p> +<p><a name="page238"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 238</span>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.</p> +<p>“Hazel do work as well,” he said, “but +father always used the thorn.”</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>“There you are,” said his uncle, +“you’ve a found our water-pipe.”</p> +<p>“Hold the rod down, uncle,” Edwin said.</p> +<p>He did so, and now the mysterious force was so strong that the +arms of the twig snapped.</p> +<p>“Now, you’ve gone and broke it,” said Uncle +Will. “Come in or you’ll catch cold.”</p> +<p>They went in together.</p> +<p>“Well . . .?” said Mr. Ingleby.</p> +<p>“Oh, he’s a proper dowser, sure enough,” +said Uncle Will.</p> +<p>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 <a name="page239"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +239</span>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<h4><a name="page240"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +240</span>III</h4> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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 <a +name="page241"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 241</span>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.</p> +<p>“Edwin . . . I’ve been thinking a good deal about +your future.”</p> +<p>“Yes, father?”</p> +<p>“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. . . .”</p> +<p>“Yes.”</p> +<p>“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.”</p> +<p>“Father . . . what do you mean?”</p> +<p>“To begin with, there’s the expense.”</p> +<p>“But I shall get a scholarship. I’ll work +like anything. I’ll make sure of it.”</p> +<p>“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 <a name="page242"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +242</span>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.”</p> +<p>“I shouldn’t want their pleasures.”</p> +<p>“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?”</p> +<p>“A fellowship. . . .”</p> +<p>“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.”</p> +<p>“But mother and I always said . . .”</p> +<p>“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?”</p> +<p>“No . . . of course not.”</p> +<p>“So I think that while I am living you should have the +chance of learning a useful profession. What about +doctoring?”</p> +<p>“But that would be expensive too.”</p> +<p>“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 <a name="page243"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 243</span>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.”</p> +<p>“Father, I’m sure it would cost too much. +Six years, you know. . . .”</p> +<p>“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.”</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>“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.”</p> +<p>“And what did she say, father?”</p> +<p>“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.”</p> +<p>“Yes . . . she must have known what a <a +name="page244"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +244</span>disappointment it would be. Father, I wish you +would think it over again.”</p> +<p>“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. . . .”</p> +<p>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.</p> +<h2><a name="page245"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 245</span>BOOK +II</h2> +<blockquote><p><a name="page247"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +247</span>. . . <i>so that with much ado I was corrupted</i>, +<i>and made to learn the dirty devices of the world</i>.</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><span class="smcap">Thomas +Traherne</span>.</p> +</blockquote> +<h3><a name="page249"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +249</span>CHAPTER I<br /> +THE CITY OF IRON</h3> +<h4>I</h4> +<p><span class="smcap">The</span> 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.</p> +<p><a name="page250"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 250</span>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.</p> +<p>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 <a name="page251"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +251</span>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.</p> +<p>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.”</p> +<p>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 <a name="page252"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 252</span>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.”</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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 <a +name="page253"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 253</span>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.</p> +<p>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 <i>per centum</i> 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.”</p> +<p>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 <a +name="page254"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 254</span>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.</p> +<p>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 <a name="page255"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +255</span>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>The part of the examination that he enjoyed most was the +<i>viva-voce</i> in Classics. For this trial <a +name="page256"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 256</span>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.”</p> +<p>“What would you like, sir?”</p> +<p>“Oh, it’s not what I should like. What would +you like to read? Something that really appeals to +you.”</p> +<p>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?</p> +<p>He picked out the Antigone, and chose the great +chorus:—</p> +<blockquote><p>Ἔρως +ἀνίκατε +μάχαν,<br /> +Ἔρως, ὁς ἐν +κτήμασι +πίπτεις, . . .</p> +</blockquote> +<p>“Let’s have it in Greek first.”</p> +<p>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 <a name="page257"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 257</span>eyes, beneath their tortoiseshell +spectacles, were brimming with tears.</p> +<p>“That will do,” he said, “unless you’d +prefer to go on . . .”</p> +<p>Edwin read the antistrophe.</p> +<p>“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?”</p> +<p>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.”</p> +<p>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.</p> +<h4>II</h4> +<p>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 <a name="page258"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +258</span>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.</p> +<p>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 <a name="page259"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +259</span>watched the others with a good deal of interest and +speculation.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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 <a name="page260"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 260</span>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.</p> +<p>“Mr. Harrop, please,” said the porter. And +Mr. Harrop pocketed his hunter and disdainfully entered the +office.</p> +<p>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 <a +name="page261"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +261</span>determination to go through with this adventure at all +costs.</p> +<p>“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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>“We seem to be the last.”</p> +<p>“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.</p> +<p>“Mr. Ingleby, please.”</p> +<p>Edwin pulled himself together and entered the Dean’s +office.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>“Mr. Ingleby?” said the first. His voice was +refined, if a little too precise.</p> +<p>“Yes, sir.”</p> +<p>“Well, Mr. Ingleby, what are you going to do? <a +name="page262"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 262</span>Ah, yes . . +. you are the Astill scholar. Very good. Very +good. Are you proposing to take a London degree?”</p> +<p>“No, sir. North Bromwich.”</p> +<p>“Well . . . it is possible you may change your mind +later. Have you taken the London Matriculation?”</p> +<p>“No, sir. I was on the classical side at St. +Luke’s. I was reading for a scholarship at +Oxford.”</p> +<p>“And changed your mind . . . or” (shrewdly) +“had it changed for you?”</p> +<p>“Yes, sir.”</p> +<p>“Is your father a doctor?”</p> +<p>“No.” It really doesn’t matter what my +father is, thought Edwin, and the Dean, as though answering his +reflection, said:—</p> +<p>“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.”</p> +<p>Mr. Hadley acknowledged the introduction with a lift of the +right eyebrow and Edwin left the room.</p> +<p>“Mr. Martin,” said the secretary, as he left, and +“Mr. Martin, please,” the porter repeated.</p> +<p>“I say, wait a moment for me,” said the +loose-limbed Irishman to Edwin in passing.</p> +<p>It was so friendly as to be cheering.</p> +<p><a name="page263"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +263</span>“He seems a decent old bird,” said Martin, +emerging a few minutes later.</p> +<p>“I thought you said he was your cousin?”</p> +<p>“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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>“By the way, what’s your school?” said Denis +Martin.</p> +<p>“St. Luke’s.”</p> +<p>“Never heard of it.”</p> +<p>“I don’t suppose you would, in Ireland.”</p> +<p>“Oh, I didn’t go to school in Ireland. +Nobody does. I was at Marlborough. Is St. +Luke’s one of those soccer schools?”</p> +<p>“Good Lord, no. . . . We play rugger. +We’re pretty good.”</p> +<p>“Who do you play?”</p> +<p>“Merchant Taylors and St. Paul’s, and one or two +others.”</p> +<p><a name="page264"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +264</span>“H’m. . . . They’re day +schools, aren’t they? Is St. Luke’s that +sort?”</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>“I expect we’re a pretty mixed lot here,” he +said.</p> +<p>And Edwin, with the guilty consciousness of being more than a +little mixed himself, replied: “Yes.”</p> +<p>“An extraordinary collection. That great dark +fellow looks an absolute tyke. Then there’s the chap +with the waistcoat—”</p> +<p>“Yes. . . . Harrop was the name.”</p> +<p>“I don’t know the name,” said Martin +dubiously. “Never heard of the family. He was +wearing an Oriel tie.”</p> +<p>“Oriel. . . . Do you mean Oxford?”</p> +<p>“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?”</p> +<p>In ancient days, when he had come into North Bromwich shopping +with his mother, Edwin had <a name="page265"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 265</span>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.</p> +<p>“I know one place,” said Martin. “I +should think it’s all right. The food’s decent +anyway.”</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>“I’ll pay,” said Martin. “We can +square up afterwards.”</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p><a name="page266"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +266</span>“In the country? I didn’t know there +was any here. Have you any decent shooting?”</p> +<p>“Unfortunately, no.” He remembered, however, +the solitary trout under the bridge below the abbey. +“There’s fishing of sorts,” he said.</p> +<p>“What sorts?”</p> +<p>“Oh, trout—”</p> +<p>“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.”</p> +<p>The subject was dangerous, and so Edwin asked him where he was +living: “With your cousin, I suppose.”</p> +<p>“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?”</p> +<p>“Ingleby.”</p> +<p>“Ingleby. . . Right-o.” He boarded a +passing bus with the air of stepping on to a coach and four.</p> +<p>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 name="page267"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +267</span>a repetition of the tremendous battering that he seemed +already to have undergone.</p> +<p>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 +<i>savoir-vivre</i> 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.</p> +<p>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 <a name="page268"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +268</span>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.</p> +<p>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. <a +name="page269"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 269</span>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>Through a short but sulphurous tunnel the train <a +name="page270"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 270</span>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>The second parcel contained a number of <a +name="page271"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 271</span>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.</p> +<h3><a name="page272"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +272</span>CHAPTER II<br /> +MORTALITY BEHOLD . . .</h3> +<h4>I</h4> +<p><span class="smcap">He</span> 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.</p> +<p>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 <a +name="page273"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +273</span>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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 <a name="page274"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +274</span>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?”</p> +<p>“No . . . I’m a medical student. I’m +going to be a doctor.”</p> +<p>“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 <a +name="page275"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 275</span>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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 <a name="page276"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 276</span>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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 <a +name="page277"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 277</span>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.</p> +<p>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?</p> +<p>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 <a name="page278"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 278</span>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 +<i>To-Day</i> 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 (<i>de +rigueur</i>, 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.</p> +<h4>II</h4> +<p>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 +<a name="page279"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 279</span>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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 <a name="page280"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +280</span>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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 <a name="page281"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +281</span>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.</p> +<p>“I say,” he said immediately after the lecture, +“have you put yourself down for a part?”</p> +<p>“A part? What do you mean?”</p> +<p>“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—”</p> +<p>“All right,” said Edwin. “Which shall +it be?”</p> +<p>“Well, I think an Upper will be better. +There’s less fat and mess about it. We’d better +go and choose one now.”</p> +<p>“All right.”</p> +<p>“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 <a name="page282"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 282</span>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.</p> +<p>“How do they get here?” he asked Martin.</p> +<p>“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 <a name="page283"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 283</span>at +him the other day. It’s always better to choose an +old one. The muscles are cleaner. Less +work.”</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>“I say, this isn’t going to turn you up, is +it?”</p> +<p>“No. . . . I’m all right. I was only . +. . thinking.”</p> +<p>“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.”</p> +<p>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 <a +name="page284"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 284</span>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? . . .</p> +<p>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.”</p> +<p>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 <a name="page285"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +285</span>his buttonhole. He took an elaborate meerschaum +pipe out of his mouth to protest:—</p> +<p>“Good Lord, Brown, there’s another cutaneous nerve +gone phut. Do be careful!”</p> +<p>And Brown, with an exaggerated earnestness:—</p> +<p>“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.</p> +<p>“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.’”</p> +<p>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?”</p> +<p>“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.</p> +<p>“Yes,” said Martin, “this sort of thing must +be rattling good practice for surgery.”</p> +<p><a name="page286"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +286</span>“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.”</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>The only feature of the dissecting room that now seemed +objectionable was the smell of the powerful <a +name="page287"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 287</span>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>Brown was the more approachable of the two, and for Brown, +Edwin soon conceived something <a name="page288"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 288</span>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.</p> +<p>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 <i>Anatomy</i> +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.</p> +<p>“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 <a +name="page289"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 289</span>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.”</p> +<p>He shook his head seriously, and the puzzled, dogged +expression of frustrate determination that <a +name="page290"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 290</span>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 . . .”</p> +<p>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 <a name="page291"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +291</span>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.”</p> +<h4>III</h4> +<p>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.</p> +<p>Edwin was gradually becoming a regular customer at this place; +for Martin’s delicate fancy for <a name="page292"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 292</span>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.</p> +<p>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 <a +name="page293"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 293</span>Rabelaisian +stories. He wore buttoned boots and was very nearly a +first-class billiard player.</p> +<p>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. . . .</p> +<p>In the intervals between lectures they would congregate in +their gowns in a dismal chamber, <a name="page294"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 294</span>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.</p> +<p>“Isn’t it a damnable thing,” he said +indignantly, “in a school of this size to see a measly list +like that?”</p> +<p>“You can stick mine down,” said Edwin.</p> +<p>“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.”</p> +<p>“I play soccer,” said Maskew.</p> +<p>“You would,” said W.G. “Nice +gentlemanly game.”</p> +<p>“Rugger isn’t all beef,” put in Edwin.</p> +<p>“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.”</p> +<p>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 <a name="page295"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 295</span>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.”</p> +<p>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.”</p> +<h3><a name="page296"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +296</span>CHAPTER III<br /> +CARNIVAL</h3> +<h4>I</h4> +<p><span class="smcap">Christmas</span> 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.</p> +<p>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 <a +name="page297"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 297</span>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.</p> +<p>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 <a +name="page298"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 298</span>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.</p> +<p>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 name="page299"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 299</span>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.</p> +<p>“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.”</p> +<p>“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.”</p> +<p>“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.”</p> +<p>“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 . . .”</p> +<p>In spite of the temptations of this adventure, Edwin +declined. In the dissecting room, half an hour later, Brown +hailed him:—</p> +<p>“What the devil were you doing with that pig of a +brewer, Ingleby?”</p> +<p>“He’s an old school friend of mine.”</p> +<p>“Well, I should keep that dark, if I were you. <a +name="page300"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 300</span>He’s +a bad hat, that chap. We don’t want Ingleby’s +virginal innocence corrupted, do we, Maskew?”</p> +<p>“Oh, he’s not a bad sort,” Edwin +protested.</p> +<p>“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?”</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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 <a name="page301"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +301</span>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.</p> +<p>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 <a name="page302"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +302</span>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>“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.</p> +<p>“What do you mean, boy?”</p> +<p>“I think you know what I mean. . . . There’s +really no need for you to wait up for me like this.”</p> +<p>“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.”</p> +<p>“You are anxious about me. Why should you <a +name="page303"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 303</span>be more +anxious about me when I come in at twelve than when I come in at +six?”</p> +<p>“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—”</p> +<p>“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?”</p> +<p>“I like to see you when you come in.” Edwin +was uncomfortably aware of this.</p> +<p>“But suppose I was drunk when I came in, +father—” he said.</p> +<p>“I don’t suppose anything of the +sort—”</p> +<p>“No, but supposing I was. What advantage would +there be in your seeing me? What good would it +do?”</p> +<p>“At any rate I should know that there was a +danger.”</p> +<p>“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.”</p> +<p>“I sincerely hope it isn’t, Eddie. It +isn’t pleasant to me to hear you talk like that.”</p> +<p>“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 <a +name="page304"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 304</span>other, if +it’s only to see what it feels like. Surely, father, +<i>you</i>—”</p> +<p>“Edwin, Edwin. . . . Really we mustn’t be +personal. You forget that I’m your father.”</p> +<p>“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.”</p> +<p>“But, my dear boy,” said Mr. Ingleby, with a +nervous laugh, “you seem to neglect the fundamental fact +that I’m your father.”</p> +<p>“I don’t see why that should prevent us being +honest. I don’t see why it should prevent you from +trusting me—”</p> +<p>“I do trust you, Eddie.”</p> +<p>“Then that’s all right; so you needn’t wait +up for me again.”</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>“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 <a name="page305"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +305</span>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.”</p> +<p>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.”</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p><a name="page306"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 306</span>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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 +<a name="page307"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 307</span>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.</p> +<p>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 <a name="page308"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +308</span>intervals of silence, just drinking in this peculiar +and soothing atmosphere. Eventually these diversions made +Mr. Ingleby uneasy.</p> +<p>“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.”</p> +<p>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.</p> +<h4>II</h4> +<p>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.</p> +<p>Early in the Lent term Edwin found himself introduced to a new +stratum of North Bromwich society, through the accident of his +acquaintance <a name="page309"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +309</span>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 <i>en +masse</i> 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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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 <a name="page310"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 310</span>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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 <a name="page311"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 311</span><i>première danseuse</i> in a +musical comedy company, on whom he was reputed to have spent +money and passion lavishly but without the least suggestion of +grossness.</p> +<p>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 <i>Poems of Passion</i> 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.</p> +<p>“Oh, by the way, there’s opium in it,” he +said casually.</p> +<p>Visions of Coleridge and de Quincey invaded Edwin’s +mind. He stopped filling his pipe.</p> +<p>“Opium? Why on earth do you put opium in +it?”</p> +<p>“It is an aid to the imagination,” said Freddie, +“and it deadens pain.”</p> +<p>“Mental pain,” he added significantly, after a +pause. “For that alcohol is useless. I’ve +tried it.”</p> +<p><a name="page312"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +312</span>“I think I’ll have some of my own, if you +don’t mind,” said Edwin.</p> +<p>“I quite agree with you. It would be much +wiser,” said St. Aubyn. “Luckily you have no +need for it. <i>Facilis descensus Averni</i>.”</p> +<p>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 <i>Poems of Passion</i>, Edwin might have +agreed with him.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>“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 <a name="page313"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 313</span>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.</p> +<p>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 <a name="page314"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 314</span>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.”</p> +<p>“Oh, I think the exam. will be all right,” said +Edwin airily.</p> +<p>“I don’t like to hear you speak like that, +Edwin,” said his father. “Over-confidence is a +dangerous thing.”</p> +<p>“But it wouldn’t be any better pretending that I +didn’t think it was all right, surely?”</p> +<p>“Well, humility is a great virtue.”</p> +<p>“Not any greater than honesty.”</p> +<p>“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?”</p> +<p>“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.”</p> +<p>“If you can trust yourself—”</p> +<p>“Well, I think I can. . . . And I wish you’d +believe in it.”</p> +<p>“I do, Edwin. Only naturally I’m +anxious. You’re a child. Where is this . . . +this performance held?”</p> +<p>“At the Queen’s Theatre this year.”</p> +<p><a name="page315"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +315</span>“Well, I suppose that is better than a music +hall.”</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>“Oh, I expect W.G. will give me a shake-down in his +digs.”</p> +<p>“I suppose,” said Mr. Ingleby, with a shade of +anxiety, “that Brown is also on the +committee—”.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>“Oh, no, old W.G.’s far too sober for this sort of +thing.”</p> +<p>It was an unfortunate word.</p> +<p>“Sober?” repeated Mr. Ingleby. “Well, +I suppose you will have to go; but I do hope—”</p> +<p>He didn’t say what he hoped; but Edwin knew, and was +content to leave it at that.</p> +<h4>III</h4> +<p>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 <a +name="page316"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 316</span>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 . . .”</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>There, among the crowd, Edwin found Griffin, a <a +name="page317"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 317</span>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>“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 <a +name="page318"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 318</span>you can +understand. I shouldn’t talk like this to any other +person in the world.”</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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 +<a name="page319"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +319</span>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.</p> +<p>“Now get along with you,” said the stage-manager, +pushing him forward.</p> +<p>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 <a name="page320"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 320</span>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.</p> +<p>“Go on,” said the impatient voice of +Mephistopheles in the wings. “Buck up.”</p> +<p>“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.</p> +<p>“Splendid,” said the voice of Mephistopheles.</p> +<p>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 <a +name="page321"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 321</span>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.</p> +<p>“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!”</p> +<p>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 <a name="page322"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 322</span>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.</p> +<p>“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.</p> +<p>That vision ended, and to it succeeded one of cool, deserted +streets with far too many kerb-stones <a name="page323"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 323</span>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>“I say, W.G.,” he said, “do you think I was +drunk?”</p> +<p>“Drunk?” said W.G. “Good God, you +didn’t wake me to ask me that? You’ll know all +right in the morning.”</p> +<p>Edwin only knew that his head was splitting and that he was +hellishly cold.</p> +<h3><a name="page324"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +324</span>CHAPTER IV<br /> +SCIENCE</h3> +<h4>I</h4> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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 <a name="page325"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 325</span>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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 <a +name="page326"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 326</span>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.</p> +<p>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 <a name="page327"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +327</span>other, Edwin found himself becoming most proficient in +his knowledge of the subject.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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 +name="page328"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 328</span>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.</p> +<p>“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.”</p> +<p>“Knocks all the poetry out of it though,” said +Maskew.</p> +<p>“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 <a name="page329"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +329</span>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.”</p> +<p>“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.</p> +<p>“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.”</p> +<p>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 <i>Romeo and Juliet</i> or the love +poems of Shelley.</p> +<p>“It would be rather rotten if you did away with love, +W.G.,” he said.</p> +<p>“Oh, I’m not talking about love,” said W.G. +“I’m talking about a fellow’s ordinary physical +<a name="page330"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +330</span>needs. Being in love is not the same thing as +that.”</p> +<p>“It is usually,” said the cynical Maskew.</p> +<p>“It’s all a ridiculous mix-up,” said +Edwin. “Thank God it doesn’t worry +us.”</p> +<h4>II</h4> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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 <a name="page331"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +331</span>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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 <a +name="page332"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +332</span>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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 <a name="page333"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +333</span>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.</p> +<p>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, <a +name="page334"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 334</span>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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, <a +name="page335"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 335</span>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?”</p> +<p>“No, sir. Who wrote it?”</p> +<p>“A man named Francis Thompson. He was a medical +student at Manchester, several years senior to me.”</p> +<p>“Oh, I know his name,” said Boyce. “He +is a friend of my father’s.”</p> +<p>“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 +<a name="page336"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 336</span>is the +heart of a very old or a very dissolute man. The coronary +arteries are stiff with atheroma.”</p> +<p>“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—”</p> +<p>“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.</p> +<p>“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.”</p> +<p>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?”</p> +<p>“I hadn’t the least idea. I imagined he +dreamed of nothing but bones and soft parts.”</p> +<p>“You would. . . . But he’s a wonderful chap +really. Are you keen on poetry?”</p> +<p>“Of course I am.”</p> +<p>“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 name="page337"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +337</span>a poet, you know. Bobby’s awfully keen on +his work. Do you know it?”</p> +<p>Edwin was ashamed to say he did not.</p> +<p>“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.”</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>Sometimes, while he was scrubbing his hands with carbolic +soap, the only thing that really banished <a +name="page338"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 338</span>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.</p> +<p>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 <i>Religio Medici</i>, 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 <a +name="page339"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 339</span>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>“What a topping night,” said Boyce. +“God . . . look at Vega!” He waved his long +arms and quoted:—</p> +<p class="poetry">“Or search the brow of eve, to catch<br +/> + In opal depths the first faint beat<br /> + Of Vega’s fiery heart. . . +.”</p> +<p><a name="page340"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +340</span>“Whose is that?”</p> +<p>“My guvnor’s. He’s a tremendous chap +on astronomy.”</p> +<p>“It’s damned good,” said Edwin, +thrilling.</p> +<p>“Not bad, is it? He’s a very sound man, the +guvnor. I think you’d like him.”</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>Boyce presented Edwin with a high social recommendation. +“A friend of Denis Martin’s,” he said. +Mrs. Boyce smiled on him.</p> +<p>“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.”</p> +<p>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 <a name="page341"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 341</span>sky: the kind of room that satisfied +all his own ideals of comfort and seclusion.</p> +<p>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 <i>Anthem of Earth</i> 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.</p> +<p>“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 <a name="page342"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +342</span>Thomas Browne, is an example. Then there’s +Rabelais.”</p> +<p>“There are heaps of others,” said Edwin.</p> +<p>“Well, yes. . . . Keats.”</p> +<p>“Byron and Akenside,” Edwin supplied from the +eighteenth century.</p> +<p>“I don’t know the gentleman,” said +Boyce.</p> +<p>“Well, then, Goldsmith and Crabbe. Crabbe’s +rather good, you know. And Shelley—”</p> +<p>“Shelley?”</p> +<p>“Yes, Shelley walked a hospital when he was in London +with Harriet.”</p> +<p>“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.”</p> +<p>“I’ve never heard of him.”</p> +<p>“No . . . he’s not well known, but I believe +he’s pretty good.”</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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 <a name="page343"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 343</span>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.</p> +<p>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 <a name="page344"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 344</span>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.</p> +<p>“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.”</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>When their silence had become altogether too ridiculous, Edwin +plucked up his courage and said, “Rotten thing this +war.”</p> +<p>“I don’t know,” said Willis. +“It’s all right for my old man.”</p> +<p>“What do you mean?”</p> +<p>“Iron. . . . We’re chock full of Government +work for South Africa: gun-carriages and rifle barrels. +You’re doing medicine, aren’t you?”</p> +<p><a name="page345"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +345</span>“Yes.”</p> +<p>“Lucky devil. You’re learning to cure +people, while I’m learning to make things to kill +them.”</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>“What for?” said Edwin, for want of something +better.</p> +<p>“I don’t know . . . unless it’s to celebrate +the Colenso casualties. I believe you’re +invited. I hope you’ll come.”</p> +<p>“Thanks,” said Edwin. But Willis was +gone.</p> +<h3><a name="page346"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +346</span>CHAPTER V<br /> +ROMANCE</h3> +<h4>I</h4> +<p><span class="smcap">Mr. Ingleby</span> 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.”</p> +<p>“The auctioneer?” asked Mr. Ingleby.</p> +<p>“No . . . the poet.”</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>“Oh, I think it went all right. Any +letters?”</p> +<p>“Yes . . . two. Here they are.” He +handed them to Edwin.</p> +<p>One of them was the invitation from Mawne. He showed it +to his father.</p> +<p>“A dance—” said Mr. Ingleby.</p> +<p>“Yes. . . . I suppose I’d better +go.”</p> +<p>“Your Aunt Laura told me about it. If it +won’t interfere with your work, I don’t see why you +shouldn’t.”</p> +<p>“I haven’t any proper clothes. Evening +dress, you know”</p> +<p><a name="page347"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +347</span>“I suppose that is quite necessary,” said +Mr. Ingleby regretfully.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>“I don’t think I’d better go, father,” +he said.</p> +<p>“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.”</p> +<p>The idea of a Halesby tailor’s cut was not <a +name="page348"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 348</span>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.</p> +<p>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 <i>To-Day</i>, +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 +<i>bona-fide</i> order, but a rather shabby way of making him pay +a bill that he had scamped for a couple of years.</p> +<p>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 <a name="page349"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 349</span>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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 <a name="page350"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 350</span>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.</p> +<p>“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?”</p> +<p>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.”</p> +<p>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 <a name="page351"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +351</span>in which his feet should be placed, and then invited +him to have a try at the waltz.</p> +<p>“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 . . . ”</p> +<p>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.”</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>“I am afraid,” said Professor Beagle formally at +the end of the first lesson. “I am afraid you have <a +name="page352"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 352</span>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.”</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>“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.”</p> +<p>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 <a +name="page353"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 353</span>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.”</p> +<p>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.</p> +<h4>II</h4> +<p>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, <a name="page354"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 354</span>all the best people wore stuffed in +the corner of their waistcoats.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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 <a name="page355"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 355</span>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.”</p> +<p>“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?”</p> +<p>It struck Edwin that he spoke rather contemptuously of his +hosts.</p> +<p>“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.</p> +<p>“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.</p> +<p>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 <a +name="page356"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 356</span>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.</p> +<p>“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.</p> +<p>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 +<a name="page357"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 357</span>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>“Well, have you struck any cuddle?” said Griffin +brutally, with his mouth full.</p> +<p>“Any what?”</p> +<p>“Cuddle. . . . Girls. . . . What the devil +do you think one comes to a dance for?”</p> +<p>“No. . . . I haven’t,” said Edwin.</p> +<p><a name="page358"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +358</span>“Well, they are a pretty scratch lot,” +Griffin confessed. “That Powys girl’s all right +though.”</p> +<p>Edwin blushed furiously. He suddenly wanted to throw his +glass of claret-cup at Griffin’s head. Why? . . +. He calmed himself.</p> +<p>“Do you know her?” he asked.</p> +<p>“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.”</p> +<p>“But you don’t mean to say—” Edwin +began.</p> +<p>“The night is yet young,” said Griffin, gulping +another whisky. “God, there’s number +twelve! I must hook it.”</p> +<p>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 <a +name="page359"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 359</span>the place +where she was sitting next to Mrs. Willis. He tried not to +look at her.</p> +<p>In a moment he heard Griffin’s voice. “Ours, +I think.” The tone was a little blurred by +Griffin’s potations.</p> +<p>“I think you’ve made a mistake,” she +said.</p> +<p>Edwin turned round, and at the same moment she looked towards +him. “Surely I am dancing this with you, Mr. +Ingleby.”</p> +<p>“But look here, I’m sure these are your initials +on my programme, Miss Powys. Let me look at +yours.”</p> +<p>He tried to take the programme from her fingers, but she moved +it away.</p> +<p>“Really, we mustn’t contradict each other, Mr. +Griffin. The dance is Mr. Ingleby’s. Will you +take me, please?” she said to Edwin.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>“I say, what a shocking dancer you are,” she said +with a laugh.</p> +<p>“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.</p> +<p><a name="page360"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +360</span>“That’s better,” she said. +“Who on earth taught you?”</p> +<p>He confessed to Professor Beagle, and she appeared to be +amused.</p> +<p>“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.”</p> +<p>“I was told never under any circumstances +to—” He couldn’t very well repeat +Professor Beagle’s formula.</p> +<p>“Now you’re getting on beautifully. +Don’t think about it. That’s the idea. +Just dance.”</p> +<p>The music ended. “Where would you like to +go?” he asked.</p> +<p>“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.”</p> +<p>“It was a wonderful piece of luck for me.”</p> +<p>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?”</p> +<p>The music of the next dance struck up. “Are you +dancing?” Edwin asked eagerly.</p> +<p>“I don’t know, I expect so. Just look at my +programme. It’s too dark for me to see.”</p> +<p><a name="page361"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 361</span>Edwin +took the programme from her fingers. It was a thrilling +moment. In the dusk he deciphered two initials, +“E.W.,” he said.</p> +<p>“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.”</p> +<p>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 <i>Pauline</i>:—</p> +<p class="poetry">“Her voice was as the voice of his own +soul<br /> +Heard in the calm of thought. . . .”</p> +<p>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 <a name="page362"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 362</span>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.</p> +<p>“I’m talking all the time,” he said, +“and you’re saying nothing. It’s rather a +shame . . . because you speak so beautifully.”</p> +<p>“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.</p> +<p>“Do tell me.”</p> +<p>“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.</p> +<p>“Yes . . . go on,” she said.</p> +<p>“Like water in a hill country. It makes me feel as +if I weren’t within a hundred miles of North +Bromwich.”</p> +<p>She laughed softly, but not unkindly.</p> +<p>“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?”</p> +<p>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 <a name="page363"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +363</span>he knew that she was beautifully young, certainly young +enough to love and to be loved.</p> +<p>“Don’t let’s talk about me,” she +said.</p> +<p>“But I want to talk about you.”</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>“I suppose we must go too,” she said with a +sigh.</p> +<p>“Why must you go? Are you dancing?” Edwin +asked, with a catch in his throat.</p> +<p>“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.”</p> +<p>Edwin offered her his arm in the best manner of Professor +Beagle.</p> +<p>“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 <a +name="page364"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 364</span>were level +with each other. And, suddenly, amazingly, she kissed +him.</p> +<p>“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?</p> +<p>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, <a name="page365"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 365</span>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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 <a +name="page366"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 366</span>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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 name="page367"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +367</span>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.</p> +<p>“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.”</p> +<p>And the tall, shabby man mumbled, “Yes . . . yes, +certainly. . . . Very,” in his beard.</p> +<p>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!</p> +<p>He sighed, and went on his way, under the <a +name="page368"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 368</span>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.</p> +<p>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.”</p> +<p><a name="page369"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 369</span>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—”</p> +<h4>III</h4> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>“I’m glad you enjoyed yourself,” said +Willis. “I hate dancing.”</p> +<p>“I rather admired that Miss Powys,” said +Edwin.</p> +<p>“Dorothy Powys? Yes, she’s a pretty girl, +isn’t she?”</p> +<p>“Who is she?”</p> +<p><a name="page370"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +370</span>“Oh, she’s a niece of Lord Alfred Powys, +one of our directors. Lives with him, I believe. I +don’t really know her.”</p> +<p>“Isn’t she staying with you?”</p> +<p>“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.”</p> +<p>This was all very discouraging.</p> +<p>“Where do they live?” Edwin asked.</p> +<p>“Somewhere over in the Teme valley, I think. Lord +Alfred’s a great fisherman. He’s a nice +chap.”</p> +<p>“And she lives with him?”</p> +<p>“Yes. . . . I think he’s sort of adopted +her. But I understand she’s going to India sometime +next month.”</p> +<p>“India? What on earth is she going to India +for?”</p> +<p>“Going to be married to some fellow in the Indian +army. A major, I think he is.”</p> +<p>“To be married—” said Edwin.</p> +<p>And the train pulled up at Mawne Hall.</p> +<h4>IV</h4> +<p>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, <a name="page371"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +371</span>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 <i>weltschmerz</i>, and an anxiety to confide the +story, with elaborations, to some sympathetic friend. He +turned it on to W.G.</p> +<p>“Well, W.G., what do you think of it?” he asked, +when he had finished.</p> +<p>W.G. sucked at his pipe and smiled good-humouredly.</p> +<p>“Better luck next time, old chap,” he said.</p> +<h3><a name="page372"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +372</span>CHAPTER VI<br /> +THE DRESSER</h3> +<h4>I</h4> +<p><span class="smcap">In</span> 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 <i>viva</i>. 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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>“Good God—” he said. “Well, +I’m damned—”</p> +<p>“Rotten luck if you’re down, W.G.,” said +Maskew sympathetically.</p> +<p><a name="page373"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +373</span>“Down? . . . I’m not down. +I’m through.”</p> +<p>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.”</p> +<p>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.”</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>“Good-morning, Mr. Maskew . . . Mr. Ingleby. . . . +You had better sit down. I am very pleased <a +name="page374"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 374</span>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.”</p> +<p>“Shall you take it?” said Edwin, as soon as they +were outside.</p> +<p>“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.”</p> +<p>“I shall have to think about it,” said Edwin.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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 <a name="page375"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 375</span>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>It pleased him also to find that W.G. was thankful for his +decision. “You see, it would have been <a +name="page376"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 376</span>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.”</p> +<p>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.</p> +<h4>II</h4> +<p>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 name="page377"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 377</span>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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, <a name="page378"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +378</span>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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 <a +name="page379"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 379</span>with which +he would drench the seat of irritation in the hopes of inflicting +death or at least unconsciousness upon his tormentors.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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 <a name="page380"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +380</span>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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 <a name="page381"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +381</span>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.</p> +<p>“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.”</p> +<p>“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.”</p> +<p>“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 . . .”</p> +<p>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: <a name="page382"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +382</span>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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 <a name="page383"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 383</span>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.</p> +<p>“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!</p> +<p>“I couldn’t, doctor. There was my +work—”</p> +<p>“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.”</p> +<p>“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.”</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>“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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p><a name="page384"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +384</span>“I’m sorry, doctor, I can’t help +it,” she said.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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 <a name="page385"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +385</span>were not doctors could never really know anything about +life.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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 <a name="page386"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 386</span>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>“Why, in the name of Heaven, didn’t you come up +before?” he would ask indignantly.</p> +<p>“The neighbours said it was only the teething, +doctor,” she would reply.</p> +<p>Edwin would try to suppress an inclination to damn the +neighbours upside down. “Surely you could see the +child was ill?” he would say.</p> +<p>“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.”</p> +<p>And he knew that she spoke the truth, contenting <a +name="page387"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 387</span>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.</p> +<p>“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.</p> +<p>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 <i>Lancet</i>, 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:—</p> +<blockquote><p><a name="page388"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +388</span>“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.</p> +<p>“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.</p> +<p>“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.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>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.</p> +<p>His three months in the casualty department <a +name="page389"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 389</span>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.</p> +<p>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 <a name="page390"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +390</span>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>But in the theatre, at the time of one of L.M.’s +emergency operations, there was no time for <a +name="page391"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 391</span>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.</p> +<p>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 <a name="page392"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 392</span>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—”</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>“Right.”</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>“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.</p> +<p>In the hands of L.M. surgery seemed so simple. <a +name="page393"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 393</span>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.</p> +<p>“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?”</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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 <a name="page394"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +394</span>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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 <a +name="page395"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 395</span>by +women. In a mild way he was even an amateur of the physical +points exhibited by the <i>genus</i> 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.</p> +<p>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 <a +name="page396"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 396</span>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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 <a +name="page397"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 397</span>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.”</p> +<h4>III</h4> +<p>In the winter of his third year Edwin’s newly formulated +enthusiasm for humanity in the bulk suffered something of a +check. The hospital <a name="page398"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 398</span>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.</p> +<p>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 <a name="page399"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 399</span>troubled to change the oily +dungarees in which he worked, what was the matter.</p> +<p>“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.</p> +<p>“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.</p> +<p>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 +<a name="page400"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 400</span>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.</p> +<p>A yell of extraordinary savagery, in which he found it +difficult not to join, rose from the square.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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 <a name="page401"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +401</span>immense and gathering volume, with words adapted for +the occasion:—</p> +<p class="poetry">“Shall we gather at the fountain,<br /> +The beautiful, the beautiful, the fountain?<br /> +We’ll drown Lloyd George in the fountain.<br /> +And he won’t come here any more.”</p> +<p>The very volume of sound was impressive and inspiring.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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 <a name="page402"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 402</span>the square with stones. They +stood panting in the quiet.</p> +<p>“God . . . what animals men are!” said +Boyce. “I suppose it was something like this a +hundred years ago, when they burned Priestley’s +house.”</p> +<p>“Yes, it’s pretty rotten,” said Edwin, +“but didn’t you feel you wanted to join in +it?”</p> +<p>“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.”</p> +<p>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?”</p> +<p>“They aren’t men,” said Boyce. +“They’re a crowd.”</p> +<h3><a name="page403"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +403</span>CHAPTER VII<br /> +THE CLERK</h3> +<h4>I</h4> +<p><span class="smcap">With</span> 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.</p> +<p>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 <a +name="page404"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 404</span>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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 <a name="page405"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 405</span>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p><a name="page406"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 406</span>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 <i>Mail</i>, whom Arthur Boyce declared +to be the soundest living writer on musical subjects, and +Marsden, who did the musical criticism for the +<i>Courier</i>. 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.</p> +<p>“What is Marsden like?” he asked.</p> +<p>“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 <a +name="page407"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 407</span>to that +queer fellow with a face like a full moon who sits in front of +us?”</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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 <a +name="page408"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 408</span>perilously +near to the surface as to threaten an open rupture.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>“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.</p> +<p>“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?”</p> +<p>“I’ve not the least intention of letting you pay +them,” said Edwin.</p> +<p>“I’m afraid I have no alternative. I want +you to tell me truthfully if there are any others.”</p> +<p><a name="page409"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +409</span>“Of course there are others. Please +don’t bother about them. In a little while I shall be +able to pay them.”</p> +<p>“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.</p> +<p>Every circumstance tended to isolate him from the influences +of Halesby. His sudden attempt to be friendly with Edward +Willis had withered <a name="page410"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 410</span>under the humiliating +<i>dénouement</i> 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.</p> +<h4>II</h4> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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 <a name="page411"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 411</span>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 <i>The Hound of Heaven</i>. 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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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 <a name="page412"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +412</span>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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 <a name="page413"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +413</span>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p><a name="page414"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 414</span>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.</p> +<p>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 <i>spes +phthisica</i> seemed to him the most pathetic as well as the most +merciful of illusions.</p> +<p>In this ward he became acquainted with one patient in +particular, a boy, the son of labouring parents whom heredity and +circumstance alike had <a name="page415"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 415</span>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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 <a +name="page416"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 416</span>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.</p> +<p>“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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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 +<a name="page417"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 417</span>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:—</p> +<p class="poetry">“Deep in the shady sadness of a vale<br +/> +Far sunken from the healthy breath of morn,<br /> +Far from the fiery moon, and eve’s one star . . +.”</p> +<p>“That is like our home,” he would say.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>These were indeed terrible battles, in which devoted nursing +counted for much. To Edwin it <a name="page418"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 418</span>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.</p> +<p>“Weill, how is he?” the physician would ask.</p> +<p>“I think he’s holding his own. No +sleep.”</p> +<p>“That’ a pity. Well, persevere with the +brandy and the warm oxygen.”</p> +<p>“Yes, sir.” Her tense lips scarcely +moved.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>“Not so bad, sister . . . not so bad.”</p> +<p>Then he would sweep away with the tails of his frock-coat +swinging.</p> +<p><a name="page419"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +419</span>“Ingleby, did you notice anything about the +patient’s hands?”</p> +<p>“His hands, sir?’</p> +<p>“Yes . . . his hands.”</p> +<p>“No, sir. Nothing, I’m afraid. I +don’t think he was plucking the bedclothes . . . +carphology, do they call it?”</p> +<p>“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.”</p> +<p>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. <a name="page420"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 420</span>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 <i>animula</i>, <i>vagula</i>, +<i>blandula</i> to the poets. This was one of the hard +lessons of medicine.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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 <a name="page421"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 421</span>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p><a name="page422"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +422</span>“We’re in for ripping weather,” Boyce +shouted as he rode ahead.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>“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.”</p> +<p>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 <a name="page423"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 423</span>timbered and lost in clematis and +honeysuckle where a steep road fell on either side at right +angles to the ridge.</p> +<p>“Right,” shouted Boyce, “we’ll take +the road down through the Lenches.”</p> +<p>“What are the Lenches?” said Edwin, riding +abreast.</p> +<p>“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.”</p> +<p>“Right-o . . . let’s collaborate,” said +Edwin. “How’s this for a beginning?”</p> +<p class="poetry">“As I was riding through the Lenches<br +/> +I met three strapping country wenches.”</p> +<p>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:—</p> +<p class="poetry">“Home to my vicarage I hasted<br /> +Feeling the day had not been wasted.”</p> +<p>“A parson of the type of Herrick,” said Boyce.</p> +<p>“Yes . . . but more serious.”</p> +<p>“That kind of affair is awfully serious . . . at the +time.”</p> +<p>The gables of Evesham and its one tall tower swam in a golden +dust. They drank cider in the <a name="page424"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 424</span>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.</p> +<p>“Good God, isn’t it good?” said Boyce. +“We are nearly there.”</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>“That is the sound of Overton,” said Boyce. +“Slow water trickling in the night.”</p> +<p>They slept together in the low-beamed room, so soundly that +the sun was high before they wakened next morning.</p> +<p>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. “<i>Parva domus</i>: <i>magna +quies</i>,” read the motto that Matthew’s father, the +poet, had placed above the lintel of the door: “small +house: great quietness”—<a name="page425"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 425</span>and indeed it seemed to Edwin that +there could be no quieter place on earth.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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 <a +name="page426"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 426</span>the air +with a scent that matched the songs of nightingales.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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 <a name="page427"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +427</span>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.</p> +<p>“In a year’s time,” said Edwin, “we +shall be qualified.”</p> +<p>“What shall you do?”</p> +<p>“Oh, general practice, I suppose. That’s the +easiest way to make a living. It’s what most men +do.”</p> +<p>“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.”</p> +<p>“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.”</p> +<p>“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.”</p> +<p>“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. <a +name="page428"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 428</span>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. . . .</p> +<p>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.</p> +<h4>III</h4> +<p>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.</p> +<p>“Whatever have you got there, father?” he +said.</p> +<p><a name="page429"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +429</span>“Plans . . . architect’s plans,” Mr. +Ingleby replied nervously.</p> +<p>“Plans? What for? Surely you aren’t +thinking of building a new house.”</p> +<p>“Well, not exactly. No . . . I am thinking +of adding to this one.”</p> +<p>“But that would be an expensive job. Isn’t +it big enough for us?”</p> +<p>“Yes. It’s big enough at present; but it may +not be shortly.”</p> +<p>“What do you mean?”</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>“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.”</p> +<p>“Married? Good God!”</p> +<p>A feeling of inexplicable passion choked Edwin so that his +voice did not sound as if it were his own.</p> +<p>“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.’</p> +<p>“Good God!” Edwin’s amazement could +find no other words.</p> +<p><a name="page430"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +430</span>“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.”</p> +<p>He paused, but Edwin could not speak.</p> +<p>“If you’ll listen, I’ll tell you all about +it. I think you will approve of my choice. I’ll +tell you—”</p> +<p>“For God’s sake, don’t. Not +now—”</p> +<p>“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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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 <a +name="page431"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 431</span>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?</p> +<p>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; <a +name="page432"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 432</span>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. . +. .</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>“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.”</p> +<p>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. <a +name="page433"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 433</span>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.</p> +<p>“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.</p> +<p>“No. . . . I must go on my own way,” he +thought. “It’s a sort of break in my life, just +like the big <a name="page434"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +434</span>break before. It’s got to be faced, and +it’s no good worrying about it.”</p> +<p>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.</p> +<h3><a name="page435"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +435</span>CHAPTER VIII<br /> +LOWER SPARKDALE</h3> +<h4>I</h4> +<p><span class="smcap">Next</span> 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.</p> +<p>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 <a +name="page436"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 436</span>much the +same position as his father had occupied thirty years before.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>“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.”</p> +<p>“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.”</p> +<p>“Well, old chap, I’m quite prepared to believe you +know best. The thing is, what are you going <a +name="page437"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 437</span>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.”</p> +<p>“You married? . . . Good Lord! What on +earth are you doing that for?”</p> +<p>“I don’t know. Force of circumstance, I +suppose. It’s one of the things that happens when you +least expect it.”</p> +<p>“Do I know her, W.G.?”</p> +<p>“Oh, yes . . . you know her. It’s Sister +Merrion in Number Twelve.”</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>“I didn’t even know that you were +friendly.”</p> +<p>“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.”</p> +<p>“But . . . Good Lord . . . are you in love with +her?”</p> +<p>“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.”</p> +<p><a name="page438"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +438</span>“I say, I hope you’ll be happy.”</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>“You’re a lucky devil, W.G.,” he said.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>“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.”</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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 name="page439"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +439</span>a habit with him. “Ingleby,” he said; +“let me see, I know the name.”</p> +<p>“Probably you know my father. He’s in +business at Halesby.”</p> +<p>“Ah, yes, of course . . . your father. Come along +to my room, doctor, and have a cigar.”</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>“Well,” he said at the end of it. “Do +you want me to tell you what I think of it, doctor? +Candidly, you know.”</p> +<p>Edwin was only too anxious for another opinion.</p> +<p>“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?”</p> +<p>“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.”</p> +<p>“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.”</p> +<p>“I’m through my fourth exam., you know. I +could do dispensing.”</p> +<p><a name="page440"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +440</span>“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?”</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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 <a name="page441"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +441</span>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.</p> +<p>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 <i>Pink ’Un</i> 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.</p> +<p>“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 +<a name="page442"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 442</span>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.</p> +<h4>II</h4> +<p>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.</p> +<p>“You’d make a topping subject for dissection, +W.G.,” he said.</p> +<p>“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.”</p> +<p>“Thanks,” said Edwin, as W.G. skimmed the letter +over to him. “Good Lord, it’s from +Edmondson’s.”</p> +<p>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 <a name="page443"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 443</span>and ten a.m., or six and nine p.m., +and signed by the manager who screwed his eyes up.</p> +<p>“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.”</p> +<p>“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.”</p> +<p>“Lower Sparkdale’s a pretty awful slum, +isn’t it?”</p> +<p>“Never been there. It’s time you cleared off +to the bathroom. You’ll feel better when you’re +awake.”</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>The extreme end of that street was not as bad <a +name="page444"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 444</span>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>“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 +<i>love</i> 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 <a name="page445"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 445</span>’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.</p> +<p>A bell tingled inside. “Now we shall see,” +said the lady determinedly rising. “And ’ave a +stifficate if it costs me two shillin’s.”</p> +<p>The room murmured low applause and sympathy, and she entered +the surgery, emerging, two minutes later, with the testimonial in +her mouth.</p> +<p>“What did I tell yo’?” she said. +“The doctor says there ain’t one. Not +<i>one</i>. It’s time these inspectors was done away +with. I only ’ope ’e will summons me. +Good-night, all.”</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>“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 <a +name="page446"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 446</span>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.</p> +<p>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?”</p> +<p>Edwin hesitated, for he found it difficult to begin. Dr. +Harris encouraged him with a wink, and a grip of his left +arm.</p> +<p>“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.”</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>“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 <a +name="page447"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 447</span>that +I’ve really no time to do my own dispensing. I +suppose you hold the Apothecaries’ Hall +Diploma—passed your exams and that?”</p> +<p>“No . . . I’m a medical student. I took +pharmacology in my last exam. I’m in my final +year.”</p> +<p>“Hm . . . I shouldn’t have thought it. You +look very young. Final year . . .” Then his +eyes brightened. “Have you done your midwifery +yet?”</p> +<p>“No, I shall do that later in the year.”</p> +<p>“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?”</p> +<p>“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.”</p> +<p>“I suppose you could take a hand with dressings and +things like that?”</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>“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.”</p> +<p><a name="page448"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +448</span>“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.”</p> +<p>Edwin agreed.</p> +<p>“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?”</p> +<p>With a feeling of intense relief Edwin accepted.</p> +<p>“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.”</p> +<p>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 <a name="page449"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +449</span>counter with a rag that was already saturated with +medicines.</p> +<p>“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?”</p> +<p>“Quite clear.”</p> +<p>“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.’ <a name="page450"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 450</span>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.”</p> +<p>“Suppose, when you’ve had a talk to him, you +change your mind about the treatment.”</p> +<p>“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?”</p> +<p>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 <a name="page451"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +451</span>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>“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.</p> +<p>“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?”</p> +<p>“I think I shall be able to manage,” said Edwin, +who was not anxious to commit himself.</p> +<p>“You’d better come and see your room.”</p> +<p><a name="page452"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 452</span>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.”</p> +<p>“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.”</p> +<p>“I think I’d better go and collect some of my +things. I’ve been staying with a friend in his +diggings.”</p> +<p>“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.”</p> +<p>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 <a name="page453"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 453</span>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.</p> +<p>“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.”</p> +<p>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.”</p> +<p>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 . . .”</p> +<h4>III</h4> +<p>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 <a +name="page454"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 454</span>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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 <a +name="page455"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 455</span>that he had +salved from one of the second-hand bookstalls in Cobden +Street.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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 +<i>us</i>.” 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.</p> +<p>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 <a name="page456"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 456</span>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.</p> +<p>“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.”</p> +<p>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. . . +.”</p> +<p>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 <a name="page457"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 457</span>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p><a name="page458"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +458</span>“I suppose you wouldn’t like a +prescription?”</p> +<p>“No, you’d better make it up for me,” said +the voice that resembled that of Griffin.</p> +<p>“Certainly . . . delighted.”</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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 <a name="page459"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 459</span>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. . . .</p> +<p>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. . . +.</p> +<p>He thought no more of Griffin.</p> +<h3><a name="page460"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +460</span>CHAPTER IX<br /> +EASY ROW</h3> +<h4>I</h4> +<p><span class="smcap">For</span> 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.</p> +<p>He was lonely; but this seemed inevitable, for <a +name="page461"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 461</span>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.</p> +<p>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, <a +name="page462"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 462</span>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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 <a name="page463"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +463</span>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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, <a +name="page464"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 464</span>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.</p> +<p>“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.”</p> +<p>She brought them coffee, and W.G., who had scarcely spoken, +but whose knitted brows testified to the pressure of some urgent +problem, said:—</p> +<p>“Well, how do you like it?”</p> +<p>“What do you mean?”</p> +<p>“Being on your own.”</p> +<p>“Oh, it’s all right,” said Edwin.</p> +<p>“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.”</p> +<p>“There was, you know—”</p> +<p>“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.”</p> +<p>“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.”</p> +<p>“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.”</p> +<p>“It’s jolly sound to stand on your own feet. +You know where you are for the first time. It was only <a +name="page465"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +465</span>uncomfortable because he was really awfully +decent. He is now: but he hasn’t the faintest +glimmering of my point of view.”</p> +<p>“They rarely have,” said W.G. gloomily. +“Still, you haven’t made such an ass of yourself as I +have.”</p> +<p>“Something new?”</p> +<p>“Yes . . . I’m married.”</p> +<p>“Good God!”</p> +<p>“It isn’t as bad as that,” W.G. +chuckled. “I thought it would come as a bit of a +shock to you.”</p> +<p>“But why on earth—?”</p> +<p>“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.</p> +<p>“I should think it is a damned funny thing,” he +said.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<h4><a name="page466"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +466</span>II</h4> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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 <a name="page467"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +467</span>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>“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.</p> +<p>“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.</p> +<p><a name="page468"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +468</span>“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.”</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>“Then there’s a pianoforte,” she said, +hesitating at the dusty portiere. “I find that +professionals like a pianoforte. It’s cheery +like.”</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>“It’s no good trying to do any work in this +place,” said Edwin.</p> +<p>“There won’t be any time, anyway,” said +Boyce. “You wait till the fun begins.”</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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 <a +name="page469"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 469</span>Mr. Higgins +achieved a dead heat, arriving on the doorstep together in a +dripping perspiration with messages of an equal urgency.</p> +<p>“This is rather rotten,” said Boyce. +“Which of these ladies will you take?”</p> +<p>“I’ll have Mrs. Higgins,” said Edwin. +“I suppose the bag’s all right?”</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>“The nurse said very urgent, doctor,” Mr. Higgins +panted.</p> +<p>“Yes . . . yes. You mustn’t excite +yourself. It’ll be all right.”</p> +<p>“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?”</p> +<p>Edwin wished he had been able to grow a moustache for the +occasion.</p> +<p>“Hundreds,” he said.</p> +<p>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.”</p> +<p>“Is this her first?”</p> +<p><a name="page470"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +470</span>“Yes, doctor.”</p> +<p>Another bit of bad luck!</p> +<p>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.”</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>“’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?”</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>“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 <a name="page471"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +471</span>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>I</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.</p> +<p>“It won’t be long, doctor, will it?” she +said.</p> +<p>“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 <a name="page472"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 472</span>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.</p> +<p>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.”</p> +<p>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!</p> +<p>“Is it all right, doctor?” said the anxious voice +of Mrs. Brown.</p> +<p>“Yes, it’s all right.”</p> +<p>“Thank the Lord for that! You hear what the doctor +says, my lover—”</p> +<p>“But it will be a long time yet.”</p> +<p>“Oh, don’t say that, doctor, don’t say +that,” Mrs. <a name="page473"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +473</span>Higgins wailed. “You aren’t going to +leave me?”</p> +<p>“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.”</p> +<p>“Can’t you help her a bit, doctor?”</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>“I expect you’ll want me again some time this +evening,” he said.</p> +<p>Mrs. Brown showed him downstairs. “You’re +<i>sure</i> it is all right, aren’t you, doctor?” she +said.</p> +<p>“Perfectly all right. You know what a first case +is.”</p> +<p>“I’d ought to,” said Mrs. Brown +proudly. “I’ve had eight myself.”</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>“Well, how’s your Mrs. Higgins?” he asked +lazily.</p> +<p>“Oh, she’s all right. A <i>primip</i>. +Is Mrs. Hadley through her little troubles?”</p> +<p>“B.B.A. Born before arrival. A soft +job. Saves a lot of trouble.”</p> +<p>“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 <a +name="page474"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 474</span>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>“Mrs. Higgins,” said Edwin. “I’d +better go and see.”</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>“Are you the doctor?”</p> +<p>“Yes.”</p> +<p>“You’re to come at once to thirty-four Greville +Street. It’s the missus. The nurse says +it’s urgent.”</p> +<p>The nurse always said it was urgent. Boyce came +downstairs grumbling.</p> +<p>“We’d better go together.”</p> +<p>“What about my friend, Mrs. Higgins?”</p> +<p>“Oh, damn Mrs. Higgins!” said Boyce.</p> +<p>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 <a +name="page475"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 475</span>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.</p> +<p>“Here it is,” said the husband thickly.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>“Here they are,” said the husband sullenly, +“two on ’em.”</p> +<p>“My God! . . . Two of them? Is that +all?” said the dark girl, examining and, as it seemed, +approving.</p> +<p>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, <a +name="page476"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +476</span>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.”</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>“Well, doctor, what about it?”</p> +<p>“Listen to ’er,” said the midwife, +chuckling. “That’s the way to take +it!”</p> +<p>“Well, it’s all right, you know, but it +won’t be just yet awhile.”</p> +<p>“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 <a +name="page477"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 477</span>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.</p> +<p>“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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p><a name="page478"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 478</span>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.</p> +<p>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 <a name="page479"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +479</span>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. . . .</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>“How is it going, Sally?” said the sister.</p> +<p>“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.”</p> +<p>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 <i>layette</i>. The sister +sat at the foot of the bed and stared lazily at Edwin.</p> +<p>“You look tired, doctor,” she said.</p> +<p>Edwin admitted that he had had a biggish day. “You +ought to get a bit of sleep,” said the dark <a +name="page480"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 480</span>girl. +“Sorry there bain’t no spare beds in the house; but +you can turn in with me if you like.”</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>“Well, why should you have all the fun, Sally? It +isn’t every day we get a nice young man in the +house.”</p> +<p>“<i>Fun</i> . . .,” said the patient wryly. +“You’ll know all about this sort of fun some +day.”</p> +<p>“Not just yet, thank you,” said Ethel. +“I can look after myself better than that.”</p> +<p>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 <a name="page481"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +481</span>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>The dark girl put her head in at the door. She was very +pale now. Had the whole household shared in these physical +throes?</p> +<p>“Is it all right?” she said.</p> +<p>“Yes . . . it’s a boy. A beautiful +boy.”</p> +<p>“Hallo, Eth,” said a quiet voice from the +bed. “Go and tell Jim.”</p> +<p>It was the first word the patient had spoken.</p> +<p>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, <a name="page482"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 482</span>doctor,” she said. +“You ’elped me ever so. Did I be’ave very +bad, Mrs. Perkins?”</p> +<p>“Bad? You be’aved fine,” said Mrs. +Perkins, wrapping the baby in a blanket and putting it in the +fender.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>“’As Eth told Jim?” she asked several times, +and then: “What’ll mother think?”</p> +<p>“You be quiet, my lover,” said the midwife. +“Don’t you disturb yourself with talking.”</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>“Ugly little b—,” she said, with a happy +laugh. “Looks as if ’e’d been on the +booze.”</p> +<p>“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 <a name="page483"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 483</span>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.</p> +<p>“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.”</p> +<p>“Sounds dismal. Had they a capable woman? My +Mrs. Perkins wasn’t up to much.”</p> +<p>“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.”</p> +<p>“Yes, it’s pretty bad,” said Edwin. +“There’s one thing about it: working all night like +this gives you a terrific appetite.”</p> +<h4>III</h4> +<p>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 <a +name="page484"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 484</span>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p><a name="page485"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +485</span>“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.</p> +<p>“No, indeed,” he said. “Do you want +Mrs. Meadows? I’ll go and tell her.”</p> +<p>“Mrs. Meadows? This is thirty-seven, isn’t +it?”</p> +<p>“Yes . . . thirty-seven.”</p> +<p>“I’ve come to see my friend, Miss Latham. +She’s lodging here.”</p> +<p>“I’m so sorry. Of course. I expect +she’s in the front room.”</p> +<p>“Thank you.” She spoke very demurely. +He stood aside to let her pass and with her a faint fragrance of +white rose.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>“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?”</p> +<p>“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 . . .</p> +<p>“No . . . I’m afraid we weren’t. She +didn’t give us time.”</p> +<p>“Two doctors in the house! Think of that!” +said Miss Hetty Latham, whose conversation habitually <a +name="page486"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 486</span>ran from +one note of exclamation to another. “Imagine how safe +we feel, Rosie!”</p> +<p>And Rosie surveyed Edwin seriously.</p> +<p>“Aren’t you awfully young?”</p> +<p>“I suppose I am rather. I’m not qualified +yet. But I expect to be next week.”</p> +<p>“Then you must be awfully clever too—”</p> +<p>“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.</p> +<p>“As you two are such great friends already, I suppose +it’s waste of time introducing you.”</p> +<p>“Really—” Edwin protested.</p> +<p>“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?”</p> +<p>“Of course he may.”</p> +<p>“Come along then, both of you . . .”</p> +<h3><a name="page487"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +487</span>CHAPTER X<br /> +WHITE ROSES</h3> +<h4>I</h4> +<p><span class="smcap">It</span> 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 <a +name="page488"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 488</span>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:—</p> +<p>“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?”</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>“Be quiet, Imp . . . oh, <i>do</i> 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.</p> +<p>“You’ll come and have tea with us, won’t +you? I should like you to meet mother.”</p> +<p>“Of course, I’d like to. When?”</p> +<p>“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 <a +name="page489"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 489</span>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. . . .</p> +<p>“Well, what is the young woman’s name?” +asked Boyce, when he returned to Easy Row.</p> +<p>“Beaucaire. She’s principal girl in the +pantomime at the Queen’s.”</p> +<p>“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.”</p> +<p>“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.”</p> +<p>“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.”</p> +<p><a name="page490"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +490</span>“You don’t mean—” Edwin began, +going very white.</p> +<p>“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 +<i>haven’t</i> exactly. Besides, it’s just as +well to remember that the final’s coming off in ten +days.”</p> +<p>The less said about the final the better.</p> +<p>“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—”</p> +<p>Boyce chuckled.</p> +<p>“As a matter of fact,” said Edwin, clinching the +argument, “her father was a country parson in low +circumstances.”</p> +<p>“I understand they usually are,” said Boyce with a +yawn.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>“What did you say her name was?” said Boyce, +apropos of nothing. “Rosie, wasn’t +it?”</p> +<p>Edwin grunted.</p> +<p>“Have you ever sampled the <i>Sortes +Virgilianae</i>? 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?”</p> +<p>“H’m—”</p> +<p><a name="page491"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +491</span>“Are you listening?”</p> +<p>“Yes, fire away.”</p> +<p>Boyce quoted:—</p> +<blockquote><p>Ή τὰ ῥόδα, +ῥοδόεσσαν +ἔχες χαῤίν, +ἀλλὶ τί +πωλἔς<br /> +σαντήν, ἢ τἃ +ῥόδα, ἠὲ +συναμφοτερα;</p> +</blockquote> +<p>“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.</p> +<p class="poetry">‘You of the roses, rosy-fair,<br /> +Sweet maiden, tell me whether<br /> +You or the roses are your ware,<br /> +Or both of them together.’”</p> +<p>“Damned rotten, anyway,” said Edwin. +“Maiden’s the wrong word . . .”</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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 <a name="page492"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +492</span>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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 <a name="page493"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 493</span>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.</p> +<p>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 <a name="page494"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +494</span>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.</p> +<h4>II</h4> +<p>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 <a +name="page495"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 495</span>hand. +He even fancied—divine flattery!—that she +blushed.</p> +<p>“This is my friend Dr. Ingleby, mother,” she +said.</p> +<p>“Very pleased to meet you, I’m sure,” said +Mrs. Beaucaire. “Won’t you come and sit over +here?”</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>“I suppose you know Mr. Flood?” said Mrs. +Beaucaire.</p> +<p>Edwin confessed that he did not.</p> +<p>“<i>The</i> Mr. Flood, you know. Bertie, this is +Mr. Ingleby. . . . I beg your pardon, <i>Dr.</i> Ingleby,” +and the great comedian shook hands with Edwin and hoped he was +well.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p><a name="page496"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +496</span>“We’re very unconventional people, you +know, Dr. Ingleby—quite Bohemian,” said Mrs. +Beaucaire in a thick voice.</p> +<p>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. . . .</p> +<p>“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.”</p> +<p>“Yes. . . . Exactly,” said Edwin. In +that moment Rosie had smiled at him, and the smile was +enough. God, what a woman!</p> +<p>“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, <a name="page497"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +497</span>both the children take after the dear vicar. +Rosie isn’t a bit like me.”</p> +<p>“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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>“I had to come,” he said.</p> +<p>“I had been expecting you. I’m awfully glad +you found time.”</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>“Surely you’re not going so soon?” she +said.</p> +<p><a name="page498"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 498</span>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>“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.”</p> +<p>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 <a +name="page499"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 499</span>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.</p> +<p>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!</p> +<p>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 <a +name="page500"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 500</span>Rosie, in +her white fox furs, would slip through this vulgar tumult.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>“Well, old boy,” he said, “how goes +it? How’s the little Beaucaire?”</p> +<p>“She’s all right, as far as I know,” said +Edwin, who was inclined to resent the description.</p> +<p>“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?”</p> +<p>Edwin thanked him.</p> +<p><a name="page501"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +501</span>“May seem funny from a chap that gets two hundred +a week for making a damn fool of himself.”</p> +<p>“Not at all,” said Edwin politely.</p> +<p>“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. +<i>Verbus Satienti</i>—I always let ’em think I was +at Oxford—Good for business.”</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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 name="page502"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +502</span>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>“I don’t think Miss Beaucaire can see you for a +bit,” she said. “Won’t you call later in +the morning?”</p> +<p>He told her that he would wait, as they had an appointment, +and a train to catch.</p> +<p>“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.</p> +<p>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, <a name="page503"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +503</span>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.</p> +<p>“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.</p> +<p>“Whatever is the matter with you?” she said. +“Why do you look so serious?”</p> +<p>“Who was your visitor?”</p> +<p>“Oh, that’s it, is it? You silly boy! +You surely don’t mean to say you’re +jealous?”</p> +<p>“Please tell me—”</p> +<p>“It was only a priest. I had to make my +confession.”</p> +<p>“A priest? I thought your people belonged to the +Church of England.”</p> +<p>“That doesn’t prevent me from being a +Catholic. It’s much better for professional girls to +be <a name="page504"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +504</span>Catholics. They look after you when you’re +on the road.”</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>“You believe me, don’t you?” She spoke +in a frightened whisper.</p> +<p>“Of course I do. We’ve just time for our +train. You are coming, aren’t you?”</p> +<p>She said: “Of course I am,” and ran upstairs +singing to put her hat on.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>“I’m ready,” she said gaily.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>“I’m awfully sorry, Eddie. My foot +hurts. I think this shoe’s too tight.”</p> +<p>“They look simply splendid.”</p> +<p><a name="page505"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +505</span>“I know. I only bought them +yesterday—just specially for to-day.”</p> +<p>“But it’s ridiculous to go for a long walk in new +shoes!”</p> +<p>“Do you mind if I take them off for a minute?”</p> +<p>“Of course not. Let me undo the laces.”</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>“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?”</p> +<p>“You mustn’t blame me. They’re so +beautiful.”</p> +<p>She smiled. Her modesty delighted him.</p> +<p>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.”</p> +<p>For a long time she was silent. Then she said: +“What are you expecting to do?”</p> +<p>“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?”</p> +<p>“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?”</p> +<p><a name="page506"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 506</span>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.</p> +<p>“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 <i>North Bromwich Courier</i>. Gazing +idly at the front page, he caught sight of his own name. It +was the announcement of a wedding.</p> +<blockquote><p><span class="smcap">Ingleby</span>: <span +class="smcap">Fellows</span>. On the tenth of December, at the +Parish Church, Halesby, John Ingleby to Julia, elder daughter of +the late Joseph Fellows, of Mawne, Staffs.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>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.</p> +<p>“Why, what’s the matter with you? You look +as if you’d seen a ghost.”</p> +<p>“Yes. . . . I think I have. It’s +nothing, really. Nothing at all.”</p> +<p>He drank more than he need have done of a villainous wine that +was labelled <i>Château Margaux</i>, but had probably been +pressed on the hot hill-sides of Oran. In the train, on the +way home, he felt <a name="page507"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +507</span>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>“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.”</p> +<p>“I don’t think I’ll come in,” he +said. He knew that he must make an end somewhere.</p> +<p>“Not even to be thanked? I’ve enjoyed myself +most awfully.”</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>“Good God! . . . how wonderful you are!” he +said.</p> +<p>“Next week,” she whispered.</p> +<h4>III</h4> +<p>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 <a name="page508"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 508</span>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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 <a name="page509"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +509</span>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 +. . .</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>On the first day, in the <i>viva-voce</i> 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.</p> +<p>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, <a +name="page510"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 510</span>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.</p> +<p>“I thought it was you, Ingleby,” he said. +“I wondered if I should run across you.”</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>“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.</p> +<p>“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?”</p> +<p><a name="page511"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +511</span>“I’m all right, thanks,” said +Edwin. “It’s this exam., you know. +Let’s have another drink.” He called for whisky +and soda.</p> +<p>“Chin-chin,” said Widdup.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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 <a name="page512"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +512</span>room. He remembered the visitor in the black coat +four days before. His mind was in hell.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p><a name="page513"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 513</span>She +must have thought he was mad. Perhaps he was mad. . . .</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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. <a name="page514"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 514</span>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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 <a name="page515"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 515</span>tragedy. He must prevent +it. At all costs. At the cost of life if needs +be.</p> +<p>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?</p> +<p>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!</p> +<p>He opened the door. In the half-light he could <a +name="page516"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 516</span>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.</p> +<p>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?”</p> +<p>“It’s I. For God’s sake, let me +in.”</p> +<p>“Who the devil is it?” said the voice of Dr. +Harris’s consulting-room.</p> +<p>Rosie answered him in excited whispers.</p> +<p>“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.”</p> +<p>“I’m coming in, I tell you. If you +don’t open the door, I’ll smash it. I mean what +I say.”</p> +<p>“Ingleby—?” the voice muttered. +“What the devil has Ingleby to do with you? All +right. I’ll go. I’ll chuck the fellow +downstairs.”</p> +<p>“Oh, don’t . . . please don’t. . . . +Let him go quietly.”</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>“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.</p> +<p><a name="page517"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +517</span>“What’s the matter?” Rosie screamed, +and flung herself beside him. “What’s the +matter?”</p> +<p>“Good God! . . . He’s gone.”</p> +<p>“No . . . No—” she cried.</p> +<p>Edwin tore open Griffin’s shirt, listening for an +impulse that was not there.</p> +<p>“He’s gone,” he said, panting. +“He’s dead. . . . Heart. . . . He always +had a rocky heart. He’s dead.”</p> +<p>The awful word seemed to pull Rosie together. They +stared at each other blankly with wide eyes. “Are you +sure?” she whispered.</p> +<p>“Yes. . . . Of course—”</p> +<p>She rose to her feet, speaking in a voice that was quite new +to him.</p> +<p>“Eddie . . . for God’s sake, go . . . now! . . . +quickly!”</p> +<p>“I can’t go.”</p> +<p>“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.”</p> +<p>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 <a name="page518"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +518</span>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.</p> +<h4>IV</h4> +<p>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.</p> +<p>“You look as if you’d been making a night of it, +my boy,” he said. “Come and have some coffee at +the Dousita.”</p> +<p>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?”</p> +<p>“I don’t know. A voyage, I should +think.”</p> +<p>He hadn’t thought of it before.</p> +<p>“That’s not a bad idea. Bit of a rest cure, +eh? That’s the only disadvantage, I don’t mind +telling <a name="page519"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +519</span>you, of being married. I couldn’t leave the +missus.”</p> +<p>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!”</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>The medical superintendent received him.</p> +<p>“You want a ship? Well, you know, you look very +young. When were you qualified?”</p> +<p>“Yesterday,” Edwin confessed.</p> +<p>“Very young. Still, you won’t be +stale. You don’t <i>drink</i>, by any +chance?”</p> +<p>“I’m practically a total abstainer.” +The man scrutinised Edwin’s haggard eyes.</p> +<p>“H’m. . . . Well, as it happens, one of our +men has failed us. I’ll give you a ship, the +<i>Macao</i>, if you can sail to-morrow. Rather short +notice, eh?”</p> +<p>“I think I can do it. What about +equipment?”</p> +<p>“Oh, we don’t go in for brass-bound uniforms on +our ships. Ten pounds a month and bonus. +What?”</p> +<p>“Where is she going to?”</p> +<p>“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.”</p> +<p>“I’ll he there.”</p> +<p><a name="page520"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 520</span>And +with trembling hands he signed his contract.</p> +<p>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!”</p> +<p>As he stood there in the salt breeze, some words of Traherne, +his mother’s countryman, came into his mind:</p> +<blockquote><p>“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.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>Perhaps they were true. He wondered.</p> +<p>***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE YOUNG PHYSICIAN***</p> +<pre> + + +***** This file should be named 49331-h.htm or 49331-h.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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